valve console

[sulky_uk]

As reported here, looks interesting


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20949071

[T-Bag]

I'm looking forward to learning more about it. I'd imagine they'd struggle to fit much of a graphics card inside that case though...

[ArithonUK]

So Valve have announced they will be getting into hardware, using the “big picture” mode in Steam they plan to release a TV connected PC that’ll be as accessible as a console, but be a full PC. Capable of everything your desktop or laptop can do. A bold claim.
Yet, they have now confirmed it.  They are using a hardware solution made by Xi3 and running Linux. The box will be an open system! Which means although it comes installed with Linux, you can install Windows on there and mod the box as you see fit! Like a PC, not like a console. With specs that include an AMD dual-core CPU, eSATA, 6 x USB, Network, DX11 2560x1600@32bpp GFX and an SSD boot drive, there's a lot of punch in a small package.
Xi3 talk about “a world after the PC” in their prototype presentation video (below), but what they are talking about is the end of the desktop form factor in PC gaming.

[video=youtube;r-ox90oXq8c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-ox90oXq8c[/video]
 
So, is the console dead? Well console gamers will (as they always do) cry foul and say that the PC is dead. But what is the reality? Gaming PC’s are a profitable business ($23.6bn) â€" not subsidised, but consoles are not. Microsoft and SONY suffered a combined loss of more than eight billion dollars on the PS3 and XBOX 360 hardware, which is no small sum of cash.

So the games make money right? Well, sort of. They cost a lot (£42 a unit for a new release) and the only reason they sell at that price is the resale market. Most console gamers buy a game, play for a few weeks and then trade it in for the next one, subsidising the next purchase. So retail claws back a profit on the resales, because the "new" price drops off quickly. The developers however, have to sell millions of units to recoup their extraordinary development costs.

This won’t continue into the NextGen consoles though. SONY have announced that for the PS4 (assuming it gets made, as SONY are in trouble and they cannot suffer another major loss-maker) will have game key codes (like the PC) or some recording mechanism, restricting each disc sold to a single use. In a single stroke they are killing the resale and rental markets. Bye, bye GAME and BlockBuster! Microsoft are currently silent on this, but they are plagued by counterfeiting and game piracy (despite denials) and may well follow suit on game codes, if only to prevent rife piracy and satisfy the game distributors (who don’t enjoy profit from resales).

Is Valve’s “PC in a box” dream then a reality? Will it replace my gaming rig. Well, the short answer is “no”. I do a lot more on my PC than play games. It’s a media server, web browser, graphics design workstation, software development platform, etc. â€" so it is not being replaced. However, there are a number of reasons why Valve’s Steambox may well succeed.
The most successful console in every “generation” has always been the cheapest.  Gaming PC’s can be expensive, but compare to the cost of a console and a handful of full-price games, a PC and PC gaming is cheap. Even resold games don’t sell as low as regular Steam sales.
 For the “how do I plug it in Dad?” generation of non-technical teens who think using an XBOX headset makes them an IT expert, the idea of a gaming PC that they perceive they can afford AND is easy to use will appeal, especially with the option of cheaper games and (my favourite part) being able to play against their mates running a full-blown gaming PC!
Many people will also view this as a cheaper means of having a gaming PC. Currently I have three gaming PC's in my household of which two are used for gaming 99% of the time. Replacing these with a Steambox when they die would be of interest to me - less space required, small form factor, lower costs, etc. But critically, I won't lose the option of using them as a PC, so AL-99 will still be able to author YouTube videos and chat with his mates on SKYPE - just some of the many things not possible on a console.

This is also good news for Linux fans, as suddenly every new Steam game will be made to run on Linux as well as Windows (taking multi-platform in a new direction).

For those people who play games and just want to web-browse, collect  email and do a little tinkering this offers all those things for  probably less money than the basic iPad.

The evolution of the console appears to have come to, what I personally have always thought would be the ultimate conclusion, a PC.
Powerful, adaptable, upgradeable and open.

[smilodon]

Looks like there's going to be several consoles/PC's in the Steam family. So far we have the Xi3 and the as yet unnamed Valve box announced in Arithons link. I'm sure if things take off with this platform  there will be more hardware made to higher and lower specs.

The gaming market is about ready for a major change IMHO. Companies like Microsoft,  Sony, EA, Activision etc have been squeezing as much money for as little investment out of the market for several years. We all know the tricks they play like releasing games with missing content and then asking for customers to pay more money by calling it DLC, removing server support and then asking us to pay to play multi-player on their own servers (XBox Live), allowing players to buy skills and perks rather than earning them in game, creating mad DRM schemes that don't seem to stop pirating but make playing their games more and more painful for legitimate customers, the list goes on. And on top of that they're pushing console and PC prices higher and higher each year.

If valve can get the big game developers and publishers on board and provide a decent range of games I think this could be a success. Low cost hardware, downloadable content, complete games at reasonable prices and Valves decent treatment of the customer would be a winner. But it's all about the content. If Valve can't get a lot of games onto their Linux based hardware then no one will buy it and it will fail. I imagine My worry is that the big games companies won't want to support a low cost Linux based system that effectively makes Valve their on-line publisher. It's OK when the games they produce can be bought on Xbox, PS3 and PC as well as being downloaded through Steam. However on this new platform the games would be Linux based and so would need to be rewritten to some degree. I wonder how many big games companies would be willing to spend the time porting over their games? Sometimes they don't even push them out for Windows PC.

Look at book publishing, a similar industry, and how it's changed over the last few years. The book publishers are terrified that Amazon will put them out of business with their E-book format. Authors can write a book and simply upload it and sell it through Amazon, making the publisher more or less obsolete. If Valve's Steambox/Piston console thing became the Amazon Kindle of gaming then any game developer large or small  could create a game and sell it direct through Steam without a publisher getting a cut. There are already a lot of indie and small studio games that are sold this way.

So I'm worried that valves plans will upset the big players like EA, Activision, Eidos, Microsoft etc will do what they can to kill it off. In the streaming movie and TV industry everyone is trying to buy up content through exclusive deals (Disney on Netflix, Universal on Love Film) and I can see this happening with games. "Only available on Xbox", "PS3 exclusive" might start becoming more and more common as companies fight to protect their revenue streams. Microsoft already have their own exclusive stuff like Halo 4.

Interesting times though..

[Tutonic]

The cost is going to be a huge factor. Do Valve have the financial muscle to sell at cost/a loss as Microsoft and Sony can?

I'm more interested in the biometric features that Gabe Newell has been speaking about. Games that can track your eyes and measure your heart rate? Now that's interesting stuff.

Sent from my Galaxy S3 LTE.

[T-Bag]

The PC is interesting, and I'm very excited about it, not because I'll use one (I expect my gaming rig will remain far more powerful than what a box this size can achieve for a few years yet*) but because if PC gaming spreads in place of consoles and everyone has a box like this you'll be able to play your games anywhere. I can log in on steam on my brothers PC and play using my saves without any hassle (providing the game has steam cloud saves), but the thought of doing that anywhere is great.

PC gaming, and in particular Steam, is very strong right now. Having won customer affection through low prices and providing a series of features PC gamers wanted (Steam Cloud Saves & Settings, in game chats, achievements, consistent match joining with friends across games) their audience accepted the games being tied to the account. I can't imagine a PS4 or XBos 720 that keeps the high priced games but links them to a single device being popular, and even if the price is significantly reduced it's quite a transition, and if it's not seamless to log in on another device it will cause a huge amount of troubles since consoles (and all electronic devices) can fail or be stolen.

Developing for a console requires (or has in the past) and expensive tool kit which has never been required for the PC market, all these factors keep adding up and as PCs become more standardised the simplicity of development and the options for funding through kickstarter and publishing through greenlight make it a real option. A few years ago you could have one of roughly a dozen graphics cards, half a dozen types of CPU, 2 types of ram, 4 types of audio and all these made it very hard to get right. Now there are 2 graphics cards manufacturers who each release 1 driver for all their cards, 2 main CPU architectures for gaming, and onboard audio is standard and one of a couple of chips are used. Then think of controllers, gone are the days of the logitech this or thrustmaster that, they still exist but the XBox 360 controller is a cheap and compatible way of interfacing with most modern games. It is becoming easier and easier to become a PC developer.

Consoles used to be a guarantee a game would run perfectly. Put the disk in and you know it's compatible, stable and smooth. Not so any more, Assassin's Creed on PS3 looks like arse, slows down, has enormous load times, glitches left right and centre (even in clip scenes). A £500 machine like this could easily dominate it graphically, load in a fraction of the time and glitch less (patches typically come faster or graphics drivers can be updated). With the console costing £220 and games being and the example game being £15 cheaper it takes buying less than 20 games at launch to save the difference...that's not including steam sales which will have you in profit in no time.

Consoles in their current form have a very limited life left, it's adapt or die till and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.

[smilodon]

Another stark contrast that comes to mind is community. I bought my Godson The Elder Scrolls Skyrim on Xbox for Xmas. We spent several days over Xmas together exploring the game and the Skyrim world. I also own the game through Steam so it was interesting to make a comparison. The graphics are certainly better on my 2008 Dell XPS 720 than on an Xbox 360. Content is much the same and the 360 controller works well enough for the sort of general hack and slash combat system that Skyrim employs. So basically there's not a huge difference between the two games and how they play on console and PC.

But where the PC version leaps ahead is community and customisation. On the 360 my Godson can play the game and can buy three expansion packs. On the PC I am part of a massive modding community. Apart from the three official updates there's a huge amount of content that can be downloaded through Steams Community Workshop of via many external web sites. This content adds enormous depth to the game and endless customisation options. All this is user user created, is completely free and is lacking on the XBox and PS3 versions. Community can really make a difference for games and the loyalty shown by gamers to the franchise. Console gaming is a sterile experience by comparison. Even multiplayer games are fixed experiences, only updated if and when the developer chooses to. Arma has a huge community behind it due to it's scenario/mission building tool set. It's keeping the franchise alive and kicking until Arma 3 finally puts in an appearance.

This free gamer lead, developer supported approach to 'some' PC games is what keeps the platform alive and thriving. Valve are champions of this and have a good history of supporting their products through CS, Half Life and TF2. So along side PC standardisation community and user created content could be a huge sell point for a PC based console.

[sulky_uk]

my thread is feeling sad that you didnt want to use it :sad:

http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?37440-valve-console

[smilodon]

There! Now we're all cosy and back together again

(threads merged)

[Stryker]

I've been mostly a console gamer these last few years (as my inactivity here shows), gaming has be a very casual periodic/rare thing for me thus a console it is.... also I don't run windows anywhere in my house!  I became both sick and done with windows several years ago... pi$$ed off with microslop.

Its nice to see valve may be helping bring gaming to linux! even if it is indirectly with dev they are funding to put the console to market...

As for consoles?  well they may die out... think about it, a console used to justify the cost by being 10x better than any PC... nowadays thats just not so...  also I'm getting sick at the sheer volume of hardware coming out... lets see, on my buy list I have:

Wii U
AMD's console
ouya
PS4
Steam console

I might not be a big game player any more but I'm starting to think (especially if linux takes off for mainstream gaming) that upgrading my PC and maybe just buying an ouya is the way to go! not made of money!

Just my 2p worth