Valve Announces Linux-Based SteamOS 510
Today Valve Software announced SteamOS, a Linux-based gaming operating system designed for, as Valve puts it, "living room machines." They say, "In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we're now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level. Game developers are already taking advantage of these gains as they target SteamOS for their new releases." One major feature they're touting is the ability to use the SteamOS machine to stream video games from other Windows and Mac computers in the house to your TV. They mention media streaming as well, but without much detail. "With SteamOS, 'openness' means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they've been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love. SteamOS will continue to evolve, but will remain an environment designed to foster these kinds of innovation."
Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
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The circle is complete (Score:5, Funny)
Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want.
Thus turning the console into - dun dun dunnnnnn - a desktop?
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Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, when I think back on my first Linux install way back in 1993 or so with Slackware, who would have thought that Linus's project would end up on hundreds of millions of servers, smartphones, tablets, game systems, embedded hardware and the like. I find the whole thing rather breathtaking. Linux really is one of the great successes of the computer age.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Funny)
You think it's breathtaking that the new Steam box runs linux? Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of them!
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...Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of them!
I'm sorry, but you must die.
Oh come on. It was funny.
No one ever said it wasn't; now stick your head in this loop of rope, Funnyman.
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And yet it could be so much more.
Linux games that run well across multiple distributions have been out since when, the original Unreal Tournament? Perhaps even earlier? I'm talking about commercial games of course, if you go to the free software offerings the list gets larger.
Now all of a sudden in 2013, it seems impossible to produce a binary of ANY of the games on Steam that run well across any other distribution than Ubuntu...in fact I tried it -on- Ubuntu and had problems with Amnesia starting, whereas
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Can't speak for everyone, obviously, but why would I want a dual-boot setup just to run games? To me it's a hassle to have to re-boot just to get a particular environment. My preference is use Wine (CrossOver, actually) or if necessary a virtual machine. I play my games in a window anyway; I prefer to have convenient access to my computer. Then it becomes another hassle viz. Wine compatibility, of course. Having money and space for several systems would not displease me but that's not in the cards.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
But there sure is an astonishing contrast between how much it has enriched Linus' personal fortunes vs., say, Steve Ballmer (never mind Bill Gates), or for that matter Stephen Elop [slate.com] or Carly Fiorina [cnn.com].
Let us never confuse creating value with capturing value; somehow we have to get them better aligned.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
Let us never confuse creating value with capturing value; somehow we have to get them better aligned.
Do we?
Because you know, I was under the impression that not everybody measured value and success by the fatness of one's wallet.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually Linux is not Ready for the Desktop. It made it in other areas.
The desktop problem is a problem of too much hardware, in a Windows world. When Microsoft started to push the OS which required drivers, hardware manufactures dropped the idea of following standards and did whatever they felt like, just as long as they made a Windows driver they are OK. Linux, on the other hand, needs to back track and get those drivers made, with or without the hardware vendors support.
Now some vendors are wary of making Linux Drivers, either because of Rabid GNU Fanatics, who will cause all sorts of problem if it is open source. Or they just cannot make their driver open source due to licencing concerns in their own development.
Now with the other stuff where Linux has a strong hold, is where the Hardware Maker, also makes the full environment. A Linux based devices and control all the hardware and software.
The irony is Linux works best on Closed systems.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually Linux is not Ready for the Desktop.
Hey now! I'm a regular Linux desktop user and... and... and you're completely right.
No operating system will enjoy mainstream adoption these days if mucking about in a CLI is ever a necessity. Sad but true.
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No operating system will enjoy mainstream adoption these days if mucking about in a CLI is ever a necessity. Sad but true.
Agreed. But since this isn't 2005, and no modern Linux distro ever requires you to see a CLI, much less use one, that's not really an issue.
It's still there, it's still useful as hell to do things quickly and efficiently, but you don't HAVE to use it. It's like popping the windows powershell open. If you're a power user, you want to have that option. My parents have been running Linux (Ubuntu) for years, without problems. They only stumbled when gnome 2 got replaced by Unity and they had to learn somet
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Agreed. But since this isn't 2005, and no modern Linux distro ever requires you to see a CLI, much less use one, that's not really an issue.
Having failed to detect that it's running on a laptop, Ubuntu leaves me typing sudo setpci -s 00:02.0 f4.b=0 at a CLI, blind, every time I switch on.
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next time Shuttleworth gets a wild hare up his ass.
You mean gerbil right?
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Funny)
But Windows 8 has brought the CLI back.
"How the fsck do I start notepad on this crappy excuse for a GUI?"
"Easy. You just press Windows + R to get to the command line and type 'notepad'. It's such a great advance over using a menu."
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it is a great advance over hunting through some damn menu.
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The desktop problem is a problem of too much hardware, in a Windows world
That is not really the problem. Most hardware will work under Linux without any issue. The vendors typically took shortcuts and used common chipsets that Linux quickly picked up on and implemented support for. Many vendors still are starting to provide direct support too; more and more devices are starting to ship with a little Tux logo on them. ;-)
So the hardware is not the problem.
The
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thanks to those GNU fanatics, you have today the GNU/linux, working, open and powerful. Less open systems all died due the lack of hardware support. the fact that they allowed closed drivers didn't help then survive the windows hardware monopoly. Only Apple, Linux and *BSD manage to survive, the first by closing the hardware and paying for drivers, the others by being open. But look at *BSD... they CAN have closed drivers... but they have none (or near that). the lack of drivers is not a license problem, it
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
It certainly supports older hardware a lot better. Scanners are my biggest beef in Windows. You buy a scanner, and almost guaranteed they won't work at all due to a lack of a new driver, or if you do manage to get an older version of the driver working it's an iffy affair. I can plug in a ten year old UMAX SCSI scanner into my Linux box and she still runs.
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I dont get it. What are they talking about? Has Linux ever been rock solid? Upgrade your kernel, and things breaks apart. That is hardly rock solid to me.
Actually the kernel is really, really good. My experience is that when there is a problem with Linux-based OS, it's without exception in some userspace component.
Microsoft had better make a move quick. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is straight from Microsoft's playbook (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't enforce DRM effectively until you lock down the device completely. So, of course Steam wants to control the OS. SteamOS sounds exactly like Microsoft's strategy of embracing, extending, and then extinguishing open standards.
So, yes, SteamOS will bring the Linux kernel to the masses, but as to the actual *benefits* of Linux -- transparency and freedom -- Valve is going to kill those.
Re:This is straight from Microsoft's playbook (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM will work fine, just as it does on Windows, and it won't be unbreakable, just like its not unbreakable on Windows. It just needs to work well enough to be more of a hassle than simply buying the legal copy on Steam.
There will be cracks and patches for Steam games on Linux just as there are for Windows, and you'll get them from the same seedy corners of the internet with the same risks of getting pwned ("yes this crack absolutely needs root to work, trust us").
So basically, no difference.
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It just needs to work well enough to be more of a hassle than simply buying the legal copy on Steam.
And given the ease of paying on steam, as well as the low cost, you don't need to have much of a barrier for it to be effective.
Re:This is straight from Microsoft's playbook (Score:5, Insightful)
You can see this same phenomenon at work on Android. There are lots of GPL apps that are sold on the Play store and earn the maintainer a couple of bucks an install for the work they did in the port. However, being GPL software you can download the source and build the .apk for free and sideload it.
People still buy the Play store version even though there is a free and (unlike in the Steam case) legal alternative. Make it easy and they will come, and likely pay you.
Re:This is straight from Microsoft's playbook (Score:4, Informative)
Certainly it would be nice if more games were open source; there are numerous consumer benefits to it, but it is not that big of a deal.
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There will be cracks and patches for Steam games on Linux just as there are for Windows, and you'll get them from the same seedy corners of the internet with the same risks of getting pwned. ("yes this crack absolutely needs root to work, trust us").
So when the crack demands root access that's just fine, chroot has very good performance
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May need some kind of VM / better WINE (Score:2)
So all of the older windows game work as. There are some open source ones that will need a lot of work to have them run on mac or Linux.
Now open mac os that run no non apple hardware can be even better.
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Microsoft doesn't move quickly, and over the last couple years, they don't move intelligently.
With the change of management pending, and the fact that some of top contenders for the top spot are...um...remarkably surprising...I wouldn't expect a technical response to this, but rather a legal one.
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It most certainly is for many of us.
Re:Microsoft had better make a move quick. (Score:5, Insightful)
The main purpose of the Steam OS currently will be to stream you games from your Windows or Mac desktop. The entire Steam game library doesn't suddenly work on Linux.
Must have missed this part:
Hundreds of great games are already running natively on SteamOS. Watch for announcements in the coming weeks about all the AAA titles coming natively to SteamOS in 2014.
It's a *great* start! Sure it's not the *entire* Steam catalog, but as an install base of Steam Boxes builds up, more and more developers will be encouraged to include Linux on their ports.
The other point of the Steam OS (instead of using and established distro) is Valve can streamline the user experience and optimize the kernel for gaming (which most default kernels are optimized for servers).
Re:Microsoft had better make a move quick. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft had better make a move quick. (Score:5, Insightful)
It was also a wise move on Valve's part to call it SteamOS; following the rule that Linux is only successful with consumers when you don't call it Linux.
People laugh but this literally seems to be true: If you call it Linux, consumers will try to draw on "Linux" resources (packages, howtos, etc.) whereupon they discover everything having to do with the user interface is fragmented. Most of the times when they have to resolve problems, they'll have to hit the CLI.
Linux is what's underneath. But the intellectually dishonest shortcut of lumping toolchain and userspace stuff under the kernel's moniker (as if Torvalds et al deserved direct credit for them) has garnered bad karma-- a social dynamic that prevents the formation of a readily identifiable, feature-stable OS design.
Re:Microsoft had better make a move quick. (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux is only successful when X11 isn't involved. Like Android. Like servers. Like embedded. Pretty much everywhere Linux is a big deal, X11 isn't. Hope Wayland changes this.
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The PS4 is using OpenGL on FreeBSD, if memory serves. Doesn't seem like that big a leap from the PS4 to Linux.
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Most games are already portable to Linux. Very little games actually use DirectX-specific extensions (primarily because DirectX is not inter-compatible with platforms such as the PlayStation or Mac and these days a lot slower than GL). Even recent games such as GTA5 have included (partially) an open source engine.
The problem is nobody bothers making a build for Linux. Back in the day, Unreal-based games were easy to port because they had a Linux build, still nobody bothered making it. You could simply copy
SteamOS and XBMC? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Given the stated support for remote streaming of media, you might not need XBMC. And there's no word on the base platform, yet.
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If it's just a different distro, you shouldn't have trouble building XBMC for it.
And the huddled masses sayeth to Lord Gaben... (Score:3)
"Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three."
I'm assuming Wednesday is the Steambox announcement. You guys *really* need something with with a "3" in it for a launch. I don't think "Half-Life: Source" is gonna cut it.
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ou guys *really* need something with with a "3" in it for a launch. I don't think "Half-Life: Source" is gonna cut it.
Like 3 new hats?
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"Introducing the Samsung Galaxy Gamer, with SteamOS and Gesture Sense UI overlay" :P
Re:And the huddled masses sayeth to Lord Gaben... (Score:4, Funny)
You guys *really* need something with with a "3" in it for a launch.
Holy shit! Left3Dead! Hat Fortress 3! DOTA3! Portal 3! CounterStr... Nevermind, nobody wants yet another counterstrike.
Is it? (Score:2)
If you notice... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:If you notice... (Score:5, Interesting)
The icons appear to be...
"O" - A gaming OS
"[O ]" - A box running the gaming OS?
"O + O" - A gaming network?
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I wonder if the third icon is a "Cloud play" system similar to Gaikai and onLive.
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It would be useful if you educated yourself about the topic at hand before commenting on it(yes, I know, "You must be new here").
OnLive and Gaikai aren't multiplayer systems. Rather, you pay to play a game from a remote location, presumably on some powerful rack mounted hardware, which would stream the video to your client software. The keypresses from the client being equally streamed upwards to the servers.
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"O + O" - A gaming network?
My bet on the third icon (from the page);
Workshop
The creative energy of Steam users takes shape in the Workshop - your one-stop shop for the best add-ons available. Here you can create, discover, and download a nearly endless supply of top-quality user-created content.
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Actually, when I saw this, I thought:
"O" - Single player
"[O ]" - Multiplayer with remote, internet, co-players.
"[O + O]" - In-person multiplayer, console style.
Android for consoles? (Score:2)
Sounds like that's what they're going for- an "open" OS that can be used for any gaming device. It's a neat idea, but...
It will fail spectacularly. There is no money to be made on console hardware. Who is going to bother building a SteamOS device besides Valve? No one, because Valve is going to be making all the money.
Valve would've been smarter to go all-out, and just build a new proprietary console, but one that is supremely developer and consume friendly. Maybe that is what they are doing, but they are d
Re:Android for consoles? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's more, if they release this OS in conjunction with a hardware release, that makes the entire process I described above easy for someone with little to no technical knowledge. Developing their own hardware also should alleviate a lot of the notorious driver issues with any *nix distribution.
I think this could work. And more importantly I want this to work. The less money I'm forced to give Microsoft, the better.
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It will fail spectacularly. There is no money to be made on console hardware. Who is going to bother building a SteamOS device besides Valve? No one, because Valve is going to be making all the money.
I predict that you will see at least one or two companies selling small form factor PCs intended for the living room and with SteamOS pre-installed.
There are companies now selling PCs. Why wouldn't those companies sell those same PCs as "SteamBoxes"?
I want a SteamBox in my living room. I usually build my own
What will this mean for Steam on other distros? (Score:2)
Re:What will this mean for Steam on other distros? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's what this will mean: game developers will test their games on SteamOS and nothing else, making SteamOS the gold standard for Linux gaming. (In fact there will probably be a single "reference" SteamBox used for the development and testing.)
The distros will need to include compatible versions of all the libraries used in SteamOS, to get the games to run. Users will be able to file bugs that say "$GAME runs perfectly on SteamOS but does not run correctly on $DISTRO."
Since SteamOS is just Linux with a particular set of libraries installed, this is feasible. All the distros will have a clear target for which to aim.
Overall I think this is a win for gaming on Linux. The current situation is far too fragmented for Linux ports to be profitable for the game developers. SteamOS will defragment "Linux gaming" to a single platform.
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Gaming OS (Score:2)
Oh, I See (Score:2)
Linux is the future of gaming because Valve created their own version of Linux.
BTW, its not living room ready if I have to set up a big PC shoebox with liquid cooling to play the same content I get on a console.
Still waiting for the actual SteamBox, but apparently I now have to give Valve suggestions on who to design it.
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A modern console isn't that far removed from a PC shoebox with liquid cooling.
If anything, the shoebox would likely have the advantage of not cooking itself. The consumer mentality can be a double edged sword when it comes to electronics.
The main thing that keeps bog standard PC parts from being living room friendly is the fact that most of the defined form factors are too deep.
Contribute it To Mainline (Score:3)
I run Arch for a reason.
I might. Begrudgingly (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been wanting to stop dual booting for nearly two decades. The purists complain that locking you out of the OS (DRM) components is vehemently prohibited in the spirit of Open Source and basically creates the very problem OSS was designed to get away from.
On the other hand, software companies complain they need to lock you out in order to combat piracy and protect their digital assets. Without doing so, they have no way to protect their revenue stream.
I have never found a good solution to this problem. It's been a good 20 years, and nobody else has either so those of us who straddle the fence between purity and utility still dual boot.
I do not like the idea of SteamOS. I would really like the entire computer industry to be based on open formats, source and standards but that is a crack dream that will never happen. Something needs to give. Maybe this is it. I prefer to believe I trust Valve more than anyone else with something like this.
But which is it... (Score:2)
This is unclear now: is it just a GNU/Linux distro (like Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc.), or a vastly different OS that happens to use the Linux kernel (like Android and Sailfish)?
Secondary effects. (Score:5, Insightful)
This could have a lot of ripple effects.
1) Improved Wine support.
2) Better cross platform libraries/tools.
3) Linux distro optimized for gaming.
The interesting thing to consider is that Valve doesn't need to turn a profit right away. It's a private company and Gabe is looking at the long game here. He sees his reliance on Windows as a weakness and he intends to change that.
poetry (Score:5, Funny)
"Iterate in the living room"... I love marketing-speak.
Come to think of it, if I remember correctly, "iterate in the living room" is something my wife and I used to do before our daughter was born.
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Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Informative)
Odds are they don't make your games... so no.
Actually, they are already compatible or at least playable via the home streaming feature. "In-home Streaming
You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!"
How good that experience will be remains to be seen :)
Re:Compatibility (Score:4, Insightful)
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There is no semantic difference. You will be able to play your games using whatever inputs and outputs are plugged into your SteamOS system.
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How good that experience will be remains to be seen
Well, it is a practical way to overcome the relative dearth of Linux games on Steam. But it probably won't endear this device to the hardcore Linux crowd, who were no doubt hoping for the Steambox to be a boon for Linux games (especially in light of a lot of recent pro-Linux talk by Valve).
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Well, it is a practical way to overcome the relative dearth of Linux games on Steam. But it probably won't endear this device to the hardcore Linux crowd, who were no doubt hoping for the Steambox to be a boon for Linux games (especially in light of a lot of recent pro-Linux talk by Valve).
http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/ [steampowered.com]
With the help of the Indie Bundle and Steam's increasingly large library of games on Linux, it's been over a year since I bought a game that doesn't have a Linux native version, and I'm buying a fairly large number of games.
I have exactly 1 game I still play that actually requires Windows to play, and this would allow me to play that on a Linux system as well, as it's a Steam title.
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But won't it, eventually? It's a chicken-and-egg problem. Few native Linux games because of a virtually non-existent install-base, a virtually non-existent isntall base because there are few native Linux games.
This could be an end-run around that. If the streaming works well enough, it could help get a lot of SteamOS boxes in the wild, which builds the install base, making it a more attractive target for native development.
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How big is your house?
The delay over 1GB copper from office/closet to living room can't be that much.
Re:Compatibility (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think the idea is to get the game manufacturers to maintain WINE compatibility of their games. Some of the more adventurous may even recompile and link with WINE directly.
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What on earth are you talking about. All they would need to do is expose it as a public dynamic library.
That of course doesn't make it a good idea –they would have an absolute nightmare with compatibility, and it would be counter productive to getting devs to actually ship software for their system.
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Eve Online shipped a Wine wrapper for their Mac and Linux "ports" back in the day. They just shipped a compiled Wine (with the LGPL license and source) and a script that called Wine calling Eve Online's client.
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Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Informative)
"Hundreds of great games are already running natively on SteamOS. Watch for announcements in the coming weeks about all the AAA titles coming natively to SteamOS in 2014. Access the full Steam catalog of over nearly 3000 games and desktop software titles via in-home streaming."
"You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!"
Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Interesting)
IMO Origin is the best thing that ever happened to Steam: now I won't accidentally buy a game to discover I had been fooled by the ads and it was EA shovelware. Now if only the other "pile our own DRM on top of Steam's DRM" jerks would also leave!
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Well, they claim that you can stream games from a Windows or Mac system, so yes, sort of. Also new ports should probably appear.
Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Interesting)
2014: The Year of Linux on the Living Room!
Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Way earlier (Score:3)
Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Funny)
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This is amazing technology. All we need now is some graphics drivers and it could be a working console.
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> This is amazing technology. All we need now is some graphics drivers and it could be a working console.
You mean the drivers they are already focusing on for the desktop version of Steam on Linux? These are the same drivers that allow you to play BluRays on a machine that can barely load Windows.
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Short answer: no.
Long answer: they've already made most (but not all) of their own Steam games compatible. They have no such control over the rest of the games on Steam but they aim to encourage as many other devs as possible to do the same.
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I was looking forward to the Valve box, but all this talk of linux has put me off. The reason a wanted a valve box is to break free of the proprietary xbox sony console paradigm. A valve flavor of linux is more of the same.
So what you're saying is that you're annoyed they're using an open system because you were lokking forward to a new proprietary console OS to help you break free of the propietary console paradigm? **SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 1**
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Not a fan of multiple hardware vendors participating as it will result in inconsistent experience which can kill the platform. MS, Nintendo and Sony have all provided consistent experiences across each of their boxes. Steam OS needs to either provide the hardware, have strong partnership with select vendors or this will not work. Steam OS could push away consumers for the same reason Windows gaming has pushed away non techie players. Windows isn't dying as a gaming platform but it has seen a massive decreas