darthbator

Return of the Steam Box!

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I still just want the controller more than anything else. DAY ONE PERCH (probably)

 

Steam Box, I'll buy/build for super cheap at some point for streaming, once I get my LIFE together.

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That's my guess. My complaint isn't that the boxes aren't good enough, it's that they seem too good. BAsically I want a cheap little box with no real hardware except a solid video decoder, bluetooth, and networking to handle streaming form the PC I already own, but would rather not keep in the middle of my living room.

 

My guess is that some of these boxes will just get low-end variants for that purpose. Looking at some of these that have a mobile Haswell i7 for Intel Iris Pro, they could easily just swap in a mobile i5 or i3 chip with Intel HD 4400 GPUs at probably half the cost and swap the HDD for a cheap 32GB or 64GB SSD to cut that cost as well. Similarly, any of the $500 boxes with a FM2 A6 will drop the dedicated Radeon R270 and just use the APU to shave almost $200 off the price.

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But you'd like it to be made out of black brushed aluminum with a pulsating blue LED tribal icon on it and a couple of ugly USB3 ports in the front?

Well obviously. What am I, an animal?

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But you'd like it to be made out of black brushed aluminum with a pulsating blue LED tribal icon on it and a couple of ugly USB3 ports in the front?

 

 

AND A SPOILER

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AND A SPOILER

 

pulsating blue LED tribal iconpulsating blue LED tribal iconpulsating blue LED tribal iconpulsating blue LED tribal iconpulsating blue LED tribal iconpulsating blue LED tribal iconpulsating blue LED tribal iconpulsating blue LED tribal icon

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Is it too much to expect purchasers to dual boot from these machines if they are looking for more functionality? Also, I'd bet Linux + Steam has a greater range of games than current consoles.

 

Whether people like it or not, the value of Steam OS (and the hardware) is that it's an additional choice for gamers. Valve is empowering users to DIY, buy, or upgrade hardware as they woud like to in a market that is more accomodating than console alternatives.

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Steam currently says there are 288 games that work on Linux, and 2467 total games in their database.  At a glance, all but a handful are from indie devs. 

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At first I was surprised that Valve was able to procure so many hardware partners, but then realized that they are PC makers anyway. What are they gonna do, NOT make a Steam Machine?

 

Linux ports are nice, but I want to see Linux exclusives. That would make me switch.

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I think what'll make you switch is next time you need to build a new PC and you're trying to figure out if you should spend $100+ on a Windows OEM key, you instead install Steam OS first as a dry run with the possibility of dual booting Windows later and maybe forget about ever spending the $100 to begin with. I mean, this scenario is much more likely when something like... 50% of PC games are also released on Linux and you may take longer to notice.

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That assumes you only use your PC for gaming and basic activities though. Lots of people rely on certain software besides just those (ie: I need Photoshop and Manga Studio to run on any PC I own).

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That assumes you only use your PC for gaming and basic activities though. Lots of people rely on certain software besides just those (ie: I need Photoshop and Manga Studio to run on any PC I own).

 

I think people that rely on non-gaming software for their computers are not the target audience of Steam (OS). It's not like the $500 Steam Machine will come prepacked with a Steam Controller and a Wacom drawing tablet.

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Honestly, at this point I'm mostly just interested in getting one of those bizarre controllers.

I might consider getting a Steam Machine if either a)I find myself needing a new gaming-only computer, or b)I find myself exceedingly wealthy and looking for things to spend money on.

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I liked the idea of the touchscreen, but the utility of it still escaped me much like the utility of the second screen on the DS (in about 75% of games, obviously excluding most Nintendo FP games) and the Logitech PC keyboards with the 300px X 100px LCD screens escaped me (is this a thing MMO players care about or something?). Plus, I can't imagine the touchscreen made the price/margins anything but prohibitive on the controller.

 

In other words, I can't be bothered that it's gone and I think the buttons will make the controller a lot more immediately appealing to regular gamers. Those touchpads are intimidating enough, let alone having far less buttons than a typical controller distributed in an unfamiliar setup around a weird touchscreen.

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So Valve have already redesigned its Steam Controller. The touch-screen is gone and the face buttons are in a more traditional place. I'm thankful for that, because those buttons looked very badly placed before.

 

Now all they need to do is swap the haptic pad and button locations and it's pretty much any old console controller with a gimmick?

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I thought the touchscreen allowed for mapable Fkeys and other customisable info and gubbins. Seems that removing it would jettison most of that, but maybe they've got plans for those clickable quadrants in the owl eyes.

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Do people (like, people that participate in these forums) actually map function keys? I've had like two or three keyboards with those things but I've never used them. I also know that those Naga mice have them, which seems slightly more intuitive than a strip of F-keys on the left side of my keyboard away from the home keys I naturally place my hands on.

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I have for some games.  Most of the time if the game itself lets me rebind keys I'll use that, but if not then being able to remap keys myself is useful.  One particular example I can think of it Torchlight.  You can assign abilities to the hotbar which is tied to the number keys.  Since I'm not used to hitting 7-0 with my left hand, I find it very convenient to be able to just assign the numbers to keys that were close together.  Most of my gaming these days is done with a gaming keypad instead of a full keyboard though.  I reassign keys on that thing all the time.

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Oddly enough, I remap keys on my keyboard and mouse for productive uses WAY more than I do for games.  I've got multiple macros that get used for work all the time, and some oddball commands tied to the extra buttons on my mouse. 

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I have for some games.  Most of the time if the game itself lets me rebind keys I'll use that, but if not then being able to remap keys myself is useful.  One particular example I can think of it Torchlight.  You can assign abilities to the hotbar which is tied to the number keys.  Since I'm not used to hitting 7-0 with my left hand, I find it very convenient to be able to just assign the numbers to keys that were close together.  Most of my gaming these days is done with a gaming keypad instead of a full keyboard though.  I reassign keys on that thing all the time.

 

Ah, yeah. I imagine that not only MMOs, but also ARPGs with those hotbars could benefit from that. A gaming keypad seems much more friendly to use function keys on because that's it's primary purpose, I could actually see myself using one of those Razer Nostromos or something. But still, I don't know how the hotbar utility would map to the original Steam controller because the touchscreen only essentially had 4 easily accessible keys (although I guess you could potentially cycle through F-keys with swipes or something, though it seems unnatural).

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Function keys are probably better for officer workers more than gamers, as you can handily bind email responses to all your colleagues and customers to each key.

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I prefer the new layout. It looks more Spelunky-friendly. 

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Ah, yeah. I imagine that not only MMOs, but also ARPGs with those hotbars could benefit from that. A gaming keypad seems much more friendly to use function keys on because that's it's primary purpose, I could actually see myself using one of those Razer Nostromos or something. But still, I don't know how the hotbar utility would map to the original Steam controller because the touchscreen only essentially had 4 easily accessible keys (although I guess you could potentially cycle through F-keys with swipes or something, though it seems unnatural).

 

The Nostromo is actually what I'm currently using.  I like it a lot.  The one complaint I have is that it needs another row of keys, something the newer Orbweaver model has.

 

As for the controller redesign, I've said it many times in this thread but I generally dislike having a ton of face buttons.  I was hoping the touchscreen would help that some.  Oh well.

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