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

[Deleted member 13524]

The Phantom by Infinium Labs was the famous vapourware linux console
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_(game_system)#The_Phantom_console

I thought it was going to be a windows console.
Nonetheless, those guys were a laugh.
I remember seeing their presentation video saying there was a nVidia GPU inside and in the next day nVidia came public saying they didn't know anything about it.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Yes, going linux in 2004 would have been suicidal unless they wanted to sell it as "the console that only plays quake 1/2/3". And a handful of stuff, really. Indie commercial games for linux didn't even exist.

Anyway, at a point it was to have a geforce FX 5700, that GPU was already outdated when it launched. PC technology hadn't stabilized and matured the way it is nowadays - you can still use a G80 nowadays, it's supported for Steam linux by the way with current nvidia drivers.

 

[Arwin]

The major difference between Steam's venture (apart from the size of Valve and its success in the PC digital distribution space, where 75% of gamesare now sold digitally, and still rising) and previous ventures is the rise of better graphics drivers, imho. They can and must still improve, but previous attempts were nearly hopeless because the graphics support just wasn't there.

Edit: B was faster ...

 

[arijoytunir]

What are the rumoured specs of the 300$ steambox (better one ) ?
I am not following this thread so can someone summarise the disscussion .?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

What are the rumoured specs of the 300$ steambox (better one ) ?
I am not following this thread so can someone summarise the disscussion .?

The only think we know is that pricing for the Steam box won't be competitive with whatever consoles are out at the time. So it'll cost quite a bit more, but no one knows just how much more.

Regards,
SB

 

[trinibwoy]

http://techreport.com/news/24338/newell-argues-for-living-room-pcs-local-game-streaming

More talk of PCs in the living room and local streaming. I hope it materializes this year.

On a side note, Gabe Newell should really start taking care of himself. Sheesh.

 

[Grall]

Apparantly, Valve fired a bunch of people (25!) the other day, including developers from their hardware division. Feel free to speculate wildly in a the-sky-is-falling manner what this might entail for the rumored steambox/piston, etc.

...Or add your variety of morbid "guess they didn't sell enough hats this month" joke. *shrug*

 

[MfA]

Microsoft made them a deal they couldn't refuse?

 

[XpiderMX]

Microsoft made them a deal they couldn't refuse?

After Newell talked sh!t about Win8? xD

25 people are a lot for a not to big company as Valve.

 

[Grall]

They're not that big, 300something I believe. 25 out of that number is a rather substantial amount I'd say.

 

[MfA]

After Newell talked sh!t about Win8? xD

Maybe he (and other equity holders) like money more than they hate Win8.

 

[Scott_Arm]

They're not that big, 300something I believe. 25 out of that number is a rather substantial amount I'd say.

Wikipedia says about 400, so 25 is a good chunk. Must be something pretty significant for that change. They make a lot of money, from what I understand, with that small headcount. Doesn't exactly impact the bottom line much.

 

[Blazkowicz]

http://techreport.com/news/24338/newell-argues-for-living-room-pcs-local-game-streaming

More talk of PCs in the living room and local streaming. I hope it materializes this year.

On a side note, Gabe Newell should really start taking care of himself. Sheesh.

I think he should go on being unkempt. He's maybe trying to send a signal to Richard Stallman that he's not so evil

Else, the conference stage's cold lighting doesn't help.

Especially interesting in the summary (but I didn't really hear it in the talk, it didn't get all my attention) : the hint at $100 thin clients, "eventually going down to zero". He wants cheap, mass produced gaming capable thin clients, that will quickly look like Raspberry Pi and HDMI dongle computers, and maybe will end up integrated into TVs and some monitors.

I very much like this prospect. Thin client hardware can indeed go so cheap that you would actually spend more on controllers.
I wonder about the protocol, will it be free, become an industry standard (that can be supported by even bottom of the barrel tablet SoCs and free software), be able to be used in non Steam contexts as well.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Interesting, they're basically abandoning the Steam filmmaker and a few similar efforts, becoming more focused on... games? Not sure if Abrash and his VR/AR projects remain, though...

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Interesting, they're basically abandoning the Steam filmmaker and a few similar efforts, becoming more focused on... games? Not sure if Abrash and his VR/AR projects remain, though...

It's a bit of an odd collection. There's some game software veterans that have been let go. As well as hardware people (one of them was the head of hardware controller development).

Regards,
SB

 

[MfA]

Interesting, they're basically abandoning the Steam filmmaker and a few similar efforts, becoming more focused on... games?

Games don't make them most of their money, if you are going to work more on games would you fire say the lead conceptual artist for TF2? Doesn't exactly sound like the weakest link in your game development personnel. Regardless why such a huge lump of people at the same time including a hardware engineer who only worked there for a year? The most probable reasons in my mind are that either VCs have the majority of equity and there was a slight downturn in earnings or someone made the owners an offer they couldn't refuse which changed their priorities.

I still think the latter is the most likely and Valve will get an awful lot more chummy with Microsoft in the near future.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Games don't make them most of their money, if you are going to work more on games would you fire say the lead conceptual artist for TF2? Doesn't exactly sound like the weakest link in your game development personnel. Regardless why such a huge lump of people at the same time including a hardware engineer who only worked there for a year? The most probable reasons in my mind are that either VCs have the majority of equity and there was a slight downturn in earnings or someone made the owners an offer they couldn't refuse which changed their priorities.

I still think the latter is the most likely and Valve will get an awful lot more chummy with Microsoft in the near future.

There's also a chance that their Linux Steam BETA has gotten far less interest than they were projecting and hence has cast doubt into their minds of how successful a Linux Steam box would be.

Or that someone has finally talked some sense into Gabe Newell (Apple's set top box being the largest home console competitor to Steam Box?).

Regards,
SB

 

[Scott_Arm]

Steam for Linux was released today with a big sale on games to attract people. I don't think they're giving up on Linux for the Steam Box. Gabe Newell released a statement today or yesterday saying they weren't cancelling any projects.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

It's a bit of an odd collection.

There's also Bay Raitt... FYI, he was the guy who invented the facial animation system of Gollum on the Lord of The Rings movies, and basically the entire VFX industry is now using the concepts that he has developed for that character. Even Avatar's characters were built on the same principles, while utilizing the hardware performance advancements available in 2008-2009.

I find it really hard to imagine why Valve no longer has use of his talents.

 

[3dcgi]

There's also Bay Raitt... FYI, he was the guy who invented the facial animation system of Gollum on the Lord of The Rings movies, and basically the entire VFX industry is now using the concepts that he has developed for that character. Even Avatar's characters were built on the same principles, while utilizing the hardware performance advancements available in 2008-2009.

I find it really hard to imagine why Valve no longer has use of his talents.

And I think it's his monster frog model that's used in a bunch of papers these days.