Alienware Swaps SteamOS For Windows 173
An anonymous reader writes "Valve left many OEMs hanging when they delayed Steam machines until sometime next year to work out their controller issues. Many of these companies excitedly showed off new Steam machine hardware that they cannot ship, so Alienware has been the first to re-purpose its Debian-based Steam machine to be a Windows-based Steam machine bundled with an Xbox controller. While Windows 8.x has not been particularly well-received it does support a lot more games than Linux and when configured to boot straight into Steam Big Picture mode the influence of the underlying OS is visible only in the larger game library."
Re:Linux didn't made much sense for the consumer a (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet if microsoft goes all in on the Windows store and locks you into only stuff bought from the windows store then the Steam box would have a much better chance. But it seems almost impossible that MS is going to actually go that route at this point. I could be unpleasantly surprised though, but now that Ballmer is gone that seems unlikely.
As long as you can use Steam for windows... and buy games through steam on Windows Linux gaming is basically for ideological purists, for people who represent the 85% of the market or so that use windows, or the 12% that use Mac Steam works so why change? They'd need a really compelling offering.
Re:Describe PUSSYING OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
Time to blacklist Alienware and NEVER buy a Steam Machine from them.
But surely you had already blacklisted Alienware because they have sold Windows-based computers for many years. And frankly, if you are going to blacklist any company that sells Microsoft-powered computers then you must have very limited range from which to choose.
The alternative to mounting a vendetta against the company is to just to grow up and simply not buy the products that you don't want. Then when the Steam-OS systems finally arrive then you can happily buy it, knowing that you weren't forced at gunpoint to pay any evil Microsoft tax.
Re:Describe PUSSYING OUT (Score:5, Insightful)
Silly. The company must sell those units or take a loss. If Valve can't give them what they need to sell the units they MUST re-purpose them to sell.
What other OS could they use that would have as good a chance of actually selling? As is, Dell will likely take a loss on this project which means it was a financial and business mistake to do this much with Valve until they were ready.
Dell as you probably are aware is not flush with cash. They've had some very bad financial problems and they are in a very tough business. They cannot afford this crap.
To then blame them for not going down with the ship and taking an even bigger loss simply to spite microsoft is moronnic. It is an opinion morons have... you are therefore a moron.
Good day.
Valve delivering on Valve-time (Score:5, Insightful)
Common, it's *Valve* we're speaking about.
They WILL deliver. Except that they will deliver on "Valve Time [valvesoftware.com]".
It will be as usual: wonderful, better than expectation, and *horribly* late.
What were they expecting? Given Valve's track record, they shouldn't have jumped on thing before knowing with certainty that Valve is ready.
They should either.
- start producing steam machine as soon as they can (as they did) but clearly state that these are *prototypes* and probably part of the functionality will be missing.
- or NOT jump on the bandwagon so quickly, and wait until Valve get their shit together (which could be anywhere between now and 2017) and then release a machine with all the features and the specs.
What Alienware did was as stupid as announcing a "special offer with 'Half-Life Episode 3' packaged in for free together with the machine!", and then not knowing what to do as Valve is delayed, packaging some random "Medal of Duty" instead.
Also, SteamOS actually, does work. The problem isn't Linux, the problem are:
- controller (are still tweaked)
- linux games (currently, steam OS works better as a light box to play your game on the living room's big screen/projector by *streaming them* out of a Windows war machine somewhere else in the appartment, rather than playing them directly there. Porting takes time).
Recouping sunk costs (Score:5, Insightful)
>This is moronic. They could simply have gone with any OS besides Windows. ...
No, *that* is a ridiculous idea. They've invested significantly in man-hours and hardware costs (dies, etc) to be able to produce a living room gaming machine - i.e. high performance, aesthetically pleasing, and probably a lot quieter than a traditional machine with the same specs. Those qualities all come with a premium and don't really lend themselves to anything other than a living room gaming machine. It can't really be repurposed into another niche unless they could sucker people into paying the pretty-and-quiet premiums for a machine where they don't really matter.
So, given that they've done the groundwork to produce a gaming machine, they are limited to an OS that supports gaming. SteamOS is unavailable, and no other Linux can offer the gaming compatibility and support promised by Valve - Dell certainly doesn't want to deal with customers disappointed because the promised ecosystem is not yet available, nor create their own gaming Linux distro which will only be rendered obsolete once SteamOS is finally ready. That leaves Windows as the only realistic option.