Gabe Newell: Valve will release its own console-like PC

[dobwal]

I think if Valve fails they weren't have to worry about trying to convince future partners because the failure itself would temper Valve's desire to expand into the hardware market.

I see a hybrid PC/console as a "shot at the moon" type of endeavor. I think Valve should of took a shot at just orbiting the earth first. I don't see why they haven't created a mobile app store and leveraged Steam's userbase by providing Steam with side loading functionality that installs the mobile store directly on Steam users' smarthphones and tabs (with permission). That route would somewhat allow Valve to circumvent any attempts by Google to purge them from their app store and affect their ability to penetrate the market.

To me, its seems like that route would provide a far larger potential for revenue and profit. Given Apple's app store generated 10 billion in sales just last year and Android will supposedly ship on a billion devices next year.

 

[joker454]

Maybe Valve will have to make their own box. It happened with Microsoft where their partners were quite frankly making shit products, so they had to make their own with Surface to at least try and nudge their partners into a different direction. Valve maybe will have to do the same because many of the steam boxes shown were seriously underwhelming.

 

[Grall]

but you know perception does matter!

It doesn't matter THAT much, especially not after a year, or several. Nvidia is the biggest discrete GPU manufacturer (almost the only one, together with AMD) despite epic fails that included NV1, NV30, multiple drivers that burned out your GPU, voltage regulators on flagship product that exploded when loaded and so on.

People forget, or just don't care/don't hear about it in the first place.

 

[JB9861]

Hopefully sexier PC case designs follow as a silver lining. I like the Nanoxia Deep Silence 2, but it could look better.

 

[dagamer]

The fundamental problem with the SteamBox is I don't know how you are going to get cheaper prices going through a middle man instead of just building the hardware yourself. And since they want upgrade ability of parts, no one is going to have super custom form factors that make it more acceptable in a living room.


Valve is taking zero risk here because they aren't making any of these boxes at all. They have no skin in this game and can just sit back and collect licensing fees from companies using the Steam logo. And the Windows 8 comment from Gabe is pure FUD too.

I'm not rooting for this initiative to fail , but lets not believe there are clearly ulterior motive that some PC faithful just want to ignore it seems.

 

[dagamer]

Maybe Valve will have to make their own box. It happened with Microsoft where their partners were quite frankly making shit products, so they had to make their own with Surface to at least try and nudge their partners into a different direction. Valve maybe will have to do the same because many of the steam boxes shown were seriously underwhelming.

Since it's unlikely they would make more than one, they've just made a console. And since it would use commodity parts, there will never be a price drop , just an increase in performance. Unfortunately, buying a $500 box dedicated only to games is a hard proposition for most normal people.

 

[Cjail]

Steam Dev Days day one highlights here.
Apparently Steam Machines will have exclusives.

Steam Controller has been redesigned and use AA batteries.
More changes are coming due to feedback.
Here a 3D render.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Apparently the touchscreen is gone.

It's a shame. With DS4, I found that having a touchpad in the controller is really great.
There's a hacked driver that enables the touchpad in windows, and it's really convenient for menus and inventories.

 

[liolio]

Getting read of the touch screen is a good move, if only for price.
Now after reading couples of hand on they need to fix /get rid of the left touch pad. To keep the slick design the should consider a simple but top of the line dpad, after all it is about mapping wasd keys they don't need analog inputs. It would allow to play fighting games /somehow and a accurate and well calibrated gyroscope can do a good job for driving simulation (which I discovered after tweaking the setting on a NFS game that came with my more than 2 years old phone),as a bonus it can serve as four extra bottom.
It should drive down costs and keep the controller pretty low profile. I've few hopes though.

 

[Grall]

Apparently Steam Machines will have exclusives.

Whattafuck. Get outta here!

That's intolerable, if true. Not to mention, stupid. Steam machines will never get more than a pittance of PC market space. It's a regular PC with no distinguishing features whatsoever other than a valve logo (and thus, no real incentive to buy one over a regular PC unless you happen to like pre-built gaming computers), so why should there be exclusives for it.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

It's a regular PC with no distinguishing features whatsoever other than a valve logo (and thus, no real incentive to buy one over a regular PC unless you happen to like pre-built gaming computers), so why should there be exclusives for it.

How about for that exact reason?

 

[pjbliverpool]

Should be fun watching them try to protect that exclusivity. Isn't SteamOS free anyway? I doubt we're talking about triple A games here but if it really became a problem you could always run SteamOS in a virtual machine or dual boot it.

 

[Cjail]

Whattafuck. Get outta here!

That's intolerable, if true. Not to mention, stupid. Steam machines will never get more than a pittance of PC market space. It's a regular PC with no distinguishing features whatsoever other than a valve logo (and thus, no real incentive to buy one over a regular PC unless you happen to like pre-built gaming computers), so why should there be exclusives for it.

Exclusives are a very good reason to buy a console so they would be a very good reason to buy a Steam Machine as well.
I don't see anything intolerable or stupid about it.

 

[Grall]

Maybe they think it's "very good reason" for THEM. It's not a good reason FOR ME. Exclusives are never a good thing for customers, and nobody in their right mind should cheer on such behavior, especially when the layer of separation is so flimsy as in the case of steam machines. It's a PC, which runs windows even, and there's going to be EXCLUSIVES for it? Bull shit!

I would seriously have to re-evaluate my relationship with valve if they intend to go through with this nonsense.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Maybe they think it's "very good reason" for THEM. It's not a good reason FOR ME. Exclusives are never a good thing for customers, and nobody in their right mind should cheer on such behavior, especially when the layer of separation is so flimsy as in the case of steam machines. It's a PC, which runs windows even, and there's going to be EXCLUSIVES for it? Bull shit!

I would seriously have to re-evaluate my relationship with valve if they intend to go through with this nonsense.

It doesn't run Windows it runs the linux based SteamOS. Unless I'm misinterpreting you?

Regardless I agree to a certain extent. This move risks alienating what would be the Steam Machines primary audience - PC gamers. Both from buying Steam Machines but also from using Steam itself on the PC.

That may sound like an exageration but lets say Valve decide to release Half Life 3 as a Steam Machine exclusive (they obviously never would unless they've totally lost their minds). If that happened I think Valve would pretty much become enemy number 1 overnight to their once loyal PC userbase - kinda like Microsoft did when they blocked PC users from Halo and Gears. Microsoft is no longer loved by PC gamers, it's now simpy tolerated - I'm sure Valve don't want to go that way since Steam has no-where near the stranglehold on the PC games industry as MS does.

Of course that's an extreme case. I suspect the actual exclusives will be in the form of indie titles and exclusive DLC.

 

[betan]

Maybe they think it's "very good reason" for THEM. It's not a good reason FOR ME. Exclusives are never a good thing for customers, and nobody in their right mind should cheer on such behavior,

Windows has an unfair and unnecessary monopoly on PC gaming. In the long run, it may well be better for customers to break that.

Ultimately though, what customers (and SteamOS) need is a crossplatform game development Steam SDK and support of big publishers.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Windows has an unfair and unnecessary monopoly on PC gaming. In the long run, it may well be better for customers to break that.

The best way to break that, probably the only way, is to have the full library of games on Linux as well as Windows. A few exclusives on Linux just means gamers need both a Linux box and a Windows PC, and few will splash out on both.

I expect any exclusives to be short-lived. It just won't make business sense.

 

[liolio]

Windows has an unfair and unnecessary monopoly on PC gaming. In the long run, it may well be better for customers to break that.

Ultimately though, what customers (and SteamOS) need is a crossplatform game development Steam SDK and support of big publishers.

I would think that unfair Microsoft monopoly is not what is bothering Newell, he stated that the goal is to save PC gaming.
I can see a wave of non mobile gaming Android devices on the horizon, microsoft monopoly (in the personal realm) could lose a lot of relevance if costumers decided to shift toward Android as lots have already shift toward Apple and MacOS.
So MSFT monopoly could both remains and turn into a lot less relevant topic soon.
Android, and its model I guess might displease a guy like Newell even more than whatever MSFT is doing even though I would never expect him to state that publically.

 

[joker454]

Apparently Steam Machines will have exclusives.

Hmm, wait a second. One of the awesome parts of Steam is that you are buying a licence and can play the game on any device. I buy a Steam game like Gunpoint or whatever and I can play it on my desktop, laptop, tablet, anywhere I please because I've bought the licence. So if they are having exclusives on Steam Machines, that totally breaks that and makes it into just another humdrum locked down box. I don't get it, why the step back in functionality? That's very retro thinking, makes no sense and breaks what Steam is. Or were licences never intended to be shared on Steam Machines? So if a game had a linux and windows version and I bought it on my Steam Machine, then I wouldn't be able to install it on my myriad of Windows devices because the Steam Machine version I just bought is locked down only to Steam on those machines? That would be really sad and retro if true but I really hope I've just misunderstood this.

 

[Gradthrawn]

I'm not sure that link is actually indicating that Steam machines will exclusive games:

"They said there will certainly be experiences on Steam Machines that won't be available anywhere else."

I'm pretty sure Valve has mentioned they will not release games exclusively to the Steam Machine. But I'd have to search for the link.

Further, that's a quote from a tweet from somebody who apparently attended (I think).