Return of the Steam Box!

[Sno]

Damnnnnn HL3 exclusive on the steam box. I would have to buy one, no if's or but's a guaranteed sale. wow if they did that DAYUMMM

Or more generally, Linux exclusive? If they're serious about moving PC gaming away from Windows, that is the kind of news bomb that could coerce movement out of gamers.

I definitely remember how much people hated Steam when it was new, i was in that crowd too. People thought Steam was the end of PC gaming! (In fact, a lot of the same arguments Gabe is making against Windows 8, funny that.) Half-Life 2 though, i couldn't ignore it, so i made that Steam account.

[I_smell]

That was the first thing i said when (i think) Shaun said in this weeks podcast 'hah! Piston, pissed-on...'

And comparitively 'So far Wii and Pissed-On, what next, the WiiU fails so Nintendo strain-out their hip 8th console: UrN8

Sometimes i love being British...

They did give the Wii U an English name, they put a U in it.

yessssss sweet cultural dialect jokes, heh heh hehhhhh!

[melmer]

25 people laid off from valve

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/186592/Several_out_of_work_as_Valve_makes_large_decisions_about_its_future.php#.URveDREgGK0

So does this mean valve are not going to make any hardware and just leave it up to other companies to create steam boxes?

[Luftmensch]

25 people laid off from valve

http://www.gamasutra...hp#.URveDREgGK0

So does this mean valve are not going to make any hardware and just leave it up to other companies to create steam boxes?

I hope this isn't at all ominous, but it does make me think about Gabe's comments, "oh, we don't do quarterly financial reports! We only do them annually like we're required to by law for tax purposes!" As we approach tax day, I'm curious if there's a connection.

[Lu]

I don't know, but can I just say that the amount of unfounded assumptions on the 'why' is irritating the shit out of me? GOD, so irritating.

[Luftmensch]

I don't like lame speculation that much either really, but it does amuse me how close this is to all his talks saying "we have the best per-employee profitability in the industry!"

Noted in the comments on Gamasutra, Jeri Ellsworth was fired.

[Chris]

I hope this isn't at all ominous, but it does make me think about Gabe's comments, "oh, we don't do quarterly financial reports! We only do them annually like we're required to by law for tax purposes!" As we approach tax day, I'm curious if there's a connection.

I doubt it. Tax day itself is just when individuals have to pay taxes (or be refunded), but it doesn't signify the end of a company's fiscal year or anything like that. April 15 corresponds to the year ending the previous December 31, not a year ending April 15 itself.

[Luftmensch]

Oh I don't think for a second that's actually the cause, but I like the fiction of a bumbling Gaben doing a double take while he files his taxes, running into the office, pointing at the first couple dozen people he can find, and firing them on the spot.

[melmer]

new steam box info incoming

http://www.polygon.com/2013/9/16/4737860/linux-future-of-gaming-gabe-newell

 

Maybe tomorrow? Pat Garrett owner of VG247 tweeted this morning big news coming tomorrow... although that could relate to anything. What else could it b3?

[Lu]

And so it begins... Again.

 

Maybe.

 

I'm burning with curiosity. Many a nights that I've been speculating with the 'Blix as to what they may or may not be up to. I'mHreadyLfor3some Valve news!

[Thrik]

The news is that Gabe got to internal revision three of the Steam Box and realised that it's simply impossible to continue.

[JonCole]

What is true now and wasn't around the time of the original Steam Box rumor is that Intel's has a new chipset, Haswell, with HD 5200 integrated graphics called "Iris Pro". It's really a quite significant step over Intel 3000/4000 graphics from Sandy/Ivy Bridge, delivering 720p medium/high gaming on relatively baseline games like Tomb Raider and Grid 2. It's basically on par with Nvidia's 650M GPU, which is basically ridiculous for a chip specifically designed for high-end laptops like the MBP. Plus, it shares a <50W TDP with the Haswell chip, meaning the power usage (especially idle) is way lower than discrete or even integrated competitors.

 

The thing that made me most incredulous about initial rumors is that it'd be able to play anything more significant than 5-year old AAA games and 2D games. With Haswell/Iris Pro, Steam Box seems much closer to reality. Here's some reading on Iris Pro, if you're interested - http://www.anandtech.com/show/6993/intel-iris-pro-5200-graphics-review-core-i74950hq-tested

[osmosisch]

Interesting stuff, Joncole, thanks.

[darthbator]

I'm interested to see if they'll price this like a computer or if they'll price it to compete directly with the other consoles...

[BigJKO]

This is very exciting! Doubly so if they used those onboard graphics you mention Joncole. I wonder how many people are willing to jump into this if it's going to be Linux-based. On the one hand it might be exactly what's needed to push devs into doing more Linux releases. But on the other hand it loses out on exactly what could've made a SteamBox so immediately appealing: A Humongous Launch Library. (although, Linux gaming is much better now a days, what with Humble Bundles and whatnot)

 

As for pricing, didn't Gabe mention that he wanted to put out two or three seperate models? One lower spec, something closer to the $100 tv boxes (Roku, Apple TV, etc.) and then a higher spec, PC priced for the "HARDCORE" gamer. And maybe a console-priced one in the middle.

 

I'd totally buy a $100 SteamBox to play indie games.

[Flynn]

I can't see Intel letting those chips go for cheap enough for a couple of years.  Those are for high end ultralight laptops.  

 

I wouldn't be shocked to see an AMD Steam Box instead, perhaps even with unified memory like the consoles.

[stewmull]

Do you think that they will take a loss on these things or do a nintendo where they make profit on every unit?

[JonCole]

I can't see Intel letting those chips go for cheap enough for a couple of years.  Those are for high end ultralight laptops.  

 

I wouldn't be shocked to see an AMD Steam Box instead, perhaps even with unified memory like the consoles.

 

You're definitely right, these are not cheap components. I was just trying to point out that they didn't exist at the advent of Steam Box rumors, and they exist now. AMD Steam Box is certainly likely, although the specs couldn't imitate consoles so closely otherwise the higher min. specs of PC games due to lack of optimization could really bite the Steam Box in the ass. That said, by all means I'd love to see AMD stuff a crapload of stream processors into a small die and get really solid graphics in a small package, but Iris Pro is already bundled up and ready to go which is why it seems more immediately safe for a product such as this. In any case, I can't really see something like this being "cheap" or ~$500 while still being able to play recent games.

[darthbator]

There are actually a few companies out there that provide API compatibility layers to get Direct X games running under Linux. I played WoW using cedega before I finally built another windows gaming rig about 3-4 years back. It worked well enough. As far as rendering goes OpenGL pretty much has functional parity with directX it's just a matter of making sure all the correct functions are called. 

 

http://transgaming.com/

 

It's possible that valve is working with someone like transgaming or the wine foundation in order to "stealth port" a bunch of the existing games on steam. All they would need to do is compatibility testing under cedega/wine to make sure the software is functional. 

[melmer]

This should be what the steam box do!

 

[Roderick]

Dutch pride! Really cool idea too, very gamey. It's like Tetris, or outfitting a spaceship with the right module.

[Justin Leego]

It's like if Rymdkapsel was a telephone

[Nappi]

Or one of those annoying inventory systems where you can never quite fit all the equipment that you need.

[Frenetic Pony]

This should be what the steam box do!

 

 

Also known as "bullshit". Or "an engineering nightmare." or rather "No battery life." or, I could go on. Phones are highly integrated peices of technology, especially to get them so power efficient and small.

 

Regardless, Steambox is an interesting concept. Do they go for "yearly upgrades" and ditch ultra native optimization, or the opposite? How much do they sell it for? One of the most interesting things I can think of with it is open software. Want to stream to twitch, to youtube directly, to that new whatever? You get the app and you're done, the hardware and software could be even more open than the PS4.

 

I just wonder what controller they're doing. Hopefully not a dualshock like gamepad.

[osmosisch]

Or one of those annoying inventory systems where you can never quite fit all the equipment that you need.

Just one of many, many problems with this idea.