SteamOS On A Sub-$400 Gaming System

TheBlueChanell said:
Valve will release the official builds for DIY, allow their partners to sell their "machines" and ship the controller when the time is right and when this happens a lot of the naysayers will be eating their words. I for one am incredibly excited and frankly anyone who's already written it/them off is a moron.
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Valve has unfortunately and unintentionally screwed over quite few partners already with the delay of the Valve controller. Many of their partners spent quite a bit of money on R&D on custom designs as well as contract negotiations for certain pieces of hardware and manufacturing for said custom designs only for Valve to not come through with the controller. Combined with the fact that SteamOS, while far better than many gaming solutions for Linux in the past, is still not quite ready for prime time yet. In other words, Valve' hasn't held up their end of their deal with their partner who are already ready with their Steamboxes.

In addition, several Valve partners have already released their SteamBoxes (rather than wait for Valve) but merely rebranded as console sized gaming PCs and installed with Windows 8.1 (the irony). Better to release something and to recoup the development and manufacturing costs then wait another year for Valve to get things coming together.

I'm not writing them off but I'm cautiously hopeful/optimistic.Valve is in a precarious situation here: If they spend too much time refining SteamOS and Steam controller, their partners are going to lose patience and may not to want commit to the SteamOS in the future. That would help prevent SteamOS and the Steam controller from seeing a wider market share. On the other hand, if Valve doesn't refine SteamOS and Steam controller to work near flawlessly, such an effort takes time, they may not see wider market share as a result of partners getting customers who complain about the SteamOS and Steam controller.
 
jpm100 said:
If Microsoft advances PC gaming they sell you a copy of Windows
If Microsoft holds back PC gaming they sell you a copy of Windows anyway and an Xbox Console.

Which Model do you think Microsoft plays to.
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Trust me, I've been discouraging XBone sales as hard as I can. *strains* :D But cmon, you know the reality is that SteamOS is not going to get a lions share of the market to make a lick of difference anymore than Apple has. So in the end you have your gamer population split into segments with independent ecosystems that can't play together and that miss each other's exclusive titles, worse with consoles because you have entire generational gaps too where 360s can't play with Bones, can't play with PS3s who can't even play with PS4s, and so forth. Its a POS model where the consumer loses, and while yes generally competition improves the breed and all, Microsoft doesn't need to compete with itself and there would be plenty of competition in small gaming system manufacturers all sharing a unified OS, with the Japanese doing their own thing as they always will (Sony and Nintendo). And hell, if you really want to dominate, a XBone running skinned Windows could surely include an emulator mode to play Wii games, and the Wiimotes are just bluetooth I think, at least last generation are as you could use them on PC.
 
Ducman69 said:
Trust me, I've been discouraging XBone sales as hard as I can. *strains* :D But cmon, you know the reality is that SteamOS is not going to get a lions share of the market to make a lick of difference anymore than Apple has. So in the end you have your gamer population split into segments with independent ecosystems that can't play together and that miss each other's exclusive titles, worse with consoles because you have entire generational gaps too where 360s can't play with Bones, can't play with PS3s who can't even play with PS4s, and so forth. Its a POS model where the consumer loses, and while yes generally competition improves the breed and all, Microsoft doesn't need to compete with itself and there would be plenty of competition in small gaming system manufacturers all sharing a unified OS, with the Japanese doing their own thing as they always will (Sony and Nintendo). And hell, if you really want to dominate, a XBone running skinned Windows could surely include an emulator mode to play Wii games, and the Wiimotes are just bluetooth I think, at least last generation are as you could use them on PC.
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Everyone somehow expects overnight impact or ascribes failure.. Steam was out for 4-5 years until it became anything like it is now. Not because Steam changed, but circumstances changed.

Linux is at about Windows 3.0 status now in term of user difficulty. May not happen as fast but Linux will get to Win 98 level eventually at which point, that will be good enough. There's a reason Microsoft is going to a mix of free and cloud services dependent model for their OS. They see the writing on the wall for standalone OS's. Linux will be good enough when combined with being Free will start to replace WIndows in the home. Also a good portion of the Windows OS market is simply getting overrun by ChromeOS systems. Generally low end. I doubt Google is going to leave it that way forever.

Basically Windows dominance in Gaming is from Window's dominance in OS marketshare. That dominance has an expiration date for the home. And home is where gaming cares about.
 
jpm100 said:
Everyone somehow expects overnight impact or ascribes failure.. Steam was out for 4-5 years until it became anything like it is now. Not because Steam changed, but circumstances changed.

Linux is at about Windows 3.0 status now in term of user difficulty. May not happen as fast but Linux will get to Win 98 level eventually at which point, that will be good enough. There's a reason Microsoft is going to a mix of free and cloud services dependent model for their OS. They see the writing on the wall for standalone OS's. Linux will be good enough when combined with being Free will start to replace WIndows in the home. Also a good portion of the Windows OS market is simply getting overrun by ChromeOS systems. Generally low end. I doubt Google is going to leave it that way forever.

Basically Windows dominance in Gaming is from Window's dominance in OS marketshare. That dominance has an expiration date for the home. And home is where gaming cares about.
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The usability of Linux isn't the problem, it's market share that's just never increased substantially over nearly two decades. If anything has an expiration date, it's the Year of Linux on the desktop.

Microsoft as you pointed out being very aggressive with service bundling and pricing due to Android and Chromebooks and the rise of mobile. A lot of Windows devices being sold now are coming with free versions of Windows and there's a number rumors flouting around that Windows 10 might be a free upgrade for Windows 7 users. Free Linux didn't do so well against at cost Windows. It's unlikely to do better against free Windows.
 
jpm100 said:
Basically Windows dominance in Gaming is from Window's dominance in OS marketshare. That dominance has an expiration date for the home. And home is where gaming cares about.
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Sorry, but this is nonsense. Despite Microsoft pushing XBox sales REALLY hard, doing virtually ZERO marketing for the PC, and lowering the price of their console over and over and over again (seen it as cheap as $325 for a bundled version now), PC gaming is dominating. Consumers have spoken. This is especially true if you factor in that pirating is supposedly heaviest on that open platform, and that the consoles are still relatively fresh... imagine what the difference will be five years from now when they are still trying to sell obsolete XBox One technology to consumers with way more efficient PC hardware on the market.

Nvidia-Game-Sales-Data-640x357.jpg


Now imagine if there was no distinction between the XBox One, the "Steam" systems running a skinned Windows, and all the regular Windows computers and those three categories all get lumped into the "PC" ecosystem... yeah, Sony and Wii would be left and would be entirely and totally insignificant. If you're a developer, would you concentrate on the 75% marketshare or the "also ran" systems? And you'd have backwards compatibility with the largest game library available to boot, and all your buddies could play with each other without having to buy a bunch of redundant hardware.

This is what we call "god-tier" level gaming that would represent a new utopia. The only real losers here would be the guys who insist that thumb controllers are a superior input tool and find themselves getting buttraped on multiplayer shooters, lol!
 
Everyone who cares about gaming should stop supporting Microsoft. Where does the money you pay for Windows go? To pay PC developers to stop making PC games, and make Xbox exclusives. To buy PC gaming studios and convert them into Xbox only gaming studios.
 
Ducman69 said:
Sorry, but this is nonsense. Despite Microsoft pushing XBox sales REALLY hard, doing virtually ZERO marketing for the PC, and lowering the price of their console over and over and over again (seen it as cheap as $325 for a bundled version now), PC gaming is dominating. Consumers have spoken. This is especially true if you factor in that pirating is supposedly heaviest on that open platform, and that the consoles are still relatively fresh... imagine what the difference will be five years from now when they are still trying to sell obsolete XBox One technology to consumers with way more efficient PC hardware on the market.

Nvidia-Game-Sales-Data-640x357.jpg


Now imagine if there was no distinction between the XBox One, the "Steam" systems running a skinned Windows, and all the regular Windows computers and those three categories all get lumped into the "PC" ecosystem... yeah, Sony and Wii would be left and would be entirely and totally insignificant. If you're a developer, would you concentrate on the 75% marketshare or the "also ran" systems? And you'd have backwards compatibility with the largest game library available to boot, and all your buddies could play with each other without having to buy a bunch of redundant hardware.

This is what we call "god-tier" level gaming that would represent a new utopia. The only real losers here would be the guys who insist that thumb controllers are a superior input tool and find themselves getting buttraped on multiplayer shooters, lol!
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NEVER SAID Console > PC

Nice strawman.
 
heatlesssun said:
The usability of Linux isn't the problem, it's market share that's just never increased substantially over nearly two decades. If anything has an expiration date, it's the Year of Linux on the desktop.

Microsoft as you pointed out being very aggressive with service bundling and pricing due to Android and Chromebooks and the rise of mobile. A lot of Windows devices being sold now are coming with free versions of Windows and there's a number rumors flouting around that Windows 10 might be a free upgrade for Windows 7 users. Free Linux didn't do so well against at cost Windows. It's unlikely to do better against free Windows.
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Right...

ChromeOS is linux fork with a comfy [to some] user interface. Its basically a success in a few venues already. I wouldn't bet your future on your Microsoft jingoism, if I were you.
 
jpm100 said:
NEVER SAID Console > PC

Nice strawman.
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I quoted and responded to what you said:
jpm100 said:
Basically Windows dominance in Gaming is from Window's dominance in OS marketshare. That dominance has an expiration date for the home. And home is where gaming cares about.
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And showed that PC gaming on MS OS is in no way shape or form "expiring" and instead is on an upward trend, when we should have expected to see the reverse with a new generation of consoles released recently. If anything, that trend is likely to increase as the performance gap between PC gaming alternatives get older and older and older. Would you buy a gaming laptop from 2009 today, six years later? Probably not, as you'd want new technology that's on the market. So would you buy an XBone in five years, when it too is six year old tech, and worse towards the end of its life your game library will be trash and probably not forward compatible with the replacement? Heck no, so the trend we are going to see is an increase in PC gaming if anything, not a decrease, and so their "dominance having an expiration date in the home" sure as heck won't be anytime soon, ESPECIALLY if they were to abandon making XBox proprietary and just have it running skinned windows as I suggested.
 
jpm100 said:
Right...

ChromeOS is linux fork with a comfy [to some] user interface. Its basically a success in a few venues already. I wouldn't bet your future on your Microsoft jingoism, if I were you.
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There are claims about how well Chromebooks are doing at the low end and in schools but when people look at the underlying numbers they don't seem all that great. You still don't see Chrome OS register much on the net market trackers.

I know this is anecdotal but I've been in a number of big retail stores like Best Buy and Walmart recently. I saw a lot of Android tablets, Windows laptops even a number of low cost Windows tablets but not that many Chromebooks. Indeed this holiday OEMs seem to have invested a lot more in these low cost free Windows devices than Chromebooks. There have been a ton of promotions for cheap Windows devices, not so much for Chromebooks.

And it is interesting that Chrome OS is supporting some Android apps now basically doing the thing that so many have been critical of in Windows 8. There are advantages to Chromebooks In terms of maintenance but if Microsoft continues to offer free Windows on low cost hardware with the arrival of Windows 10, significant Chromebook growth is going to be extremely difficult.
 
Here is a cynical view of the intentions behind Steam Machines, etc. -- a storyline that is becoming more common (and believable IMO) on teh innernets.

It's hard to know for sure what's going on at Valve since they do tend to be reasonably poor at communicating. There could just be significant Valve Time issues here, or maybe there is the corporate dysfunction that is all too common these days (and I think the two are related).

My big concern is... I'm not very confident Valve could pull this thing off. This isn't the company that made HL2, etc. any more. This is a company that gets rich by taking a cut of somebody selling virtual hats. Do they even have the talent any more to take on a big project like this?
 
I don't see a reason to use SteamOS when there's Mint. I exclusively use it on my laptops but I would so like to put it on my desktop machines. I would if it wasn't for not a damn near 100% ports of games. Like World of Warcraft which I have no intention to play again, or Dark Souls 2 which I have.
 
Steam OS (or linux generally for that mattter) is a great idea. BUT, why would I use it when adding $100 to the cost of a system build for the cost of a windows license means I get access to 9x more games? Not only that, but doing so opens me up to be able to use all those apps that are windows only, including Origin and Uplay-based games.

I suspect that the controller will far outlast the OS, as a flexible controller for the control of a HTPC is sorely needed on the market.
 
Well, $100 is a crapton of money, but I don't think the big businesses the buy licenses in bulk pay that much. Heck, even as a consumer I only paid $15 each for my three W8 licenses... the ones that have gone to waste, lol!
 
Ducman69 said:
Well, $100 is a crapton of money, but I don't think the big businesses the buy licenses in bulk pay that much. Heck, even as a consumer I only paid $15 each for my three W8 licenses... the ones that have gone to waste, lol!
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Not sure how a $100 dollars is a crapton of money, compared to the many thousands of dollars many people have invested in their Steam collections. I mean, you're not really saving anything with a free OS that can't play thousands of dollars in games one has already purchased. But OEMs aren't paying anywhere near that kind of money for a Windows 8 core license these days.
 
heatlesssun said:
Not sure how a $100 dollars is a crapton of money, compared to the many thousands of dollars many people have invested in their Steam collections. I mean, you're not really saving anything with a free OS that can't play thousands of dollars in games one has already purchased. But OEMs aren't paying anywhere near that kind of money for a Windows 8 core license these days.
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AMD's FX 8320 is only $120 right now. Windows 8.1 is nearly the same price. Kinda becomes a choice between an OS and a good CPU. Unless Wine gets their shit together, Windows has you by the balls. But if you're willing to deal with Wine and terminal commands, which for me is like 90% of my need to use terminal commands, then Windows games can* usually work in Linux. Just not perfectly or near full speed.
 
Ashbringer said:
AMD's FX 8320 is only $120 right now. Windows 8.1 is nearly the same price. Kinda becomes a choice between an OS and a good CPU. Unless Wine gets their shit together, Windows has you by the balls. But if you're willing to deal with Wine and terminal commands, which for me is like 90% of my need to use terminal commands, then Windows games can* usually work in Linux. Just not perfectly or near full speed.
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You don't need the terminal for WINE, just a GUI front end! Which exist!
*sigh*
Lemme guess, 7-8 years since you've used a Linux computer?
 
SGA76 said:
You don't need the terminal for WINE, just a GUI front end! Which exist!
*sigh*
Lemme guess, 7-8 years since you've used a Linux computer?
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They should really advertise that the GUI front-end exists more clearly: I couldn't find it after a 30 seconds of looking on WINEHQ.
 
heatlesssun said:
Not sure how a $100 dollars is a crapton of money, compared to the many thousands of dollars many people have invested in their Steam collections. I mean, you're not really saving anything with a free OS that can't play thousands of dollars in games one has already purchased. But OEMs aren't paying anywhere near that kind of money for a Windows 8 core license these days.
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Sure, when people are spending as much as $60 for console games it seems like nothing, but when you're building a $400 gaming rig, that's 25% of your budget right there. But yeah, as mentioned Windows is free on anything with a sub-9" screen, low price devices, and for OEMs I believe its only around $25 or so if memory serves. It might even be less, as they were only offering a $10 discount back in the day if you picked FreeDOS or Ubuntu, which I assume was their license cost.
 
Ducman69 said:
Sure, when people are spending as much as $60 for console games it seems like nothing, but when you're building a $400 gaming rig, that's 25% of your budget right there. But yeah, as mentioned Windows is free on anything with a sub-9" screen, low price devices, and for OEMs I believe its only around $25 or so if memory serves. It might even be less, as they were only offering a $10 discount back in the day if you picked FreeDOS or Ubuntu, which I assume was their license cost.
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You've got to account for the value of games which over the years can easily add up to thousands of dollars.
 
Ducman69 said:
Sure, when people are spending as much as $60 for console games it seems like nothing, but when you're building a $400 gaming rig, that's 25% of your budget right there. But yeah, as mentioned Windows is free on anything with a sub-9" screen, low price devices, and for OEMs I believe its only around $25 or so if memory serves. It might even be less, as they were only offering a $10 discount back in the day if you picked FreeDOS or Ubuntu, which I assume was their license cost.
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heatlesssun said:
You've got to account for the value of games which over the years can easily add up to thousands of dollars.
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THis. I have over 300 games in my library. Why would I give those up?
 
heatlesssun said:
You've got to account for the value of games which over the years can easily add up to thousands of dollars.
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Valve is not saying that they expect you to install SteamOS on your PC and delete Windows.

SteamOS is for their console, living room gaming system. just smh... why is this so hard for people to grasp?
 
jwcalla said:
Valve is not saying that they expect you to install SteamOS on your PC and delete Windows.

SteamOS is for their console, living room gaming system. just smh... why is this so hard for people to grasp?
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We were talking about new DIY systems and buying a new copy of Windows, so not exactly the same subject. I don't think anyone would expect someone to delete Windows and replace it with SteamOS.
 
heatlesssun said:
We were talking about new DIY systems and buying a new copy of Windows, so not exactly the same subject. I don't think anyone would expect someone to delete Windows and replace it with SteamOS.
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I don't know, considering the cost of their 'consoles', the $100 still isn't that big of a difference considering how many games you give up from your existing library.

That said, I'll give it to them for streaming boxes. If that's what you're buying it for: as a secondary TV PC for streaming games from your main rig, then they are hard to pass up. But natively playing games on a steambox makes 0 sense.
 
Dangman said:
They should really advertise that the GUI front-end exists more clearly: I couldn't find it after a 30 seconds of looking on WINEHQ.
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Ubuntu Software Center > Wine.

Click install.

Done.

In case you haven't figured it out, you don't go to the website for the app to install software on Linux. You use the repositories. Aka "App store." It's all centralized and provided by your distribution.

lEQsh0b.png


I swear people really try to make Linux more difficult to use than it really is.
 
Ashbringer said:
I don't see a reason to use SteamOS when there's Mint. I exclusively use it on my laptops but I would so like to put it on my desktop machines. I would if it wasn't for not a damn near 100% ports of games. Like World of Warcraft which I have no intention to play again, or Dark Souls 2 which I have.
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Mint is based on Ubutnu.

Ubuntu is based on Debian.

SteamOS is also based on Debian.

You can literally have SteamOS by installing Mint and using "Big Picture" mode after you install Steam on Mint. It's all the same by that point.
 
heatlesssun said:
Installing it isn't really the problem, it's all about how compatible it is, that's where the complexity lies.
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Having used WINE and the Play On Linux front-end on Mint 16 and 17 quite a bit lately, I think it's safe to say that you're wrong. From a user standpoint, a game either works well enough to use, works in some half-broken way that makes it not acceptable, or doesn't work. There's very few settings to mess with and none of them are overly complicated or take more than a few minutes of reading to understand.

Yes, there's complexity for WINE's developers because they have to do a lot of work unraveling things to offer a framework that games will run inside of, but the developer community is only a teeny-tiny subset of gaming community.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Having used WINE and the Play On Linux front-end on Mint 16 and 17 quite a bit lately, I think it's safe to say that you're wrong. From a user standpoint, a game either works well enough to use, works in some half-broken way that makes it not acceptable, or doesn't work. There's very few settings to mess with and none of them are overly complicated or take more than a few minutes of reading to understand.
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You've just listed four different potential outcomes for any given Windows application. That's what is called complexity. That's not to say that every application installed natively on Windows can't have the kinds of issues but adding WINE does increase complexity over running the app natively.
 
heatlesssun said:
You've just listed four different potential outcomes for any given Windows application. That's what is called complexity. That's not to say that every application installed natively on Windows can't have the kinds of issues but adding WINE does increase complexity over running the app natively.
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That was three potential outcomes, Mister Heatlesscantcount. Also, you're basically saying that Windows users can't handle any complexity which is why they decide to use Windows over Linux. Isn't that sort of insulting? Why would you be so critical of people who decide to use Windows operating systems? Do you think they're all stupid or something? :confused:
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
That was three potential outcomes, Mister Heatlesscantcount. Also, you're basically saying that Windows users can't handle any complexity which is why they decide to use Windows over Linux. Isn't that sort of insulting? Why would you be so critical of people who decide to use Windows operating systems? Do you think they're all stupid or something? :confused:
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It's not a matter of can't, it's a matter of why do it in the first place. All I am saying is that there has to be some compelling reason to get average gamers to use Linux. It's the same argument that people make when debating about upgrading to a new version of Windows. There needs to be a well defined reason to make it worth it.
 
heatlesssun said:
It's not a matter of can't, it's a matter of why do it in the first place. All I am saying is that there has to be some compelling reason to get average gamers to use Linux. It's the same argument that people make when debating about upgrading to a new version of Windows. There needs to be a well defined reason to make it worth it.
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That seems completely reasonable and no, there isn't really a compelling reason. Computers with Linux preloaded aren't more affordable. People who do use Linux do so for a variety of reasons that usually have nothing to do with cost because most of us could totally not blink at the price of a Windows OS. Compelling reasons vary from one person to the next when it comes to Linux and there isn't yet something that it does in the personal computing arena that isn't doable on a Windows platform. I think it boils down to just being an amazingly nice person. Nice people use Linux. :)
 
techrat said:
lEQsh0b.png


I swear people really try to make Linux more difficult to use than it really is.
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Not what I was talking about: I was talking about the fact that WINE itself apparently has a usable GUI now according to SGA76. I was not talking about the installation process.
 
SGA76 said:
You don't need the terminal for WINE, just a GUI front end! Which exist!
*sigh*
Lemme guess, 7-8 years since you've used a Linux computer?
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I use Mint daily with Gallium-Nine to run Windows games in native DX9. You don't need it if you use PlayonLinux but then you wouldn't have Gallium-Nine. CSMT would be available in some versions.
 
Dangman said:
Not what I was talking about: I was talking about the fact that WINE itself apparently has a usable GUI now according to SGA76. I was not talking about the installation process.
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SGA76 said:
You don't need the terminal for WINE, just a GUI front end! Which exist!
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I didn't say WINE "came with" a GUI, I stated it existed.
PlayonLinux lets me directly download my games from GoG.com, install them, and they're already configured!
And its a GUI!
 
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