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

[AzBat]

Looks like it will be Linux-based

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3852144/gabe-newell-interview-steam-box-future-of-gaming

Tommy McClain

 

[RedVi]

So the piston isn't in any way steambox, just an example of an upcoming custom SFF PC optimised to work best with steam big picture mode and possibly bundled to include steam pre-installed and defaulted to big picture mode.

 

[joker454]

Certainly food for thought that idea, but that "piston" of theirs (gah! lol) better not cost anywhere near a thousand bucks if that's their plan, as an Ouya, or any other of that plethora of android-running-SoC-on-a-stick-or-breadboard devices could do the same for a fraction of the price.

Well I don't think that piston box necessarily has anything to do with Valve, I think people are jumping to conclusions there. When I see stuff like Steam's new Greenlight setup for games to me it points to them having a ton of impulse price range content which needs more of an audience than they have now, which are mostly core gamers. They need to expand beyond the core, and I'm thinking a reasonably priced Steambox could be a way to do it especially if they partnered with others to get them built into cable boxes, TV's or what have you. Or perhaps buy a Samsung TV, get a free Steambox + controller included with it, something like that. Ultimately they are a digital distribution platform that right now is still relatively limited in it's distribution. Their Greenlight, Indie games, etc offer tons of games at great prices that people of all gaming flavors around the world would play and enjoy but right now outside of core gamers Steam remains a relative unknown. For example I could ask my wife what is an iPhone, Android, etc and she would know exactly what they are. But if I asked her what is Steam she would have no idea, she's never heard of it. In my mind that is their biggest issue right now and something they need to fix, and maybe Steambox is the way to do it. But I still believe they need a strong partner to do this. I suppose they could try and do it all themselves and they could just go after the core, but if they did then to me it would be a colossal waste of time.

 

[Scott_Arm]

From the Gabe Newell interview, it's made very clear that Piston is not the Steambox. Piston is just a micro PC that Valve has invested in, because it will maybe come bundled with Steam and work well with BigPicture mode. Not sure I liked what he was on about with serving 8 screens with Steambox as a server for batching multiple games to multiple users. Seemed like that was "down the road" talk, but I still think it's a dumb idea. I like the talk of a more accurate and lower latency controller. And now that we know the Steambox is named "Bigfoot" what exactly is "Littlefoot?" It's something for the mobile space, but unclear they even know what it will be yet. Bigfoot sounds like it'll just be the best PC they can cram in a reasonable sized set-top box without an optical drive. If they use the space that would normally be taken up by a disc drive, they can fit a nice cooling solution to keep it quiet and maybe use use some nice hardware.

 

[snarfbot]

good one davros lol

 

[Deleted member 13524]

It was such a relief to see Gabe's interview!

He's perfectly aligned with some of my (and many others') opinions on the subject:

1 - it's very important to build a powerfull machine or it'll be dead when the next-gen comes out. He said over and over again that right now they're mostly concerced about getting the best GPU+CPU combo into a living-room-friendly box. Taking out the optical drive for optimizing cost and heat dissipation, making a box small but not so small that would jeopardize the performance potential, etc.
It's like the total opposite of the Wii U and hurray for that.

2 - Miracast, Shield and other techs that allow a PC to become a "gaming server" are the future. I have no doubts on that. That way I get one or two PCs in the house and I can play anywhere: in the big screen or the notebook or the tablet or even the phone with attached controllers. It's what we saw very compelling in the Wii U but without the greediness of making a machine that's barely more powerful than a top-end smartphone (I was scared to death that they would screw everything over with that Xi3).



Yes, it's a machine with Linux pre-installed but it's for 2014 so they have at least a year to make gaming on Linux happen.
But honestly? If they can't get the developers to make enough Linux-compatible games and adapt most of their recent ones, I have severe doubts they will only ship with Linux. Unless things change radically, I think they will at least offer an SKU with Windows installed.

I've yet to try Windows 8 but from what I've seen, it looks like a very decent OS for a HTPC. He's right about the software distribution and he may be right about the slowdown in PC sales, but I think people will adapt and keep using Windows for at least this gen, and prefer using it for the next couple of years.



Regarding the game controller thing, for all the talk about lag, I bet that they're working on a WiFi gamepad. WiFi peripherals are the missing piece for the PC as game servers in the future.



And the Xi3 thing was just a lot of uninformed tech press (like engadget) taking lots of assumptions based on one simple information:
- The Xi3 project failed miserably in kickstarter (in no small part due to the ridiculously high price IMHO) and Valve got them the money to finish, because they saw that as a good starting point for developing a Steam Box.
Valve is going to show off the next-gen Source engine. It must be competitive with UE4 and CryEngine so of course they couldn't settle for a single Trinity with a low-end iGPU that suffers from bandwidth starvation.

 

[liolio]

If not for Newell comments about the possibility of installing windows (it could speak of the RT version) I really wonder if they could be planning to based the steam box on an high performance Nvidia SoC, including boulder cores and Nvidia next generation of GPU.

At least I would bet that for the GPU they may already have secure a deal with Nvidia. I think Newell gives hints about what the next generation of nvidia product could do (and we already know some of it as it is part of the "big" Kepler):
Extension of the number of supported screen
Multiple jobs queue for the GPU so allowing to answer the call of different games.

It matches really well the claim of Nvidia about wanting family to have multiple Shield (/ de facto replace "dumb" controller).

Overall having read the interview, I've to say that Valve position seems more open than what I thought it was.
I'm not sure about Windows 8 being a disaster. My take is that people are extending their hardware life time (laptops mostly) and put the money on tablets, and substitute the latter for some usages.
It is a new market, people buy their first tablets, we have no idea about what the upgrade pattern will be.
I don't think people are giving up on windows, just putting their money on something new, I would call it a slow down in upgrade rate more than the public moving away from Windows. I could be wrong though.
MSFT has to make more efffort in the tablet realm, they need something cheap ala Kindle fire or Nexus 7, It is fine that surface pro is expansive, but they should have aim way lower for the plain surface.
I'm also iffy about windows RT altogether, I'm close to think that it should have been phone only. Not that they should have forbid OEM to make tablet with it but MSFT should have put the focus on plain windows running on tablet, Intel had compliant parts.
There was notebook running plain windows for cheap, with the improvement Intel made they should have stick to X86 for tablets. Leveraging legacy application might have helped adoption, doing so it may also have pushed the development of metro application which in turn may have helped in the phone realm.

Anyway back to the steambox, if they run linux I wsih they take in charge update and security update properly. MSFT got and still get so much beating on the matter whereas they imho are doing the best job in the business. I simply do not trust Android for example for anything serious, won't make a payment on a website on that thing, neither I would check my banks account online for example.

 

[patsu]

What about Steambox ? I haven't been tracking but it sounds like something targeted at high end PC gaming.

If for some reason, people really want consoles to generate comparable output to highend gaming PCs, then they may have to use more than one console.

 

[almighty]

What about Steambox ? I haven't been tracking but it sounds like something targeted at high end PC gaming.

If for some reason, people really want consoles to generate comparable output to highend gaming PCs, then they may have to use more than one console.

Steambox is the one thing that Sony and Microsoft should be worried about

Valve are the kings of digital downloads and all digital content is the next step for consoles, Valve have everything in place to beat Sony and Microsoft down.

If they can offer the machine at a decent price at offer games and sales at the price STEAM on PC gets then I'm in.

 

[patsu]

Steambox is the one thing that Sony and Microsoft should be worried about

Valve are the kings of digital downloads and all digital content is the next step for consoles, Valve have everything in place to beat Sony and Microsoft down.

If they can offer the machine at a decent price at offer games and sales at the price STEAM on PC gets then I'm in.

Do we have Steambox specs yet ?

Not sure about beating down MS and Sony since there are tons of work and $$$ involved. However they might be able to differentiate themselves by "using" the PC-like specs of Orbis and Durango.

 

[almighty]

Do we have Steambox specs yet ?

Not sure about beating down MS and Sony since there are tons of work and $$$ involved. However they might be able to differentiate themselves by "using" the PC-like specs of Orbis and Durango.

Steam has a massive following on PC and O know on PC forums people are saying that price pending they'll sooner buy Steam box then a next generation console.

They already have the fan following, the infastructure and the experience to pull it off.

 

[dobwal]

Steam has a massive following on PC and O know on PC forums people are saying that price pending they'll sooner buy Steam box then a next generation console.

They already have the fan following, the infrastructure and the experience to pull it off.

Steam on PC has a great following. Steam on Linux does not. And if the Steam Box doesn't allow installing windows it will probably be a no go proposition for many Steam users. Invest in a Linux based PC that won't play your current library of Steam games with no promise that publishers and developers will support games on linux or invest in a newer window based PC/next gen console which is more likely to be fully supported by all parties?

If Windows based gaming takes a major step backwards then I see Linux becoming a major player for PC based gaming. But acceptance of a Linux based PC console is going to take more than it being the hardware product of a well known and supported gaming service.

Valve is trying to do with the Steam Box what MS did with the Xbox. The only problem is that MS had a far larger wallet to invest billions to gain market acceptance. In my opinion I think a locked down Linux Steam Box is a bit premature. Valve should have used Steam on Linux to create a beachhead and a viable ecosystem before attempting to market and release hardware. Valve will need to slowly and organically grow Linux gaming and thats possible and can be more cheaply done without investing heavily in hardware.

Consoles are a cost intensive business even with off the shelf parts. There is no telling how dedicated Valve will be toward the console once the realization of those associated costs start hitting their bottom line.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

It should be possible to install Windows into it. I think Gabe said it.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Valve is trying to do with the Steam Box what MS did with the Xbox. The only problem is that MS had a far larger wallet to invest billions to gain market acceptance.

It'll be interesting to see if Valve tries some of the same strategies that MS did. Buy exclusive developement of games for Linux based Steam making the Linux box potentially more attractive. Or even buy development houses outright (like what MS did with Bungie) and then make them develope only a Linux based Steam game for the console. This would require them to take a huge multi-year gamble that is far more risky than just launching a hardware console.

Then again, that seems unlikely as I can't think of any independant software developers with a very passionate and loyal following as Bungie had. Most are currently tied to one publisher or another, and those publishers are unlikely to want to take a risk in putting all their eggs into the Linux basket.

Although one intriguing possibility is Valve making a play for some of the former THQ developement houses. Relic would be quite a feather in their cap or even Vigil Games.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rodéric]

If the SteamBox leads to a wave of linux compatible games, it'd be quite good already, as I only have Windows because of games...

 

[Scott_Arm]

Yeah, if Linux starts getting a plethora of good games, then it's game over, to me. Only reason I ever used Windows was games.

 

[patsu]

What 'bout Macs, Gabe ?

 

[Scott_Arm]

What 'bout Macs, Gabe ?

I'd say Linux taking off for PC gaming would be great for the Mac, because it means more OpenGL and easier ports.

 

[novcze]

It should be possible to install Windows into it. I think Gabe said it.

That would be great, I need new PC anyway because my current one is awfully outdated.
If Steambox cover their own Steam Linux platform and Windows PC in one box, I will buy one, that's for sure.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

That would be great, I need new PC anyway because my current one is awfully outdated.
If Steambox cover their own Steam Linux platform and Windows PC in one box, I will buy one, that's for sure.

Gabe Newell interview that was linked previously in this thread.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3852144/gabe-newell-interview-steam-box-future-of-gaming

We’ll come out with our own and we’ll sell it to consumers by ourselves. That’ll be a Linux box, [and] if you want to install Windows you can. We’re not going to make it hard. This is not some locked box by any stretch of the imagination.

It would be great if it will have a dual boot option, but mostly I'd like to hear whether you can install Linux Steam box software platform to just regular self built PCs?