Valve to Release Own Console-Like PC for the Living Room

pelo said:
Hypothetical question:

If you were developing a game, or games, and were going to pick a single API that can stretch across all form factors, what would that API be?

Hint: DirectX is the wrong answer.
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Use one of the SDKs that did all that shizzle for you? E.g. UDK, you can take a DX PC game, then with a few clicks port it to Android, PS3, Linux etc. etc.
 
pelo said:
Hypothetical question:

If you were developing a game, or games, and were going to pick a single API that can stretch across all form factors, what would that API be?

Hint: DirectX is the wrong answer.
Click to expand...
K so being able to port games easier over between form factors, yeah that's exactly what PC games love, not high end graphics and great game play. But then again Rage was OpenGL made and only worked on windows barely at that, but then again that had nothing to do with what i addressed earlier in the thread, because it's impossible for the reason between performance difference of ati and nvidia cards having anything to do with that poor opengl driver support and vendor specific issues due to the structure of opengl.

Yes if you want to make a game across a ton of playforms good use opengl, if you want to make a AAA title i'd stick to DirectX.
 
Good stuff. Good time to start as well, as game developers are pushing less and less towards demanding performance and more towards greater saturation. Diablo 3 even ran well on my Torrent PC :p
 
OpenGL can't replace DX, only D3D. Yet I believe id Software could make id Tech 5 to run on single distribution, provided there is incentive, of course. Any game, really.

Semantics said:
Yes if you want to make a game across a ton of playforms good use opengl, if you want to make a AAA title i'd stick to DirectX.
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That's just silly :D
 
I couldn't find you a cookie, but here's a friendly chocolate gnome holding a butt plug.

2100079678_31da8eff35.jpg
 
DeathPrincess said:
Use one of the SDKs that did all that shizzle for you? E.g. UDK, you can take a DX PC game, then with a few clicks port it to Android, PS3, Linux etc. etc.
Click to expand...

At this point it really doesn't matter which API you choose. Porting over is metric butt-ton easier than it was before.

Semantics said:
Yes if you want to make a game across a ton of playforms [and make lots and lots of money] good use opengl, if you want to make a AAA title [where you'll likely make less money unless you're a big time developer] i'd stick to DirectX.
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FTFY :D
 
As long as their games still come out for Windows it doesn't matter too much. I would imagine most of the people who want to play games through Steam on their TV are already doing so, hence the Big Picture feature.

Cost will something they will struggle with I think, either its expensive (similar to a gaming PC now) and people won't see the point, or it will be cheap and you will have to buy a new one every 2 years to keep up (unless it sets a status quo for PC games and does what consoles do to games on the PC)

It will be interesting to see if they can get the numbers make the hardware viable, though with their cut from games/software on all platforms they can probably do it.
 
At this point I just want gaming on Linux, on my PC.

Trading windows for a custom hardware package seems like trading 4 quarters for a dollar to me...
 
why build your own pc, when people will buy these console like PCs for the home?

What was Intel's alleged plans to move towards soldered cpus? that in the future there won't be an enthusiast market?

You can see it now. Slowly people will move towards these console like PCs. The people who resist will be labeled old-fashioned, dinosaurs, and ridiculed. "Popular" youtube people will say "it's cool man, go with the flow" ... and all the zombies will be saying "yeah I will".

So slowly people will accept even more DRM in their home, and less and less control and freedoms. It will be trendy to surrender freedoms and privacy.
 
pelo said:
I couldn't find you a cookie, but here's a friendly chocolate gnome holding a butt plug.

2100079678_31da8eff35.jpg
Click to expand...

That's the second most disturbing thing I've seen today. :eek:

oopspowsurprise said:
What was Intel's alleged plans to move towards soldered cpus? that in the future there won't be an enthusiast market?
Click to expand...

I think Intel said in some press release they were planning to stick with sockets for the foreseeable future. There was a thread about it in the news section here a couple days ago that I can't find, but remember seeing.
 
Console gaming stuck us PC gamers in 1080p hell with console port textures for years. How is the under powered Valve box going to be any different? The only hope would be that the Valve box still requires a PC. That the Valve box would work more as a PC extender, similar to Onlive but without the latency and graphical issues since it would be streaming from your home PC by ethernet or wifi.

Now we get to thank valve with the migration from keyboard/mouse to gamepads.

Good job Valve! :rolleyes:
 
SkribbelKat said:
That's the second most disturbing thing I've seen today. :eek:
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I doubt you've noticed, but the gnome is also grabbing his package as well.

Is it still only the second most disturbing thing you've seen today? I hate silver medals. They totally clash with my shoes.

And, yes, Intel is dabbling in BGA-only for Broadwell but will go back to LGA after that, though for how long depends on the market trends.
 
pelo said:
I doubt you've noticed, but the gnome is also grabbing his package as well.

Is it still only the second most disturbing thing you've seen today? I hate silver medals. They totally clash with my shoes.

And, yes, Intel is dabbling in BGA-only for Broadwell but will go back to LGA after that, though for how long depends on the market trends.
Click to expand...

Ew, I didn't even see that part!

Anyhow, it's only second place because, even with the hand-on-sausage, it is less disturbing to wake up to a cold, hairball of half digested cat poop looking food that got coughed up and is on the kitchen floor in a puddle of wet stomach goo. I nearly stepped in it with a bare foot...bleah! At least it was the first one in a really, really long time for kitty but that doesn't make it less gross.
 
Excited but worried. PC gaming took a major blow with the Xbox. The mod scene is virtually dead compared to the late 90's early 2000's, and if the steam box takes off it could be the end all together. A lot of gamers fail to realize that some of the biggest franchises around owe there existence directly or indirectly to the mod creators. Whatever happens it will be a wild ride.
 
Semantics said:
Complete pipe dream, i'll be surprised if they can pull any AAA titles outside of their own and Id's we all remember how well the last big id game was made.

gaming market crash like the one that occured in what the 80's?
Yup because they opened a windows store that can eventually compete with valve which apparently hurt gabes feelings
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He already said some OEMS would ship computers running steam out the gate, what this means is they will probably do it on windows which means AAA titles are already ready.
 
Amaroth said:
Excited but worried. PC gaming took a major blow with the Xbox. The mod scene is virtually dead compared to the late 90's early 2000's, and if the steam box takes off it could be the end all together. A lot of gamers fail to realize that some of the biggest franchises around owe there existence directly or indirectly to the mod creators. Whatever happens it will be a wild ride.
Click to expand...

Well in Steam/Valves defence they do have the workshop and all that for mods etc.

Valve as always is never very forth coming with info; they would be silly to release a console without backing from the other publishers like EA, Ubisoft, Activision etc. (maybe this is why they all started building their own stores) Maybe they have it maybe they don't.

I personally don't like Valves anti windows march at the moment, as a consumer I have 300 steam games and almost all of them only run on Windows and I am not going to give them up lightly.
 
Amaroth said:
Excited but worried. PC gaming took a major blow with the Xbox. The mod scene is virtually dead compared to the late 90's early 2000's, and if the steam box takes off it could be the end all together. A lot of gamers fail to realize that some of the biggest franchises around owe there existence directly or indirectly to the mod creators. Whatever happens it will be a wild ride.
Click to expand...

Steam Workshop.

Makes installing mods crazy simple.
 
Vicinity said:
Steam Workshop.

Makes installing mods crazy simple.
Click to expand...

Which exists on a open platform. It doesn't mean it will translate over, or that developers will translate over. I'd rather be a skeptic in this situation given what the industry has turned into.
 
In my mind, I just try to picture a industry as productive and intuitive as Valve combined with the internet speeds that Google fiber brings to the table, and a cloud based system where everyone's cpu is linked together to form one giant single super computer, which woud finally bridge the gap between consoles and pc's all into one machine.

It's gonna happen withing 10-20 years; it may not be from Valve but from a different company, but the distinction between consoles and pc's will become irrelevant, and there's no more fanboys to bash and hate a game simply because of the machine it is put on. And outdated gaming companies like EA, Activision, and sorry to say Blizzard, to stifle the gaming scene with their redundant and unoriginal games, but instead Indie developers with the creative freedom and unlimited resources of a cloud based computer to come up with something fun and original, the same way Zelda and Metroid did for me when I was a kid.

Yea, that would be nice...
 
ktk_ace said:
I'll wait and see
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Same. I know Valve has talented people who know the hardware equation, but what remains to be seen is the Big Picture (clever, no?)

I'm curious and optimistic, but at the same time realistic. Displacing Windows as a gaming platform won't happen overnight, and is unlikely to happen ever. It's not clear to me what the compelling advantages Steam Box is going to provide over Windows PCs, apart from (maybe) price. If they're instead gunning for consoles, I think they may have a reasonably good shot at being a solid contender, but again, I don't see displacement.
 
Gabe hoping this won't completely cripple his main source of revenue by pushing PCs further into oblivion... btw how was Far Cry 3 on the Xbox 360? Yeah wasn't shit compared to what it looked like on my PC either.
 
Wonder if it ever dawned on people that Valve is targeting gamers outside of the PC? Clearly PC gamers will stick with their PCs, and console gamers are going to stick with consoles, however make a console/pc box and suddenly you open the door for console gamers to enjoy PC games in their living room just like they do with their consoles.

Also Valve has been working towards porting games to OpenGL so they can run in Linux.

What this means for PC gamers is the ones who claimed to stay with Linux due to the "games" now has no excuse to stick with Windows since Linux's gaming library will increase most likely by a lot.

I say bring it on.
 
i believe that this is targeted at console gamers in order to give them pc like gaming and power in an easier to maintain format similar to consoles.

i think that this will not significantly cannibalize the pc gaming market, but will offer up a significant competitor in the console arena.

i personally hope that the device is mildly upgradeable with respects to video cards.
 
This would be a good time for Nvidia to give Valve a call...
 
from what Im reading if a console is made by MS or Sony, you're not a hardcore gamer, but if your console is made by Valve, pc gaming is dead?

I'll sit on the skeptical side for this for now, alot of people seems to be missing the one thing why We game on the PC, honestly its because we like multitasking that box, we don't want to run just games on it, we want to run everything on it. IMHO if valve wants to compete with MS directly they should create a complete OS and show MS how it is done :D
 
dyzophoria said:
IMHO if valve wants to compete with MS directly they should create a complete OS and show MS how it is done :D
Click to expand...

A Valve OS would be terrible

Skillz said:
Wonder if it ever dawned on people that Valve is targeting gamers outside of the PC? Clearly PC gamers will stick with their PCs, and console gamers are going to stick with consoles, however make a console/pc box and suddenly you open the door for console gamers to enjoy PC games in their living room just like they do with their consoles.

Also Valve has been working towards porting games to OpenGL so they can run in Linux.
Click to expand...

I don't think console gamers want to play PC games, why would they when they have all the top game makers catering towards them. Why play a Console Port when you can play it on the console and get the full experience.

And they will need more than their own games to attract people to a new system.
 
Smart move. Valve's in a position with Steam to put an interesting twist on this. By being able to develop for their specific console hardware that is also compatible with PC, they can have a games on both platforms relatively effortlessly. On top of that, they can "squeeze" all extra power out of their own platform like the consoles do.

Bring it on.
 
Sublym3 said:
A Valve OS would be terrible



I don't think console gamers want to play PC games, why would they when they have all the top game makers catering towards them. Why play a Console Port when you can play it on the console and get the full experience.

And they will need more than their own games to attract people to a new system.
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My guess is that there will be an SDK (built into Source2 as well?) that eases it for optimization. PC games will play on the console, and then there will be "steam-optimized" games. Just thinking out loud of course. Getting players to choose their system?

The key here is how competitive they want to be. If they want to compete, some keys (IMHO):

- Free multiplayer, no "Gold" membership crap
- Downloadable games (no stores), ie: Steam
- Great hardware/optimization, they'll need to set their price-point around break-even mark.
- Price has to undercut Microsoft/Sony at launch.
- Some exclusive titles.

They may acquire a chunk of the market that way. They can keep costs down by not doing Blu-ray/DVD drives.

What'd be really funny if they had Kinect support. We saw all the PC developed stuff on that, no reason they can't build it into their games.
 
Ski said:
In my mind, I just try to picture a industry as productive and intuitive as Valve combined with the internet speeds that Google fiber brings to the table, and a cloud based system where everyone's cpu is linked together to form one giant single super computer, which woud finally bridge the gap between consoles and pc's all into one machine.

It's gonna happen withing 10-20 years; it may not be from Valve but from a different company, but the distinction between consoles and pc's will become irrelevant, and there's no more fanboys to bash and hate a game simply because of the machine it is put on. And outdated gaming companies like EA, Activision, and sorry to say Blizzard, to stifle the gaming scene with their redundant and unoriginal games, but instead Indie developers with the creative freedom and unlimited resources of a cloud based computer to come up with something fun and original, the same way Zelda and Metroid did for me when I was a kid.

Yea, that would be nice...
Click to expand...

lol yeah right, big companies are going to get just that much more powerful in the future, this is part of why valve is doing this because they see that if they do not get some momentum everyone is going to switch to platforms like windows store to distribute.
 
The way I see it is simple console gaming cannot possibly get any worse, as long as valve keeps this platform open and cross platform, IE I can play on my windows PC against linux steam console users I am all for it.

As long as they keep investing in the community and modding then we have nothing to fear, and what really would be awesome is if the 2 super powers in PC gaming could somehow get to gether on this project a little, Blizzard + valve. Bring blizzards titles to the living room.

There are really only a couple small things I think valve needs to address. 1 is multiple inputs, make the OS or steam box be able to pair up any group of inputs and have local multiplayer. So if I want to use a mouse and keyboard and my friend does to, we both can. If we want one mouse and 1 controller fine, of if we want to get creative, like 1 controller an 1 mouse for 1 person and the other guy using a keyboard and a controller that is fine too. That is the major piece missing from HTPCs now.

Second make it so games just run with very limited installation or none at all.

And when you have any controller or any other input device it should completely control the entire OS, IE you can mouse around with a joy stick or D-pad.

After that hopefully some companies will come out with some nice wireless keyboards because honestly another huge problem with HTPCs is the lack of range on many wireless devices.

The final thing that I hope they dont drop the ball on, and to me this is huge, is plasma TVs. They gotta make it so their is some mode where everything on the screen moves around and does not stay in one place, that way no one accidentally burns in their Plasma.
 
It would be interesting if they would make it modular. It would look like a console but there would be a new spec for video cards and processors. These would just slot in.(similar to what we have today but in a proprietary form factor.)
 
bastage said:
So making it linux based means that basically everything has to be re-written, where as windows based it would be a matter of slapping together the hardware & setting steam to auto load to big screen mode.

It would be my guess that valve isnt trying to get rich by making consoles. They are trying to make consoles to cut into the console gamer market so then they get richer by selling more titles..

I am a firm believer in the KISS philosophy & in this scenario being windows based would be it.
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Competent programmers write their software to be platform agnostic. Windows is hardly flexible enough for a customized solution such as what Valve is looking for.
 
damicatz said:
Competent programmers write their software to be platform agnostic. Windows is hardly flexible enough for a customized solution such as what Valve is looking for.
Click to expand...

This is a pipe dream that never really happens. Sorry, every platform is different, even when their should be standards like the web they are constantly broken if you do anything outside of the most basic tasks.
 
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