News - Apple the biggest threat to Steam Box success says Gabe Newell

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PC industry needs to “get its act together” before Apple moves on the living room.

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The biggest threat to Steam Box for me isn't Apple, it's the nature of Steam. I am not forking out a shedload of cash on content, be it games or anything else, where being able to access it depends on the on-going co-operation of a foreign company on the net .... or a home-grown one for that matter.

I know I'm in a minority, but while Steam works the way it does (and I'm not expecting any change) they won't get business from me. That includes buying games, and it sure as hell includes buying a $500 device for the lounge.

So .... as I don't see Apple being any better, this fight will pass me by entirely.

I'm very unconvinced by Mr Newell's arguments, and (cynic mode on) have a suspicion that Apple was mentioned purely to get some headline copy.

Way I - a mere consumer - see it, we've got three markets here:
1. The l33t overclocked-to-the-max PC gamer, either on RTS or FSP titles.
2. The casual gamer - Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Cut The Rope, etc
3. Consoles - ideal for those who want a fuss free blast, but something more than the casual gamer.

Now Nintendo is king of the #2 part - but they're hemorrhaging share to the #3 (consoles) and - more importantly - tablets and smartphones. And yes, Apple IS doing real well here with iPod Touch, iPhone and iPads.

But there's no way that an Apple product is going to go for the #1 hard-core crowd, sorry that's a Windows only club. And unless Apple have got a vastly improved Apple TV waiting in the wings then I can't see them causing the console kings (Microsoft/Sony) any loss of sleep.

Conclusion being that Apple are only a threat to the casual living room gamer - they've zero chance of drawing in the CoD, MoH, GranTurismo, Forza crowd.

And if his Steam box is purely for those casual games, then yes, Apple IS a threat. I got the impression though that it was pitched more as an alternative to the XBox/PS3. If the SB is a casual only/Wii alternative then it's doomed - why should I spend $450 for an SB, when I can do most of that (and more) on a cheaper tablet?

Plus his comment about PC gamers being an island to themselves isn't necessarily true since I thought the game publishers and Microsoft were trying to draw PC gamers into XBL too?

Apple? Really? I have a fair amount of Apple kit, including an AppleTV which is jailbroken and running Plex, and a MacMini which acts as a HTPC and transcoder for the AppleTV.

As far as I am can see the Steam Box is not aiming at anything like the same market. They're looking at competing with gaming consoles, with maybe a little bit of HTPC. Apple does not have anything in that space at all.

I find Steam is it's own enemy at times. For instance, I buy 2 games on Steam, one is Lego Harry Potter and the other is Modern Warfare. I can only play one at a time, which in my opinion is completely pointless, the Lego game is for my daughter, if I physically bought the disc it would be installed on her computer while I would be playing Modern Warfare on mine.

I can completely understand the argument about playing the same game at the same time, obviously its reasonable that you cannot play the same game if you have only bought one copy but you should be allowed to play different games under the same account name, I am pretty sure that Steam could detect it is running on the same subnet for instance

It's not a complete solution, but for some scenarios you could try running Steam in offline mode while playing games. It won't necessarily work of the game uses additional DRM like some versions of SecuROM, or phone-home for DLC ownership checking (didn't realise Mass Effect 2 does this until I was without broadband for a while and tried to play).

I can't see this happening either. Apple are known for having huge profit margins on their products so unless they backtrack on that there is no way they will get into the console market where the hardware is sold near cost or even at a loss.
Even Apple fans would baulk at paying £600 (min) for a console. Most Apple owners only own an Iphone cos they got it subsidised on a contract. If they had to pay the full ask there would be a lot less of them about (I realise the same is true for other phones but Apple is by far the most expensive).
MS sunk a frightening amount of money into Xbox to make it work. Sony and Nintendo have been at it for years. I just can't imagine Apple taking a risk like that, even with the massive cash reserves they have. Although few people predicted their entry into smartphones either so what do I know...

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Originally Posted by Jonj1611

I find Steam is it's own enemy at times. For instance, I buy 2 games on Steam, one is Lego Harry Potter and the other is Modern Warfare. I can only play one at a time, which in my opinion is completely pointless, the Lego game is for my daughter, if I physically bought the disc it would be installed on her computer while I would be playing Modern Warfare on mine.

I can completely understand the argument about playing the same game at the same time, obviously its reasonable that you cannot play the same game if you have only bought one copy but you should be allowed to play different games under the same account name, I am pretty sure that Steam could detect it is running on the same subnet for instance

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This isn't an issue I've had to deal with but couldn't you create another account for her and gift the game to that account?

Apple? Mac Mini? LOL.

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Originally Posted by george1979

This isn't an issue I've had to deal with but couldn't you create another account for her and gift the game to that account?

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It's not quite that straight forward, their are some games I would also like to play, bejewelled 3 for instance, its not really that, its the principle, if Steam really want to expand and great systems like they want to, then whats seriously going to damage sales is a system where you can only play one game at a time, for instance, my sons friends come over, they jump on the Steam system in the lounge(I don't have one by the way lol) to play Need For Speed, just to find I am playing Company Of Heroes upstairs. One more reason to keep playing the Xbox.

Pissed on... lol

Why stop at mostly crap when you can go fully crap with a Rapberry Pi.

Small is a stupid direction to take PC gaming. A Steam branded Mini ITX PC with a choice of GPUs would be a big improvement.

If the way this is actually supposed to be used is having it sit in your living room, I see no need for this sort of form factor. Just get something bigger for the same price and you have a much powerful machine... unless you are REALLY hurting on space.

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Originally Posted by ed^chigliak

Pissed on... lol Why stop at mostly crap when you can go fully crap with a Rapberry Pi. Small is a stupid direction to take PC gaming. A Steam branded Mini ITX PC with a choice of GPUs would be a big improvement.

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Originally Posted by zap117

If the way this is actually supposed to be used is having it sit in your living room, I see no need for this sort of form factor. Just get something bigger for the same price and you have a much powerful machine... unless you are REALLY hurting on space.

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I'm with you two on this - look at the current market and it's pretty obvious that folks are quite happy to have larger units.

Personally if I was spec'ing a box I'd go uATX - since there's a shed load of pretty decent components available for that form factor. For example, Silverstone Milo ML03 case for less than £50. Whereas if you've got a fancy-schmanzy custom case like the one shown then that's expensive. Then again isn't this symptomatic of the "smaller is better" fashion at the moment, with thinner and thinner tablets and phones being de rigeur?

Only thing I can think in favour of the box shown as the SteamBox is perhaps you could VESA mount it to the back of the TV and hide it away. As it stands if the SteamPC looks like being a go-er, and the OS is available (even as a purchase), then I think I'll be building my own box - nice power efficient cpu, plenty of memory, decent video and SSD based.

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Originally Posted by Jonj1611

I find Steam is it's own enemy at times. For instance, I buy 2 games on Steam, one is Lego Harry Potter and the other is Modern Warfare. I can only play one at a time, which in my opinion is completely pointless, the Lego game is for my daughter, if I physically bought the disc it would be installed on her computer while I would be playing Modern Warfare on mine.

I can completely understand the argument about playing the same game at the same time, obviously its reasonable that you cannot play the same game if you have only bought one copy but you should be allowed to play different games under the same account name, I am pretty sure that Steam could detect it is running on the same subnet for instance

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Offline mode should help, I've got a 2nd PC (an Acer small form factor job, which won't actually run anything decent anyway) with steam installed on which I can run bejewelled or any of the hidden item games the kids like to run without impacting my gaming on my main PC.

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Originally Posted by Jonj1611

I find Steam is it's own enemy at times. For instance, I buy 2 games on Steam, one is Lego Harry Potter and the other is Modern Warfare. I can only play one at a time, which in my opinion is completely pointless, the Lego game is for my daughter, if I physically bought the disc it would be installed on her computer while I would be playing Modern Warfare on mine.

I can completely understand the argument about playing the same game at the same time, obviously its reasonable that you cannot play the same game if you have only bought one copy but you should be allowed to play different games under the same account name, I am pretty sure that Steam could detect it is running on the same subnet for instance

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Just create another account and transfer the games (as a gift) for your daughter. Simple.

Am I missing something totally obvious?

I'm already playing my pc games on the big screen, why the need for another box of tricks.
A 50" panasonic plasma connected via hdmi....... Absolutely fantastic!!!

I also prefer to buy games with packaging & won't be purchasing via steam anytime soon.