1st countdown came to an end! Valve announced the Steam OS

[Brainless906]

Goodbytes you're wrong. People will dual boot windows/SteamOS and then realise linux is all that is needed with all of the awesome free tools/software.

Maybe they can fix the whole 90% of my games library wont even think of running on linux thing i'll almost think about it.

[Jmighty]

Cant wait for the remaining countdown  . 

[TechFan@ic]

This is some good news.

First of all it will fail. At first it will do well, 'cause everyone will try it, then obviously they show some stats on how many users/download it had. But, people will realize you cant' do much under it, because they programs are Windows, let alone different distro release of software, which might not be compatible, and if it's based on xWindows, then terrible font rendering compared to Windows, making it not great, people will roll back to Windows. Beside most games wont' work with it.

So why the good news? It may make Microsoft think about PC gaming again, as they used to pre-XBox days.

They are certainly not going to let this market go, as it's us, computer enthusiasts, that recommend computers to others, help others, give feedback and opinion. So, we must be pleased. Windows 9 will be very interesting.

Valves simply does not fail, this OS will render Windows for gaming completely obsolete.

[Humbug]

Goodbytes you're wrong. People will dual boot windows/SteamOS and then realise linux is all that is needed with all of the awesome free tools/software.

true but windows has far more AAA and classic games

[GoodBytes]

Come to think about it, it will work....

All they need to do is Half Life 3 exclusive on Steam OS... as Steam OS is free.... well...

everyone will get it and actually use it.

[Nicolas]

Ok this might work if it actually turns out as something big, but only if EA and other not-on-steam game companies actually migrate to steam because as long as BF is only on windows I shall not go for anything else.... If it does come out for steamOS I might give it a go, I only hope that there's a desktop version, and this might be good if it turns out to be as great as we all want it to be, because windows 9 will screw gamers even more, so every game company/gamer will go to steamOS and then having no one else that gives half a shit about windows (considering computing programs come out for steamOS) every non tech-savy person will go for a mac and every tech-savy person will go for steamOS so windows will disapear because no one will give half a fuck for it, and then if it turns out to be a success on the living room part, xbox and ps4 will eventually disapear too (because let's face it, the amount of amazing games on steam is much more greater than consoles + a shit ton of indie games and steam workshop, incredible sales yada yada yada) so MS wil have to make a living out of microsoft office and skype or go broke.

 

that's just what I think, but what do I know?

[Brainless906]

Good points all round. The biggest obstacle for them is that windows has the huge back catalog of games. For those of us who are willing to install windows and dual boot steam box not a problem, but it's a problem for the greater market because they need to compete with consoles out of the box and only windows has enough games to do that.

Aside from the novelty of it Im not convinced even the duel boot ready crowd will stick with it. Specially at the start, i'm seing almost no advantages when all the games i want to play run perfectly fine on windows.

 

"Imma reboot my machine to play this one game I could easily launch in windows, then reboot if i want to play anything besides the 3-4 titles i own that work properly on linux" Isnt a fad I see working

[Damikiller37]

Come to think about it, it will work....

All they need to do is Half Life 3 exclusive on Steam OS... as Steam OS is free.... well...

everyone will get it and actually use it.

Hundreds of great games are already running natively on SteamOS.

I'm beginning to wonder which companies have got involved in the development of the new games for the Steam OS. If we'll see AAA companies making AAA games we may see a revolution... sort of.

[fredey]

I think most of you are wrong in assuming that steam is a full os I think it's just a streaming os you have the game running on you original windows pc and the steam box will just stream to your tv

[Yoinkerman]

Does this mean I just need a USB port and a H.264 decoder and I can stream games on my TV? That's decent potential to be a cheap add on for gaming pcs, hdmi dongle you can plug a controller into and play steam games.

[GoodBytes]

Goodbytes you're wrong. People will dual boot windows/SteamOS and then realise linux is all that is needed with all of the awesome free tools/software.

The Free software are mostly (that means, not all) junk, to be honest. But that is my opinion.

Many open source projects, tries to please everyone, so they have no focus. You are blasted with too many options, where more than half the people here know what they actually do. And it makes things complicated for nothing.

A program needs focus, tries to define itself.

Also, quality and usability (let alone interface) isn't great. Its' done by developers for developers/advance power users, not Mr. and Miss everyone. Ubuntu is changing this (which is why it's hated by Linux community, especially that Ubuntu needs to highly modify the Linux kernel to make it all possible), but it has very long ways to go.

People forget that back in the netbook days, where they were powered by Linux, and Vista days with Ubuntu being popular, people switched... but now they are back to windows 7, interestingly enough. Why is that?

[Damikiller37]

I think most of you are wrong in assuming that steam is a full os I think it's just a streaming os you have the game running on you original windows pc and the steam box will just stream to your tv

That is a possibility but as normal they haven't revealed enough for us to completely understand what they have created

[Humbug]

Aside from the novelty of it Im not convinced even the duel boot ready crowd will stick with it. Specially at the start, i'm seing almost no advantages when all the games i want to play run perfectly fine on windows.

What valve wants to do is put pc in a position where hardware vendors are marketing gaming PCs for the living room, to compete alongside consoles. The license costs of windows is an obstacle to that along with the fact that Microsoft has vested interests since they are pushing xbox.

[NosRokanaske]

Aside from the novelty of it Im not convinced even the duel boot ready crowd will stick with it. Specially at the start, i'm seing almost no advantages when all the games i want to play run perfectly fine on windows.

 

"Imma reboot my machine to play this one game I could easily launch in windows, then reboot if i want to play anything besides the 3-4 titles i own that work properly on linux" Isnt a fad I see working

 

I agree with you on that. It would seem rather tedious to be doing that just to play a game. Then again a lot of people usually commit to one game anyway so it shouldnt be too much of a issue.

 

They have that streaming feature which is pretty neat, but its gonna take up a lot of your bandwidth and requires that you either have your PC close by to use KB/M, have very long extension cables for your KB/M, or using a wireless controller. There's going to be a fair bit of latency with that setup, but even then why get it in the first place if you have to be relatively close or you can just HDMI and big picture.

[Brainless906]

What valve wants to do is put pc in a position where hardware vendors are marketing gaming PCs for the living room, to compete alongside consoles. The license costs of windows is an obstacle to that along with the fact that Microsoft has vested interests since they are pushing xbox.

Yes i can see that but im not quite sure of their intended audiance.  Anyone with a pc running windows already can simply plug their machine into a tv for the same effect as far as i can tell and i'm almost 100 percent sure they wont have the AAA coverage before the new consoles come out.

 

Why would anyone in the market for a console buy a new pc and load a Steam OS with a smaller (assumed i guess) playable game market then the already small collection coming with the new consoles?

 

Why would I, As a pc gamer, purchase another machine to stream through my network to my tv when i can simply plug my machine into my tv and have it work 100% fine?

 

Call me ignorant but I just cant see it

[MrSuperb]

Would be awesome if they would bring console games as well ...

Could seriously hurt PS4 & XBone

[Damikiller37]

Beat me to it...

 

Ok, I see what Valve is doing here. I don't think they're actually going to be releasing their own hardware, but instead they made SteamOS, which can be freely licensed to whoever, and then 'X' company can essentially make a SteamBox. Make a computer, load SteamOS onto it, SteamBox. 

Sorry I'm to high on Fibre internet

[TopWargamer]

Sorry I'm to high on Fibre internet

Says the guy who lives in the UK.

[NosRokanaske]

Yes i can see that but im not quite sure of their intended audiance.  Anyone with a pc running windows already can simply plug their machine into a tv for the same effect as far as i can tell and i'm almost 100 percent sure they wont have the AAA coverage before the new consoles come out.

 

Why would anyone in the market for a console buy a new pc and load a Steam OS with a smaller (assumed i guess) playable game market then the already small collection coming with the new consoles?

 

Why would I, As a pc gamer, purchase another machine to stream through my network to my tv when i can simply plug my machine into my tv and have it work 100% fine?

 

Call me ignorant but I just cant see it

 

The AAA titles better be new titles NOT relatively old ones. I think it is safe to assume that a majority of the people who place games on PC usually buy games within a month on release. So if they're announcing older titles going to SteamOS, its going to be kinda useless since their user base is most likely going to have it already on windows because of their sales, Amazon sales, Greenman Gaming, and any other digital service. I got Bioshock Infinite on day one for $45 from greenman gaming, it isnt that uncommon for PC gamers to have a large library.

This is probably geared more towards someone who is considering buying the PS4 and the One, but want to try out PC gaming for once. Going to be a hard sell unless they can guarantee that the game would come to SteamOS within 1 week time. Not only that, most people are going to stick with consoles since their friends are on consoles. Someone might say streaming, but its kinda useles since you need a capable PC anyway and at that point, just HDMI it + big picture.

 

Edit - I can actually see the streaming being useful when going out to a friends house or something. Don't have to bring a giant tower, just a tiny box. Still requires that your Desktop and Internet to be on all the time. Not really comfortable on keeping my desktop running 24/7

[Exotath]

Of course it can Omid. It will have a web browser, It will support mouse and keyboard, it will run all of Linux's great free productivity apps.

 

How is linux's driver support with AMD/NV/Intel?

[MdX MaxX]

This is some good news.

First of all it will fail. At first it will do well, 'cause everyone will try it, then obviously they show some stats on how many users/download it had. But, people will realize you cant' do much under it, because they programs are Windows, let alone different distro release of software, which might not be compatible, and if it's based on xWindows, then terrible font rendering compared to Windows, making it not great, people will roll back to Windows. Beside most games wont' work with it.

So why the good news? It may make Microsoft think about PC gaming again, as they used to pre-XBox days.

They are certainly not going to let this market go, as it's us, computer enthusiasts, that recommend computers to others, help others, give feedback and opinion. So, we must be pleased. Windows 9 will be very interesting.

IMO you're thinking too short term.  Sure, it's extremely unrealistic to think that in a year's time everyone is gonna be gaming on Linux on their desktops or a Steambox.

 

But think about 5, 7, 10, 15 years from now.  With Valve making such a strong push, I feel at least some of the major game engines will get ported to Linux over time.  Maybe not very soon, but 5 years from now we may begin to see AAA titles hit Linux.  10 years from now it may become a common occurrence.  It may not be very relevant for us, but for the next generation of gamers, Linux gaming just may be a thing.  Especially if Microsoft continues to approach a closed ecosystem.

[mymouthandi]

I'm excited to see SteamOS in action. Seeing as it's Linux-based and you can stream games from your PC, you won't need anything too powerful for it. I think this is brilliant because the OS can probably run on nettops and powerful gaming rigs alike. Maybe a nettop is too under powered but you get what I mean. It also makes it possible to play every game available on Steam, whether they run on Linux or not (assuming you have a gaming rig also).

 

In fact, when it is available I will try and stream from my PC to the Acer nettop I have lying around. 

[ianh83]

If you think this will fail look at ouya. It's shit but they still have millions of dollars to throw at devs who might make an ouya exclusive. This is Valve. They will have hundreds of millions to throw at this and when it becomes popular - with a few million users, it will be worth the big devs time to ensure linux compatibility. There will be AAA releases from the start - valve will make them and so will a few other devs, look at the great titles already on linux - hundreds and hundreds of hours of great games. Add to that all the classics they will get working by wrapping them in Wine.

 

People who love their triple A Electronic Arts games may be some of the last to head to SteamOS, but who cares, I don't buy EA games anyway, there's more than enough great games without them. Steambox will take off but the AAA lovers will stay away for a while as it establishes itself, but years down the line it will be #1.

 

Regarding the possibility of a valve made steambox - I gave up on consoles several years ago, there's so much to dislike, they're underpowered, unreliable, you lose your game library every time a new one's released. Now I have a 4770k/GTX titan monster gaming PC which I love, and it's attached to my TV as well as a 144hz monitor. Despite all of that I still love the idea of a steambox made by Valve so i hope they make it. I wouldn't buy it because I want to make my PC myself, but most people don't and for them a user upgradeable steambox made by valve would be the best option on the market. Just imagine: no more losing your game collection when Steambox2 comes out, upgrade your graphics whenever you want/have the cash rather than waiting for them to make a new one.. no ending up with the situation we have now where not only are all the console gamers about to lose their games collection (that in itself is enough to balance out what people are saying about the small available library at the start) but you have state of the art games like GTA5 running on ancient hardware with poor resolution/performance despite it being the most expensive AAA of all time.

 

I stopped spending money on console games because I knew it would be money down the drain in a few years. The fact steam doesn't have that problem has encouraged me to buy 250 games on steam and todays news has made me more confident in my decision.

 

Now bring on the steamphone.

[ianh83]

How is linux's driver support with AMD/NV/Intel?

It's a mixed bag and this will change that which is great news for me as a linux lover.

 

There are some games which I found run much better on linux compared to windows (same hardware, just changing the OS) so it has great potential. I'm not talking about small differences, I'm talking 25% more frames in linux. But that's half the story, it will take a while for linux drivers to become as advanced but they are solid enough and will improve faster after this announcement.

[That Norwegian Guy]

Just as I predicted, Valve's own Steam Distro.

 

The streaming part is bad news however. This means they have no solution to natively get most past games to Linux, which means this whole Linux focus is a pipe dream with a much lesser impact than hoped. Shame. I know I won't be running 2 OS's to play classics and new games.

 

For instance, now I'm building an HTPC for my parents for christmas. Already filled up a new Steam account with games. There isn't going to be a computer to stream from, so what's the point of SteamOS in this scenario? None. Windows is unfortunately going to live a bit longer, and that makes me sad as Microsoft are the biggest scumbags on earth.