Valve's Big Picture Could Be a Linux Game Console 272
Penurious Penguin writes that "a hopeful article at The Verge persuasively suggests that through Valve, Linux could soon become a formidable contender in the gaming arena, capable of holding its own against such giants as Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Wii. With 50 million users, a growing Linux team, a caboodle of interesting experiments ('Steam Box' hardware baselines, etc.) and a strong conviction that more-open platforms are the way, Valve may actually see it through."
Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Quoted from TFA. Am I the only one who wants LESS? I don't really want my game system to do 9 million things. I just want it to play games.
Then again, when was the last time we were actually listened to? Draconian DRM, the removal of OtherOS, etc...
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, then, the Ouya [wikipedia.org] is probably the kind of thing you are looking for. Straight-up gaming platform with standard controller. I'm sure it'll have video streaming apps and everything else as well (given it is OSS Android based), but it is really just a basic gaming system.
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Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
0.5GB: game code, character models and textures
8.5GB: hats
Easy Robin. I kid because I love.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no technical reason it can't handle 32 GB of flash -- it just couldn't do that at the $99 price point. Swapping flash is pretty trivial as user upgrades go, so I don't really see that holding it back. The capacity limit of SDHC being reached might pose an issue, if it's not made to accept SDXC. The hardware is the same, and the firmware can probably be hacked -- just like Rockbox did for the Sansa (mine is quite happy with a 16 GB micro-SDHC card when it was built to handle just a 2 GB micro-SD card), so I doubt THAT will be a significant issue either.
Naturally the Ouya will look to replace some settop-box functions, since even new TVs have a finite number of inputs. That doesn't mean it will be particularly optimized for them, or that it needs to be.
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Last I heard, the Ouya project is already working along with XBMC (who has an Android app).
http://xbmc.org/natethomas/2012/08/07/xbmc-and-ouya-oh-yeah/ [xbmc.org]
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Android being the magic word missing in the article and what it likely is really all about. Building custom Linux distributions like Android and achieving an open market, where more downstream producers and manufacturers can gain greater control. People might complain about those phones and various other Android devices, that manufacturers release with their own branding layer and marketing identity on top but that really is a major advantage of Linux. Even software distribution companies can get in on the act and create an environment where they are not having to pay extortion to another party in order to do business.
It is all about shaking out those billions from M$ and releasing it to a whole bunch of companies, manufacturers, software producers and net entities in order to improve their bottom line and give them greater control. So for Valve, it's not so much a game console but being able to distribute games across a 'ALL' available platforms, phone, tablet, smartbook, PC and Big Screen Display. For the end user buy one game and use it across all your platforms via Steam or the other game distributors will become very desirable and avoiding a pointless 30% M$ extortion fee for nothing, even after having to pay for their bloody software, will mean more money for actual hardware and software creators.
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't quite see, on a dedicated Linux system, how running anything in the kernel will improve things. The code still executes on the same CPU, same caches, etc. If the kernel includes broken drivers that disable interrupts for a long time (like the utter garbage USB device drivers for Raspberry PI), then whether you're in the kernel or outside, low latencies go out the window. As long as you don't include drivers written by people who have no clue, you'll be perfectly fine in the userland. Especially if you're the only process running at that time. I'm prototyping some rather low-end userspace PLC systems, and the userland performance is quite phenomenal if you're the sole process and are only using Ethernet communications (no USB). You can easily run cyclic tasks at 10kHz, and it's rock solid in performance.
[Rant: No USB device driver has to block on anything. Ever. No exceptions. If you think otherwise, you're dumb, and I mean it.]
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Am I the only one who wants LESS? I don't really want my game system to do 9 million things. I just want it to play games.
No, but you're in the smallest minority. The majority doesn't really care ("Netflix? That's cool, I guess."), and a slightly larger majority actually thinks not-quite-omniboxes are a good idea.
I don't get it myself. If I wanted a full-blown 'entertainment center', I'd use a PC. Much better at handling that job - games from the 80s to just-released-yesterday, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, CrunchyRoll and pretty much any streaming service, ability to easily play any video format from local sources, sane web br
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not a circle, it's a spiral. A downward spiral. Todays consoles are as complex as desktop PCs, with all the downsides that brings. But they're not open like desktop PCs, so they don't get any of the benefits that brings.
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"The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii are nearing their end. As powerful as they have been in the living room, gamers want more."
Quoted from TFA. Am I the only one who wants LESS? I don't really want my game system to do 9 million things. I just want it to play games.
Then again, when was the last time we were actually listened to? Draconian DRM, the removal of OtherOS, etc...
That could just mean 'more' in the sense of 'more power'(especially coming right after "as powerful as they have been"). All present-gen consoles are starting to get rather long in the tooth at this point. They are fixed targets with a hell of a lot of units in the field, so developers make do; but even the 360 and the PS3 have only half a gig of RAM to speak of, and increasingly antique GPUs.
Now, of course, if you have a device with enough power to run a contemporary game well, and a network connection, yo
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I read that as 'more powerful' (as in memory, cpu speed, gpu capacity etc.)...
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Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny.
Nvidia doesn't seem to have much trouble releasing Linux blobs.
Technically, the blob is just another package distribution mechanism that happens to incorporate DRM. All of the APIs that Steam requires are pretty much stable. Nvidia and co. were likely brought on by Valve so they could tweak their drivers and correct any bugs that were discovered, not because there was some magic code inserted into anyone else's software just for Valve.
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Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
No we aren't. That was a poor Slashdot article, making news of something that is already handled by the non-free repos all the high profile distros have.
Sorry, but this is bald-faced bullshit. You can't selectively break a single action in an open source project without getting caught real damn fast.
Hey, at least you're consistent in your posts.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
That's not entirely true. Windows CE code was available, but developers basically didn't use it much. cnet covered this [cnet.com] at the time of launch, and in the end only around 50 games used it (out of over 700 created).
One of the Japanese launch titles, Sega Rally 2, used Windows CE, and it had a very inconsistent framerate. I believe the game was later re-released as a "native" game, which may have been the version released to the US. You can still fine some sites [segagagadomain.com] that mention some [dreamcast-scene.com] of the problems [ex.org].
Win CE isn't good enough anymore (Score:3)
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
you won't notice the linux, any more than you notice the windows in the xbox, except it recycles already compiled game code meant for linux.
linux is just a kernel. boot straight to whatever minimal controller based GUI you have, with a few auto-run runs for disk insertion, to run whatever game you insert.
That would be pretty trivial to write/configure with a mainstream linux setup. XBMC does this pretty nicely as a media player. Its just a UI that can run instead of a desktop.
just have init call it from boot, with a nice splash screen and you'd never knew it ran linux.
that said, you need a powerful multicore capable OS to run most major games today. It'd make the game desigeners lives easy if they were common libraries and a common OS underneath.
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you still need good threading/process management (Score:4, Informative)
net based games, theres udp traffic.
many players at once, theres bluetooth controller traffic.
background downloading = more os tasks
plus because its linux, you can develop your games on a real pc too with nvidia hardware i guess.
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What other free kernels would fit the requirements? BSD? What is the advantage of BSD over Linux? FreeDOS? Good luck locking that down in any way meaningful. When every user is root, nothing is sacred. Not to mention good luck with recent NVIDIA/AMD drivers... Oh wait.. you meant HERD? Seriously?
What issues do you see with scheduling and memory management in the Linux kernel that is so bad? How is that solved
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd give a long rebuttal of your points but I don't have time: I'm working on an awesome replacement for those round things under my car.
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My console just needs to play games, allow me to watch videos, and surge the web. That's it.
I tried to surge the web once... it wasn't pretty.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
Your console DOES need multitasking. Why should every developer reimplement threads? Theres nothing that stops it from being a single process.
Do you really want developers to be forced to deal with keeping the audio buffers for music full inbetween frames or would you rather actually get something accomplished because they can just fire off a play function that creates a thread to play the music and to deal with sounds without having to update each particular sound bit every frame?
Do you really think its a good idea to have developers doing partial loads per frame so they can stream data in and have open worlds with no load times?
You want an OS that was designed to run real time animation on it. Not a phone that lets developers access game like features.
Android devices are shit because you're doing too much with it, not because it has a multitasking kernel. That and Android's GUI subsystem remains shitty even at v4.1, but thats another discussion entirely and one thats easy to overcome if you have a single process or few process environment. Turn off the radios if text messages bother you. Its not a console, its a fucking phone. Stop being all pissed off because its doing what it was intended to do and you want it to do all those things perfectly at the same time when it simply doesn't have the CPU power. Hell games generally try to exploit full CPU power from the git go anyway, so no shit its going to slow down when background tasks start doing things.
What you perceive as one thing at a time hasn't been one thing at a time since the Atari 2600. Developers aren't going to write code for hardware that makes them do EVERYTHING themselves ... well, some might, but the first thing they'll do is write a little OS to give them sanity and code reuse, then they'll start making the other bits and in the end, if they last long enough to pull it off, they'll have written an OS for it and a game on top of that. And then they won't share that OS with anyone else, meaning every bug they find and squash, every neat innovative way to accomplish something mundane, every cool trick to make the game easier to write ... will only be in their games, and someone else will have to reinvent the wheel .... again ... with a whole new set of bugs and shitty problems.
You're currently modded +5 insightful when your post is pretty much exactly the opposite of such.
Theres no reason a Linux kernel with a few or one processes can not accomplish proper game play. Ubuntu isn't going to cut it, as soon as cron fires off the nightly accounting/cleanup/security check scripts, it'll be hosed. And that will just be an example of using the wrong tool for the job.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I want it to do more, but I don't want it to be running Linux, or Android, or any other mainstream OS. Sure it means that I may get more apps, as developers are more familiar with it, but these general purpose operating systems just seem to slow things down in the end. My console just needs to play games, allow me to watch videos, and surge the web
So in other words the kernel only needs to provide:
Might as well use Linux by this stage. It would sure beat re-inventing the wheel. Plus it gives you a much greater chance of developers actually supporting your platform. The fact that your Android device slows down when receiving messages while gaming sounds like a problem with the design of Android.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
You demonstrably have no clue about OS design, or even design of embedded software. The despicable multitasking you claim is so bad, if absent from the OS, will be badly reimplemented by everyone and their mother because the world we live in is full of asynchronous events. Any kernel worth its salt will multitask, even if all the tasks are lightweight run-to-completion tasks. There's no way around it. Interrupt handlers do preemptive multitasking, if you haven't noticed it yet. Even Windows 2 did cooperative multitasking for userland code, and preemptive stuff in the "kernel".
Any sort of a communications or driver stack that's more than a minimalistic proof-of-concept will have to multitask. Multitask as in interrupt handlers doing the minimum necessary amount of work so as not to unduly impact the overall interrupt latency of the system. Then normally scheduled bottom half tasklets finish up the work. You need this for USB, for networking, for really anything you can think of. Without solid scheduling and task preemption, you're doomed. Implementing most communication protocols becomes rather easy once you have interrupts, tasklets and timers.
As for those "annoying things" you claim your Android phone does, they happen precisely because things are *not* properly coded for asynchronous execution. Things get slow, almost universally, when something somewhere blocks, or worse, busy-waits (spins). It's rather unfortunate that neither C nor C++ really facilitates writing well performing software that's able to react to asynchronous events. Writing state machines explicitly with each state being a function/method or even a select case is a pain. You'd think it'd be a well solved problem by now, but it's not, and developers being what they are, you see plenty of applications that present you with busy cursors with no CPU nor I/O load to back it up. That's blocking behavior, and it's there because it's somewhat hard to write code otherwise. Every example code out there for receiving data from any device (serial port, network, etc). is fundamentally wrong and contributes to the problem:
send("foo"); ... };
read(buf);
if (buf == "bar") {
For your console to do your "one thing at a time" well, it must do a hundred things in parallel behind the scenes. It's your lack of appreciation of this simple fact that makes your post an uninformed rant.
Should be called "Sauna" (Score:2, Funny)
Valve Fanboi (Score:2)
To my credit though, they do seem to be doing cool stuff lately.
Piracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay, perfectly serious question, and one the game developers and studios are going to ask you: How are you going to protect against piracy if the platform is open? Explain how if it's made trivially-easy for people to download and pirate the games, how their revenue stream benefits from this... because open platforms encourage piracy. Or at least, that's the argument that's going to be made.
Please guys, serious answers only, not a giant flag of a penguin and patriotic music playing while you explain in great detail why open is better, etc. Pretend I'm a game developer and sell me on the concept. You can start by telling me how it'll be at least as profitable, if not more so, than the competitors. I don't care about linux, or the GPL, or open source: I want a business case made.
Re:Piracy (Score:5, Informative)
You are completely missing who is doing this.
Valve's major money maker is Steam, already the largest digital games publisher/marketplace. They already have DRM in place that many people on the PC platform find to be a fair compromise of ability and annoyance. The game developers you want Valve to sell to have already bought into Steam!
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They already have DRM in place that many people on the PC platform find to be a fair compromise of ability and annoyance. The game developers you want Valve to sell to have already bought into Steam!
Umm, no. Most of the applications available for Steam were developed as stand-alone applications and only later added into their store. To say they "bought into" Steam is stupid; They bought into the PC platform. Steam is just another method of distribution. We aren't talking about developing games for the PC platform here, but a new console. Whatever is released on this new console may use commodity hardware, and may even be PC-like, but it won't be a PC, and you probably won't be able to just load up PC g
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We aren't talking about developing games for the PC platform here, but a new console. Whatever is released on this new console may use commodity hardware, and may even be PC-like, but it won't be a PC, and you probably won't be able to just load up PC games under it, anymore than you can play a Mac game on a PC or vice versa. That's sorta the definition of a platform.
The point is, developers/distributors AND the customers seems quite happy with the DRM system currently being employed by Steam, and I think the same system may also be used on Steam on linux or whatever the new platform is, so DRM or openness should not be a problem.
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Since an "open platform" is no difference from windows WRT piracy, where Valve has been happily selling games for years, I guess I don't see the point. They will use the same DRM they use on windows... duh?
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Valve was asked about DRM at the recent Ubuntu Developer Summit earlier this month. Their answer was essentially "games can include their own DRM" just like on the Windows/Mac versions of Steam.
I could see the let-the-publisher-deal-with-it solution applying to the console as well.
Re:Piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, like that's worked out so well for us in the past. Publishers create the worst kinds of DRM. At least when I get and Xbox/Wii/PS game... I know that I can buy a game, take it home, and play it.
You mean, you can buy a game, bring it home, and then leave the console alone for half an hour as it installs updates. Or is that just the PS3?
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At least when I get and Xbox/Wii/PS game I know it isn't going to install some boot loader or root kit or rogue driver on my system and screw it up
Are you kidding? Modern games come with software updates on the disk, software updates that can and do remove features [techdirt.com] from your console.
Re:Piracy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Piracy (Score:4, Interesting)
Steam is already on Windows and that can be considered 'open' too, since you are referencing console lockdown. It is not perfect but it seems to be working well enough.
The market is a lot bigger; The piracy rate is higher, but so is the purchase rate, so it evens out. But consoles are a small market -- almost everyone owns a computer. Not nearly as many own consoles. If the piracy rate on a console was the same as the PC, the market would collapse; it would be very difficult for all but the most successful titles to get a return on investment.
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they can't shoot the goose that laid the golden egg. A lot of the reason PC gaming is seeing a resurgence is actually tablets. Most people don't LIKE working on laptops and have desks for them anyways. For the same price as a laptop you can go buy a gaming PC generally and bam, you're now a PC gamer. Whats happening is tablets are eating the convenience of notebooks alive and more and more people are turning to desktop PCs for gaming and work.
Re:Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, Microsoft is pushing all software through their own store if they can beginning with Windows 8. Steam is a software store that would compete with that store, on Microsoft's Windows platform. Gabe Newell used to work at Microsoft. He knows this means they intend to eliminate the Steam software sales store in Windows, and they are as eminently able to do that as they have been to sabotage all other software that competes with their offerings on Windows. The Goose has fled and Valve needs a new goose. Hence the console plan. An own-brand console gives Valve a platform that cannot be made to sabotage their content.
A lot of casuals are just going tablet and phone, really.
It could be worse. Retail box software vendors are just out of luck. No more sales for you.
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Okay, perfectly serious question, and one the game developers and studios are going to ask you: How are you going to protect against piracy if the platform is open? Explain how if it's made trivially-easy for people to download and pirate the games, how their revenue stream benefits from this... because open platforms encourage piracy. Or at least, that's the argument that's going to be made.
Well in case you missed the memo, Steam is pretty successful on open platforms like Windows and OS X. At least "open" as in "doesn't require code signing". Building a "Steambox" would be to lower cost (no MS license) and provide a standardized hardware platform compared to the PC. Compared to the other consoles it'd be an alternative to Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo who all have their terms and conditions to sell on their platform. And the Linux kernel is GPLv2 not GPLv3, so you actually can make a locked do
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Why should game developers be complaining if their console runs Linux down below?
Because the console market is a lot smaller than the PC market; Almost everyone owns a computer. Not nearly as many own consoles. Bigger market means more piracy can be tolerated and still make an equivalent amount of profit. And cell phones and tablets compete in a very different market space. That's like saying smart phones compete with laptops and desktops. Yeah... right.
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Because the console market is a lot smaller than the PC market; Almost everyone owns a computer. Not nearly as many own consoles. Bigger market means more piracy can be tolerated and still make an equivalent amount of profit. And cell phones and tablets compete in a very different market space. That's like saying smart phones compete with laptops and desktops. Yeah... right.
Huh? I never said they competed in the same markets, I said developers seem more than happy to be writing applications for Android which runs on Linux without crying about piracy. You're just talking nonsense saying nothing compares to consoles. And of course the PC market is much larger than the console market since lots and lots of people aren't playing games but you're again completely failing to make a sane point of PC gamers vs console gamers. Who cares about consoles and console-only games? The people
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
"Troll"? EXCUSE ME? (Score:3, Interesting)
How is it trolling to ask a question that any developer who's going to give serious consideration to this platform is going to ask? The console market thrives mostly on store-bought purchases, many of which are recycled into the used-games market a year after their release, but 95% of the games aren't pirated. The PC gaming market, on the other hand, is almost the exact opposite: Most games, especially single-player games, sitting on PCs are pirated. So to get the same profit, you'd have to sell games for t
Re:"Troll"? EXCUSE ME? (Score:4, Insightful)
Steam is what caused me and as far as I can tell all of my friends to start buying games instead of pirating them.
Steam offer something piracy does not, hassle free installing. It also offers something buying games in stores does not, the ability to get the game right now and great deals.
Spotify did the same regarding music.
Will there be piracy, probably. Will it be rampant on the steambox? Probably not, just use your normal computer.
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Will there be piracy, probably. Will it be rampant on the steambox? Probably not, just use your normal computer.
I'm not suggesting it would be rampant, just higher than on consoles. My point was -- if it's even slightly higher than other consoles, if their sales are the same, that means less profit. And my question was: Can the "steambox" be as profitable for a game developer as traditional DRM-enabled consoles? The factors to consider are development costs, distribution costs, per-unit sales, and aggregate sales. All of these contribute to the total net. My argument is because per-unit sales would be lower (due to p
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Since people have been throwing around numbers of $20k just to release an update on XBLA then I would suggest even if there is more piracy, profit is probably going to be greater.
Of course, you're assuming an either/or situation when it's not. If this comes about it will be one more platform developers will need to port too, and if they don't then their profit from the platform is zero, if they do it'll be more than zero (assuming they sell in the first place.
Re:"Troll"? EXCUSE ME? (Score:4, Informative)
How is it trolling to ask a question that any developer who's going to give serious consideration to this platform is going to ask?
Because /. has a very strong group think mentality these days as the number of technically minded people on the site has shifted away, leaving it a shell of it's former self. In turn, that leaves the fanboi's and trolls who disagree out for blood modding down anything they disagree with.
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Because /. has a very strong group think mentality these days as the number of technically minded people on the site has shifted away, leaving it a shell of it's former self. In turn, that leaves the fanboi's and trolls who disagree out for blood modding down anything they disagree with.
Yeah. It looks like slashdot, but it isn't anymore. Malda moved on. It was sold off to the highest bidder that now quietly inserts sponsored links and is trying to monetize the site, and our editors are slowly being rotated out for people that are marketdroids instead of geeks. I mean, look at the logo? See how it no longer says "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." ? Now it's just an ever-shrinking green strip along the top with an ever-increasing number of drop-down menus. Soon they'll start adding "spons
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If you wanted to play a game on the PS3, you either had to buy it, or go through convoluted steps or modify the hardware in ways that often left you unable to use that console online for multiplayer games. Every console marketed in the last decade has tried to follow the same business model.
Doesn't Valve/Steam essentially come with its form of account-based DRM and essentially focuses more on multiplayer games precisely because of this issue you've highlighted? Please someone correct me if I'm wrong. I don't actually have a Steam account.
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Doesn't Valve/Steam essentially come with its form of account-based DRM and essentially focuses more on multiplayer games precisely because of this issue you've highlighted? Please someone correct me if I'm wrong. I don't actually have a Steam account.
The account itself is DRM, albeit a light version of it. Games are tied to your steam account currently, in the EU they're being forced to allow you to trade games I believe. I've heard a few things that there's a case doing the same here in Canada, but I couldn't actually find anything.
But nothing stops you from using multiplayer games at all, and really nothing stops you from modding your PC at all in any such form. Though there are a variety of different services to stop people from cheating such as v
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Steam likely reduces the rate of piracy among PC gamers because it actually offers some really good benefits over piracy and buying in store. When you buy through steam you can always redownload the game, scratched your black ops 2 dvd? Fuck you buy another one. Your rig's harddisk failed? Redownload the game free of charge as many times as you like; I know that any game I buy on steam I will have until the service dies at which point the game will likely be freeware anyway. It offers a lot of stabilit
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Touche.
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Good for them! (Score:3)
I was thinking the other day that the original Xbox was based off of PC tech, so the programmers had familiar ground for making the games (really not much different then windows games), but then they veered away from that with the Xbox 360. So, as i was thinking, I figured if someone had came in with a PC (intel/amd 64bit x86 procs), nvidia/amd GPU, a more then decent amount of memory, that they might have had a decent console during these lean years of outdated consoles.
Of course, the company would have to make it so you can run homebrew on it, ie. PS3 Other OS, but not locked down as much. Let peeps have access to the hardware.
Yes, software would probably get pirated, but software always gets pirated. That isn't going to change, unless they start streaming games to us, like Onlive or something.
Anyways, I hope Steam is smart enough to put in plenty of memory in the console. Since that has always been the problems with other consoles, and I hope they keep the system open enough for homebrew.
Going to be cool to see what happens here.
An old dream (Score:5, Interesting)
For years I dreamed about a Linux distro with all the fat out but the bare minimum to run games, so we can get all the power from the hardware. I really hope this can become real but I`m well aware of the hurdles they will face to get to that.
cablecard support (Score:2)
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Couldn't beat the Wii But Participate (Score:2)
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Why do you need a Windows box? Most Valve games seem to work fine with wine. At least the one I've tried and the once my friends play.
Please don't Gabe (Score:2)
Steam is one thing that makes PC gaming so much better than console gaming. If you move the console that may just be it for PC gaming.
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Didn't you get the memo? Microsoft is now hell bent on destroying PC as a platform, so consumer PC applications need another class of devices.
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Agreed, it seems counter-intuitive to allow Microsoft to continue to dominate the PC Gaming OS when they already have vested interest in a completely different platform.
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No, I didn't get the memo. MS is hell bent on bringing tablets under the Windows ecosystem. Maybe that will work out, maybe not. I don't really give a shit. Steam still works just fine on my PC and there's no indication that MS will do anything to keep it from working fine. Gabe is just worried about the MS Store. He shouldn't be; that's of free - $5 app type games. Steam is still where the real games are.
This won't be the year of desktop linux (Score:2)
So we may never get a year of desktop linux.
But there's still a chance for a year of the living room linux.
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Unlikely (Score:5, Interesting)
Now is probably the best time that Valve could release a console: get first mover status in North America against MS & Sony and probably Europe as well. But valve is a software company. Their experience with manufacturing, shipping, retailers, etc is limited at best. The boxed copies of Valve games are published by one of the traditional large publishers. I love valve as much as the next fan boy but the massive operational organization that is needed to support a console launch is slightly outside of their reach. Valve could partner with a distribution/manufacturing partner but the people that have experience in the entertainment space and who would be able to accomplish the undertaking is a pretty short list. EA could probably swing it and would scare both MS & Sony as their consoles would lose EA's games but with origin vs steam on the PC side of things I see this as slightly unlikely. I'd love Sega to make a Steam box, but that's simply nostalgia talking. Sony is the most likely partner as steam is already on PS3 (for some definition of steam) and ps3 runs a version of unix, but it would probably be another wedge between Sony & retail stores.
More then likely this is probably valve's experimentation into console space. They'll probably stream line it so that it's trivial to get your home linux machine to output to hdmi at the push of a controller button. Once the home experience is as simple as it can get then they'll make a business case for releasing their own console or not based upon revenue. Look at what valve has done with micro-transactions, free to play games, crowd sourcing, and non-game software: they dip a toe into the water and then once they're confident they move into that space.
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Good news for Linux (Score:3)
Re:Good news for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can thank Microsoft [windowsstore.com] for that. Why would someone buy from a third party when you can buy games from the store built into the operating system? Valve is running scared because they see their biggest revenue stream drying up.
Why? Because the last thing like this (windows live games) was a complete pos.
Re:Good news for Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft doesn't have to deliver a great solution, just something good enough that Windows users don't look for alternatives. That's the advantage you have when your solution is included with every install of the OS and your OS is a monopoly in its market.
The question will be if Steam and other stores have enough of a following to do what Netscape could not and ride out the anti-competitive maneuvers MSFT will make.
This might work. (Score:2)
I've got XBMC installed on my linux desktop and it interfaces with console kit/polkit and DMs like any other desktop, it doesn't work tell as a desktop, but it work awesome on a TV top device UI, and even supports lirc commands(linux IR remote interfaces).
Given the plethora of USB joysticks and gamepads on the market, and linux's excellent handling of removable media(front end multi-flash memory kit), development should be really rea
2013 will be the year of the Linux game console (Score:2)
Of course Steam wants this (Score:4, Interesting)
Joel Spolsky coined the term "Commoditize your complements" ten years ago. [joelonsoftware.com] Steam, who sells software, wants consoles (or PCs acting as consoles) to be as cheap as possible, so as many people as possible can afford to have hardware that will run their games.
Every product in the marketplace has substitutes and complements. A substitute is another product you might buy if the first product is too expensive. Chicken is a substitute for beef. If you're a chicken farmer and the price of beef goes up, the people will want more chicken, and you will sell more.
A complement is a product that you usually buy together with another product. Gas and cars are complements. Computer hardware is a classic complement of computer operating systems...
All else being equal, demand for a product increases when the prices of its complements decrease... why don't the video chip vendors of the world try to commoditize the games, somehow? That' s a lot harder. If the game Halo is selling like crazy, it doesn't really have any substitutes. You're not going to go to the movie theatre to see Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and decide instead that you would be satisfied with a Woody Allen movie. They may both be great movies, but they're not perfect substitutes. Now: who would you rather be, a game publisher or a video chip vendor?
Now that the cheapest hardware out there is ridiculously capable, of course Steam wants you to throw a free OS on there and turn it into a Steam appliance. Which can also browse the web, play videos, send emails, make Skype calls, etc etc etc.
As it was once said: (Score:2)
I don't know what the Operating system of the future will look like, but it will be called Linux.
About Those Linux Consoles... (Score:3)
I'm sure this is common knowledge to many of us, but Linux platforms (including game platforms) are not really all that uncommon. Many posts I'm reading on here--the general tone of the discussion--seems to regard a Linux console as an unusual or extraordinary thing.
OK, we well all know that gaming existed in some form on Linux since the beginning. In fact, I'm a little bit impressed by the number of computer games that have been commercially released for Linux in the past two decades, not to mention games that have been cloned, ported, or otherwise created in open source fashion. We've had commercial video card support for ever, and decent APIs to work with... but what about platforms?
We've had platforms too. In fact, my first Linux console was the GP2X, which I purchased upon release in 2005 (7 years ago!). Granted, it wasn't that great of a platform, but it was something. I played Cave Story on it from start to finish, and it was the best gaming experience I had had since I was an adolescent.
However, if you really want to talk about Linux gaming platforms, look no further than Android. We have scores of Android devices in the wild (probably hundreds by now), and they come with all the hardware and software support you can ask for. In fact, I was a little bit surprised just how many games--most of them commercial--have been written natively for Android, and they're not even all casual. I would take issue with anyone who doesn't consider Android to be one of the main gaming platforms today.
So, a Linux gaming console is really not that crazy of an idea. As other people have pointed out, it really doesn't matter that much what OS your console runs... games are not particularly OS-oriented applications. I'm all for free software--I use the stuff all the time, but I still play games on my PS3. Sure, I can't tinker with my PS3 games much or the platform they run on, but if developing open source games were really my thing, Linux is right here on my PC ready and waiting.
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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. (Score:3)
The expensive high-tech toy has to hit retail shelves no later then mid-October.
You must make your Black Friday targets because sales will tank after New Year's Day. That means the Steam console is at least a year off, if it materializes at all.
Steam has been a great success in PC gaming --- but console gaming is a very different world. More couch-casual and couch-social. You are most likely to be playing cooperatively or competitively with friends and family in your own living room then engaging with anonymous online partners or opponents.
Making your mark in hardware sales can burn through mountains of cash in no time flat with very little to show for it.
It takes guts to stay the course,
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Making your mark in hardware sales can burn through mountains of cash in no time flat with very little to show for it.
It takes guts to stay the course,
I really liked your post. Microsoft was able to break into the console market simply because it was one of the few companies that could afford to do this.
I have no idea what form the [mythical] hardware could take. but it could simply be a reference design , or simply s
The OS is irrelevant (Score:2)
Why do people care what the OS of a Valve game console is if it's going to be locked down with DRM like any other console? (and given they are the current leader in PC game DRM, that's a given).
Not sure if many people realize it, but almost every single networked BD player made in the last 5 years runs Linux. Same with almost all networked TVs and set-top boxes. And while that's great for Linux development and reducing manufacturer licensing costs, it really doesn't change anything for the end user.
The r
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It's more of "this is how Valve could make a console" than "this is how a console will run Linux".
Valve doesn't really have the manpower or the expertise to develop their own operating system. And the licensing costs to put Windows (or god forbid OS X) on their console would double the price tag, if they could even get the licensing.
But if they port to Linux, it's a short leap software-wise to making their own console.
So you're misunderstanding the story. It's "Steam on Linux + Big Picture Mode = Steam Cons
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Why do people care what the OS of a Valve game console
1) Microsoft - Because they hate gamers. Halo 4 on PC Nope, Backtracked on Over 18 Games.
2) Cross Platform - No more Direct X lock-in MAC; Linux; Android; iOS gamers rejoice, with more games
3) Linux [Android] Ecosystem benefits - Drivers; Developers; Optimised for Games...not servers...not phones.
4) Linux Development environment - Free; Massive Support; Massive software library.
why will major developers want to support it?
Why won't they want to support it? Seriously The constant stories of Microsoft treating developers like shit. Steam is a brand...a
Apple Fanatics posing as BSD Advocates (Score:3)
Technically, FreeBSD is a better choice than Linux in this case.
No No its not.
I'm not really sure what your post has to do with mine. I long since came to the conclusion that the only people left who support BSD, are Apple users, who profits from the one way take, and love the richest corporation on earth doing the same again. Having a quick scan of your posts confirms this sad fact again.
The reality is Linux is stellar product, technically brilliant, and has numerous contributions from its own mega corporations, with a great lead...regardless of the license its under.
Can't happend. (Score:4, Insightful)
In a perfect world Microsoft would not exist, or where a different company.
But the Microsoft that exist fight standards, and create propietery protocols or closed programs, and created huge dependencies for these, so people with one of his programs must buy the others. Microsoft fiery defend other companies, but not on quality, but on poisoning the well.
OpenGL was one of the key pieces to code a game once, and play it everywhere, and Microsoft succefully made it secondary with Direct3D. It has continued fighting all standards, to destroy them, and in games have a unmitigated success. Games are a world of Microsoft libraries, and game dev's don't know how to build games withouth these libraries, and the games created don't withouth these libraries (or libraries that emulated them).
At this point Microsoft is a cerebral parasite, and removing it would kill the host.
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Uhm, many console shooters support M+KB input.
Examples?
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For about two seconds a few years ago, starroms.com had a bunch of classic ROM images for sale, all nice and legal-like, and reasonably priced too. But then Atari/etc. sat on it for some reason (they didn't like getting royalties from zero additional effort?). It was a real shame -- that's *exactly* what should happen to abandonware...
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Wasn't the fact that their console cost $600 in the early '90s what killed 3D0?
Re:Steam? (Score:5, Informative)
People still use Steam?
As of this second, three million, two hundred and fifty-four thousand, seven hundred and seventy-three Steam users are online. They've peaked over five million. So yes, a lot of people "still" use Steam.
Always late with patches.
Can you give a citation there? I've never noticed them be particularly late to patch a game - in fact, they seem to do so faster than PSN/XBox Live. It probably does vary quite a bit depending on the game, though.
Their wrapper often breaks games or adds instability.
Another citation, if you would, please? I've only noticed that (rarely) with the Steam Overlay, which is easily disabled (both globally and on a per-game basis). And even then, all it did for me was kick me off some BF2 servers as a "cheat".
Customer service is non-existent.
While I haven't personally ever needed to speak to them, the reputation of Steam's customer service seems to have improved greatly over the years. I know back around 2006 or so they had a horrible reputation, but it's been years since I heard any complaints (a sharp contrast to Origin or Blizzard, in particular).
Yeah no there are plenty of other options for buying/downloading legitimate games online.
And you're welcome to use them. But how many of them are even thinking about Linux support?
Good luck with the linux project. I want nothing to do with Steam.
And you felt the need to shout that out for everyone to hear? Makes me wonder if you ever actually used it.
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