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

[Grall]

There's lots of focus on hardware in this thread - at least now. VR glasses, input devices and whatnot. Understandable perhaps, considering the nature of these web fora, a place for just this kind of discussion.

However, Gaben comes from Microsoft originally, which is a software company, and he himself is a very pragmatic guy. I think software is going to be the key here, the very linchpin actually. Not VR glasses or somesuch. After all, steam itself is ALL about software.

Any new console launches and all the talk is always about the "killer app", and that if this is missing then the product is dead on arrival. Much of the time it's true as well. Many consoles, portable or stationary, have lacked killer apps, and faded into obscurity. Some quicker than others, but I'm sure all you guys can name a bunch easily right off the top of your heads. Gabe knows this. They're gonna need a "killer app" if their hardware is going to be able to take off.

...So the question arises, what will the "steambox" killer app be? ...Will Valve simply rely on the steam service itself and hope that will be enough, or will they - or perhaps other devs too - launch exclusives just for the box; HL3 would be an obvious contender for such an exclusive methinks. Especially considering all the hush-hush regarding the future of the HL franchise, but the L4D front has been awfully quiet for a long time now as well for example. Maybe all the L4D devs simply went over to finish DOTA2, I dunno. *shrug*

Of course, any steambox exclusives would most likely be timed, and not stay exclusive for all eternity.

 

[almighty]

Possible console Half Life 3 exclusive? What a selling point!!

 

[I.S.T.]

Possible console Half Life 3 exclusive? What a selling point!!

It'd also be fucking suicide for Valve's hopes of ever selling it, and would probably destroy all of their good will amongst Valve fans(Not to be confused with Steam fans). Perhaps as a timed exclusive it'd work, but as a 100% one? Valve ain't dumb enough to do that.

 

[almighty]

It'd also be fucking suicide for Valve's hopes of ever selling it, and would probably destroy all of their good will amongst Valve fans(Not to be confused with Steam fans). Perhaps as a timed exclusive it'd work, but as a 100% one? Valve ain't dumb enough to do that.

Console exclusive with the game available on PC...... Would be a decent move in my opinion.... Many people bought the original Xbox just for Halo... So if the game is half decent ( It better be ) then I don't see it being a problem.

 

[babybumb]

What on earth are they thinking.. i cant even.

I see like zero angle for it to compete to be anything commercially relevant in the "console" space. Thick OpenGL layer will reduce many benefits that consoles have and commercial companies are not going to do versions for such low install base. Retailers will not be trilled by a steam box. There is no way they can out do anybody on pricing. Nice hobby i suppose if you dont put hundeds of millions to inventory at $599 a piece

The only way this makes sense is as separate OS that people can install if they want on their existing or new HTPCs

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Nice hobby i suppose if you dont put hundeds of millions to inventory at $599 a piece

Where is the price mentioned? What are the specs?

 

[Miksu]

My biggest problem with this is that it runs Linux, not Windows. I don't have anything against Linux but most of my 300+ games purchased from Steam are Windows-only. It seems "messy" that as an owner of a Steambox I couldn't play most of my Steam-games.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

However, Gaben comes from Microsoft originally, which is a software company, and he himself is a very pragmatic guy. I think software is going to be the key here, the very linchpin actually. Not VR glasses or somesuch. After all, steam itself is ALL about software.

You should really read the blog posts from Abrash to see just how far the VR and particularly the AR - augmented reality - thing goes.

Just for a start, he believes that within 10 years or so, everyone will be able to wear AR glasses all day long and that means a completely new frontier in software and infrastructure, something our current smartphones have barely scratched the surface of.

 

[deathindustrial]

@Miksu - how many of your 300+ games do you actually play?

The lack of legacy Linux support seems like something that will sort itself fairly quickly due to the relatively short lifetime of current games plus WINE emulation for old school titles.

 

[Grall]

You should really read the blog posts from Abrash to see just how far the VR and particularly the AR - augmented reality - thing goes.

Just for a start, he believes that within 10 years or so, everyone will be able to wear AR glasses all day long

Perhaps, but I don't think so. People are fairly resistant to large-scale changes, and especially concerning stuff you put on your face I'd say. Shit, regular eyeglasses date back to the 1500s at least, we're still widely using them half a millennia later when in theory they've been basically obsoleted by contact lenses and simple surgical techniques.

Thus, "within" 10 years is going to be at least 10 years, so any over-reliance on VR glasses isn't going to come with a steambox launching in 2013, but rather more like 2023. For starters, there's absolutely zero demand for this stuff right now, zero software available right now and so on. It took ages for smartphones to catch on, and you don't wear those stuck to your face all day long...

 

[Laa-Yosh]

But that is exactly the argument for AR!

All it took for smartphones to take off was one good product, the iPhone. And what a joke it is to today's devices, 320x480 display, no 3G, slow wifi, a single weak core...
Yet it completely transformed both the phone market and our everyday lives. Heck, even my dad has a smartphone now, and my sister had one years before I finally caved in. She posts to facebook and uses instagram and answers emails all the time and so on.
Case in point, people you've never would've thought to bother with something as geeky as a computer are now using these devices for things you never would've imagined.

So AR is quite possibly going to be similar. It can do a lot of the smartphone stuff, but quite possibly in ways that make an iPhone look like a clumsy stupid old device; and who knows what will become possible if someone's online all day long. Just looking at a product in a shop could bring up information, you could query facebook profiles from people you meet just by looking at them, get navigation route lines displayed in front of your eyes, and so on. Not to mention the games!

And don't for a second think that people wouldn't like to wear that, sunglasses and glasses are already a fashion item, and same goes for phone design and accessories. Imagine the market possibilities for hip smart glasses! Available with Swarovski crystals and Hello Kitty

Abrash has always been incredibly excited about this kind of device, and the Valve guys know the incredible profit opportunities that being first can offer. Heck, that's the entire reason for their completely crazy company hierarchy - or lack of it, to be more precise - to encourage people to invent such products and services.
So, all it takes is one good product. The tech is almost there, so it will quite probably happen soon.

 

[AlphaWolf]

When it wears (read as weighs under 100 grams)and looks like a pair of designer sunglasses, give me a call. Although I expect you'll need a medium to handle the call.

 

[Grall]

Not to mention the games!

No, what games? I can't think of any game I want to play that would be greatly enhanced by having whatever environment I happen to be in as a permanent part of the gameplay experience. Some casual zuma and farmville-style shit might work pretty well, but that's for boring people. I grok the on-screen navigation directions for those who need that (I myself don't even own a car), but games...no.

So, all it takes is one good product.

I don't agree it's that simple. Apple had one big thing going for it and that's that it is Apple. Valve...is a TINY COMPANY, by these measures. They're well known in the gaming market, but they don't have the mindshare to push VR glasses to the general public. If they were the ones to do it IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN because they don't have the resources to make the phenomenon take off...or even be a phenomenon period.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

When it wears (read as weighs under 100 grams)and looks like a pair of designer sunglasses, give me a call. Although I expect you'll need a medium to handle the call.

It'll probably need some interface so it'll be multi-part - which means the batteries could be placed outside the glasses too. There are many possibilities, one of the jobs in front of Abrash is to figure this out as well. Read his blog

 

[3dcgi]

Yeah, it would have to double as sunglasses for me to bother wearing them.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

No, what games? I can't think of any game I want to play that would be greatly enhanced by having whatever environment I happen to be in as a permanent part of the gameplay experience.

Board games could be projected on a table as a start, we already have such stuff on phone screens. Eventually characters and objects could be projected in front of the player anywhere. Remember that real-life Pacman game some university guys played on the streets of Manhattan? Or there's the "Run, zombies" app for smartphones, which could in AR actually show you zombies chasing you on your daily jogging session... and so on.

I don't agree it's that simple. Apple had one big thing going for it and that's that it is Apple. Valve...is a TINY COMPANY, by these measures.

Er, the many millions (40? 50?) of Steam users are already quite a big thing, but in this case Valve wouldn't necessarily have to build the infrastructure - they could provide the hardware design and the software and have other companies like Samsung build whatever's required. AR glasses would have to rely on at least 4G+ networks and work as phones anyway, so a lot of the groundwork would already be done. There are of course a lot of hw and sw issues to solve but nothing that a focused R&D team couldn't handle.

Also, Facebook, Google, and a lot of other such startups were tiny garage companies, although they took far more time to take up, too. But Valve could provide the resources for the R&D easily.

And just look at this thread as a start, they're already moving into other spaces beyond video games and a worldwide online distribution service. Does anyone have any idea about the resources they have? I know they're about 400 people in Valve's own office building, paying generous salaries, able to afford having people on projects as crazy as AR/VR... Valve is so much more than Half-life and Portal already. Heck, they've hired an economist just to study their online worlds

 

[AlphaWolf]

It'll probably need some interface so it'll be multi-part - which means the batteries could be placed outside the glasses too. There are many possibilities, one of the jobs in front of Abrash is to figure this out as well. Read his blog

Batteries outside the device means wires. Absolutely unacceptable, you'd have an easier time selling day surgery for a cybernetic implant. It's going nowhere even if that was the only hurdle and it is not, by far.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Well, fortunately I'm not the one in charge of the R&D effort They'll figure out something. Abrash actually has much more interesting problems in mind already, about latency issues.

We'll see where it goes in the next 5 to 10 years. Just try to think back to the start of 2003 and what we had at that time... no iPhone, no iPad, no Half-life 2

 

[AlphaWolf]

None of those stick to your face.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Well, fortunately I'm not the one in charge of the R&D effort They'll figure out something. Abrash actually has much more interesting problems in mind already, about latency issues.

We'll see where it goes in the next 5 to 10 years. Just try to think back to the start of 2003 and what we had at that time... no iPhone, no iPad, no Half-life 2

There's a big problem when trying to compare to something like iPhone and iPad. For the iPhone Apple could leverage the iPod brand which was, to the average consumer, synonymous with a quality premium device. Apple had already gotten people to the point where they were willing to buy a 250-400 USD MP3 device. It wasn't much of a step to them get them to move up to something like an iPhone. From there it was another step to convince people to give the iPad a try.

They also happened to be lead by a very charismatic CEO with a cult following. Valve doesn't have any of those things. Steam is known for making games affordable. Not for expensive gadgets. Gabe isn't exactly very charismatic and certainly doesn't have a cult following nearly as vocal, rabid, or numerous as Steve Jobs had.

AR glasses would be interesting, but I really don't see it as been likely for at least another decade or two. Before then I see any efforts in that area to return something more synonymous to a Windows XP Tablet than to an iPad. A neat device that shows some potential but is still years away from transforming into something the general public could appreciate.

Regards,
SB