Steam reveal

Well the Xbox One runs a windows kernel or something as one of its many OS's, it's also running a version of DirectX.

I can't remember about the PS4.
 
Longbow said:
If Windows is a gaming OS, why doesn't the Xbox or Playstation use it?

Obviously this Steam OS offers advantages, like the console OS, and that's why it's being made.
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If SteamOS is a gaming OS, why don't the XBox and Playstation use it? What a stupid comment. We'll just ignore the millions of gaming PCs that use it as an OS shall we?

If you'd care to list out the obvious advantages to SteamOS i'd be interested to see your thoughts on the matter, rather than just chucking around empty comments with no actual substance to them.

So far all I can see is it's free and Windows costs money, but then Windows does everything SteamOS will do and more so that's fair enough in my book.
 
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Half-Life 3 reveal MUST be coming - perfect time to finally announce it... as an exclusive for the new OS/ hardware. Every new console has a flagship title, and I can't think of a bigger flagship title than HL3!

Guaranteed way to bring success to the new stuff.
 
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Macro said:
Lookign at the symbols on the site I assume the second reveal is a steam box and the third is some kind of combined Steam OS on Steambox subscription type thing maybe?
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Subscription service totally went over my head! I didn't think of that one. Could well be; if not with this announcement then sometime in the future perhaps. :)
 
Okay guys, here are my thoughts.

Before any wild speculation about competition with consoles or keyboard vs. controller issues or streaming options begin, we should really wait for the other two announcements. I'd agree that one of them is more than likely going to be the Steam Box as it's been basically confirmed by now, anyway. It only seems logical that they'd want to make some nice new hardware to go with their software. As for the other announcement, who knows? Although if it is HL3, which I very seriously doubt, I'll eat my trousers...

As for SteamOS, from the very little we know about it at this point, it seems like a good thing. An OS that is designed for games and is a FREE alternative to Windows sounds good to me! As long as you're not missing out on games because of compatibility problems, it's a solid plan. It would seem strange if they released a Steam OS that couldn't play any game a Windows or Mac machine could, surely? It will never replace Windows, that's for sure. But that's not what they're trying to do.

The way I see it, the popularity and success of the whole Steam Box/ SteamOS endeavour relies upon: a) The backing of developers - if you can't play the vast majority of new releases, who will use it? b) Good TV and demand services - if it's going to be the only box in your living room, you're going to want access to everything, right? c) Price - Simple as. If it's more than a console, then what's the point?

I don't see game returns/trade-ins as a problem. People seem content with Steam the way it is on PC's now, changing things is unnessecary. Besides, the whole "Family and Friends Sharing" thing is their solution to this, which I'm all for, depending on the implementation.

Valve are known for trying crazy things and I'd say that usually, they succeed. They made their goofy, five year old arcade-shooter into a F2P and now it's a unique international hat-economy, earning them who knows how many millions of dollars a year, for goodness' sake! Trust them, guys. They know what they're doing. When they reveal what's going down, I'd be surprised if we come out dissapointed.
 
Longbow said:
If Windows is a gaming OS, why doesn't the Xbox or Playstation use it?

Obviously this Steam OS offers advantages, like the console OS, and that's why it's being made.
Click to expand...

This is really poor logic. The fact that the consoles don't use Windows doesn't mean that Windows isn't a gaming OS.
 
Kenai said:
If SteamOS is a gaming OS, why don't the XBox and Playstation use it? What a stupid comment. We'll just ignore the millions of gaming PCs that use it as an OS shall we?
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What?

Kenai said:
If you'd care to list out the obvious advantages to SteamOS i'd be interested to see your thoughts on the matter, rather than just chucking around empty comments with no actual substance to them.
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I don't know... Until Valve release some information it's just speculation.

The point is Windows has it's disadvantages, which Steam OS will presumably take advantage of.

spoffle said:
This is really poor logic. The fact that the consoles don't use Windows doesn't mean that Windows isn't a gaming OS.
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It is an OS that plays games. Kenai implied another OS that plays games but can't do all the other thing is pointless.

The consoles seem to so otherwise.
 
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When if/ever it can handle SSD drivers @ OS layer level & or all the other PC hardware & be as stable as current Nvidia/AMD drivers will be a time to get excited :rolleyes:

I do not see Intel/Nvidia/AMD falling over themselves to work on this project & MS will most certainly block any Direct X wrappers which is pretty much every current PC game to date.........
 
Longbow said:
What?



I don't know... Until Valve release some information it's just speculation.

The point is Windows has it's disadvantages, which Steam OS will presumably take advantage of.



It is an OS that plays games. Kenai implied another OS that plays games but can't do all the other thing is pointless.

The consoles seem to so otherwise.
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You're the one saying it has obvious advantages, name a few, put up or shut up frankly.

I implied another PC OS that runs on PCs that can run Windows already is pointless, because it's bringing nothing truly new or unique to the table as things stand. In fact in all likelihood, from the information we currently have, it'll be bringing less to the table than we already have.

If you know otherwise, please enlighten us.
 
Macro said:
Onlive did a great job with their offering albeit streaming from the internet rather than the local PC but it's just not quite good enough.
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As you say, onlive was not quite good enough, but it wasn't far off. If they can get close to whats needed when streaming across the internet then surely streaming locally could be a success.

Macro said:
Sure there will be a few people that want an extra PC to go under the TV to play the odd PC game on it, but given Valve aspire to play full games on the hardware under Linux witht he streaming as a sort of backup as far as i can see I can't imagine the hardware being much cheaper than a console. Linux doesn't magically make a crap PC Awesome for 1080p gaming no matter how they'd like to portray it as mysteriously "minimal", "optimized" and the other marketing guff that you can almost see be written as we speak. :)
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I don't think that's quite the plan. When they announced what they were doing several months back they said there would be 3 levels (Good, Better and Best). The first would be cheap and only stream, the next one up being priced similar to a console and of a similar spec, and then the final one being more of a kick ass PC.
 
Not interested in a steam os or any other os other than windows tbh. even then im sticking with windows 7

just hope valve dont release l4d3 on steam os only as that would be the most monumental **** up of all time.
 
Something Else said:
Not interested in a steam os or any other os other than windows tbh. even then im sticking with windows 7

just hope valve dont release l4d3 on steam os only as that would be the most monumental **** up of all time.
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That would never happen, think of the user base they would miss out on.
 
Kenai said:
You're the one saying it has obvious advantages, name a few, put up or shut up frankly.

I implied another PC OS that runs on PCs that can run Windows already is pointless, because it's bringing nothing truly new or unique to the table as things stand. In fact in all likelihood, from the information we currently have, it'll be bringing less to the table than we already have.

If you know otherwise, please enlighten us.
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Being more dedicated to playing games, it will be better optimised and offer greater performance. It will probably be free too.

It seems like a better choice for a console rival than you can use in your living room than Windows 8.
 
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It will be interesting to see how drivers are handled, if SteamOS has no desktop as such, who is responible for the graphic drivers? Last time I checked the situation with graphic drivers on Linux was far from clear, nVidia seem to be better than AMD, an open source driver is better than one from AMD I can't help but feel this will leave a lot of consumers confused.

Also how are they going to deal with mouse / keyboard using that on a sofa is a woeful experience not to mention depending on how your living room is configured your HTPC could be over 10ft away from your sofa making you need either good wireless keyboard/mouse or extension leads.

If this is to replace my HTPC what is the media side of it going to be like, will it be on par with XBMC? Will it scrape your movie data etc?

I do not think Valve have fully thought out how this will work in the living room eco-system, also the streaming idea sounds interesting but what about input latency will you need to have a wired Ethernet connection from your main gaming PC to the one in your living room? Will the living room PC have to have a minimum set of requirements to allow streaming to work correctly?

Will wait to see what the reviews are like, but considering I can launch Steam from XBMC into big picture mode, there is no compelling reason for me to change over to this at the moment.

Kimbie
 
Probably a really stupid question but will the new Steam OS allow you to use your already bought Windows games or are we going to have to have a separate catalogue and buy games again?
 
Nikumba said:
It will be interesting to see how drivers are handled, if SteamOS has no desktop as such, who is responible for the graphic drivers? Last time I checked the situation with graphic drivers on Linux was far from clear, nVidia seem to be better than AMD, an open source driver is better than one from AMD I can't help but feel this will leave a lot of consumers confused.

Also how are they going to deal with mouse / keyboard using that on a sofa is a woeful experience not to mention depending on how your living room is configured your HTPC could be over 10ft away from your sofa making you need either good wireless keyboard/mouse or extension leads.

If this is to replace my HTPC what is the media side of it going to be like, will it be on par with XBMC? Will it scrape your movie data etc?

I do not think Valve have fully thought out how this will work in the living room eco-system, also the streaming idea sounds interesting but what about input latency will you need to have a wired Ethernet connection from your main gaming PC to the one in your living room? Will the living room PC have to have a minimum set of requirements to allow streaming to work correctly?

Will wait to see what the reviews are like, but considering I can launch Steam from XBMC into big picture mode, there is no compelling reason for me to change over to this at the moment.

Kimbie
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The graphics card manufacture will be responsible for the drivers as ever. But for simplicity sake it will be treated the same as Android, iOS and other slimmed down OS's. It will be all part of a background update that the user will never have to see/know about.

There is bound to be an option/way for the technical minded to get behind the scenes and tweak the driver files as they see fit. But by default it will be integrated by the OS and controller by the OS updates.
 
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