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About LinkBacksHere's another Steam Machine!
http://hexus.net/tech/items/systems/...rid-gaming-pc/
Here's another Steam Machine!
http://hexus.net/tech/items/systems/...rid-gaming-pc/
SteamOS isn't Windows though, one is open source the other is a proprietary system. So if as has happened with previous versions of Windows, Microsoft decide to change the way the system works there is nothing anyone can do about it, where as with an open source system people can modify the code, publish emulators, etc, etc.Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
And YMMV with who buys the most games, where as the console owners you know have fewer games than PC gamers, for me its the other way around one of my console owning friends has almost 4 shelves of games and on average buys 2-3 games a month.
Well no one can guaranteed 100% what is going to happen 6 years from now, but going on the history of consoles and PC's as that is the best predictor we have of future events.
If i wanted to play the original PC version of DOOM it would be a simple matter of either running it in a VM, installing DOS or any of the many other methods, if i wanted to play the PS1 version of DOOM on my new PS4 its not going to be possible.
Indeed they are, but as has already been mentioned SteamOS and Steam Machines are able to be modified, so if your X year old Steam machine cant run the latest game you just buy a new GPU, or upgrade the CPU, or anything else you want to.
Then why do you keep drawing comparisons between the two ?
Less power, unfortunately.
$499 and more power than a PS4, Time for me to look smug at all the people that told me you cant build a PC for the price of a consoleAnother one has not obviously read the thread from the beginning. Perhaps you can complain at Platinum for bringing it up and I was answering him. If you cannot bother to read my answer in context then that is your problem.
I know dozens of gamers and I would say easily the PC gamers I know(including myself and I have never bought a console being a PC fan),have much more games than the people with consoles. I know people with nearly 700 games in their Steam libraries. Most people I know have over 100 games alone on their Steam libraries.
You can deflect all you want,but the PC is not made for longevity as a platform. There are plenty of people running even their old consoles next to the latest ones to play older games. How many people are running older PCs or using VMs to game in?? Most gaming PCs are prebuilt and how many people running Windows even know(or care) what a VM is?? You underestimate the tech knowledge of most gamers. You really do.
Consoles are made for ease of use too. Plug and play gaming. PCs are not targeted towards this.
Take a PC from 2005 or 2006 and see how well it fairs with no maintenance or upgrades compared to a console.It has been the case for a very long time.
The same old tired arguments berating consoles were being pushed at the last generation and the one before that by PC gamers.
This has been the case for the last 15 years,and it is getting tiresome.
The problem is too many PC gamers seem to not understand the different distinctions in the gaming market. It is similar to PC people who never saw the point of tablets like the iPad.
Intel,AMD and Nvidia are there to make money and long upgrade cycles are not in their interest anyway.
Why do you think they are focusing more and more on tablets,thin laptops and the server market?? The former two have much shorter upgrade cycles than desktops and the latter has much higher profit margins. Even the high end graphics cards exist due to the professional markets. No professional markets and no GK110 or Hawaii chips.
Moreover,it seems people like Crossy get it.
The SteamBox is not a console competitor,it is a Windows PC competitor. It always has been. For some strange(and I suspect E-PEEN related reason),people have to hate on the new generation of consoles,when they are not even competing for the same type of gamers.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 06-01-2014 at 08:36 PM.
Wow so mature of you, so what your saying is one person compares a Steam machine to a console and then you rant on post after post about Platinum's throw away comment.
Yet for some reason you seem unable to grasp that not the whole world reflects your rather limited perspective.
$499 and more power than a PS4, Time for me to look smug at all the people that told me you cant build a PC for the price of a consoleAnother one has not obviously read the thread from the beginning. Perhaps you can complain at Platinum for bringing it up and I was answering him. If you cannot bother to read my answer in context then that is your problem.
I know dozens of gamers and I would say easily the PC gamers I know(including myself and I have never bought a console being a PC fan),have much more games than the people with consoles. I know people with nearly 700 games in their Steam libraries. Most people I know have over 100 games alone on their Steam libraries.
You can deflect all you want,but the PC is not made for longevity as a platform. There are plenty of people running even their old consoles next to the latest ones to play older games. How many people are running older PCs or using VMs to game in?? Most gaming PCs are prebuilt and how many people running Windows even know(or care) what a VM is?? You underestimate the tech knowledge of most gamers. You really do.
Consoles are made for ease of use too. Plug and play gaming. PCs are not targeted towards this.
Take a PC from 2005 or 2006 and see how well it fairs with no maintenance or upgrades compared to a console.It has been the case for a very long time.
The same old tired arguments berating consoles were being pushed at the last generation and the one before that by PC gamers.
This has been the case for the last 15 years,and it is getting tiresome.
The problem is too many PC gamers seem to not understand the different distinctions in the gaming market. It is similar to PC people who never saw the point of tablets like the iPad.
Intel,AMD and Nvidia are there to make money and long upgrade cycles are not in their interest anyway.
Why do you think they are focusing more and more on tablets,thin laptops and the server market?? The former two have much shorter upgrade cycles than desktops and the latter has much higher profit margins. Even the high end graphics cards exist due to the professional markets. No professional markets and no GK110 or Hawaii chips.
Moreover,it seems people like Crossy get it.
The SteamBox is not a console competitor,it is a Windows PC competitor. It always has been. For some strange(and I suspect E-PEEN related reason),people have to hate on the new generation of consoles,when they are not even competing for the same type of gamers.Yet when I point out why I answered,you start raging at me since you realise your the one who cannot read. Your the one is ranting repeatedly at what I am saying and trying to deflect hard,which makes you immature. All you get do is try and attack me just because your own crass mistake has been exposed.
Are you going to start complaining about Kalniel and shaithis who also said the $499 SteamBox from Cyberpowerpc is not really that great,or even the fact that people like Crossy do concede the point of whether the SteamBoxes will be tied into standard pc upgrade cycles.
That applies to you TBH as you appear to not understand how limited your own perspective is. If you think VMs are what most PC owners are running you will be in for a shock. Again the same type of limited perspective PC owners who berated the wave of tablets like the iPad/android equivalents as overpriced and underpowered.
However,the devices worked out of the box with little fiddling,ie,people need to think little about how they work or how they operate. This is because most people don't care or want to care.
This is why console and tablet gaming is very popular and is a large percentage of the gaming market.
However for a certain number of PC gamers/pc hardware enthusiasts that market does not exist or is berated under the term "casual" gaming on several forums.
They were the same lot who whinged when a game exec said the new consoles were more powerful than most PCs for gaming,which was true. Instead insecure PC enthusiasts read it at "most gaming PCs" and complained about it for ages.
It is another case of a PC enthusiast who cannot concede why other platforms will have merits or advantages over the PC. I have never had a console myself,as I am a PC fan through and though. However,unlike you I admit it and are open minded enough to realise the PC is not the be all and end all of gaming platforms and I have enjoyed games on many platforms.
For people like you its a war of one platform against the other. I have never seen it that way as they can co-exist,and serve different purposes. I don't need to validate my own purchasing decisions,so its an alien concept to me.
Edit!
I only agree to disagree with you TBH.
The complaints of PC owners against the console crowd has been going on for the last couple of generations. Yawn.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 06-01-2014 at 10:23 PM.
What bit didn't work? Any current Steam game that is Big Picture compatible should work fine with a controller, and most PC games also work fine with a controller.
Still very few linux games on Steam. Till it gets a bunch of stuff worth playing it really isn't worth my while.
At the moment it comes across like a Microsoft Surface - a product designed by managers to target a market niche currently held by others - others who have more apps and much better market presence and ecosystem.
Sometimes it's a bit chicken and egg though. Sony had the same issue when entering a market dominated by Sega and Nintendo. MS had the issue when it was dominated by Nintendo and Sony... Precedent is that the living room entertainment field can be open to new players.
And this is quite a cross-genre entry as well - part PC, part console. Will we see games developed specifically for SteamOS? If so it might go the way of Android stuff and have an upgrade cycle more akin to that than a traditional games console.
Going to disagree Cat ... I obviously don't get it if SteamBox is a Windows PC competitor. I'd assumed that the design meeting @ Valve went something like this:
Boss: we need a new market for Steam, Microsoft are trying to push this "Games For Windows" nonsense, so that could end up with us being forced out;
Minion: How about consoles - we could "do" a Steam console, then it's our baby and no need to rely on the good will, or otherwise, of Redmond;
Boss: cool, we'll need hardware and software. Won't that be expensive to develop?
Junior Minion 1: Hmm, how about we just use this Linux thing as our OS - it's already used in routers etc, there's a couple of Linux games already, and we can just download a copy. All we'd need to do is port Steam and a couple of our games to get the ball rolling. Best of all, we can strip out anything not needed, and make sure that we're in the driving seat.
Boss: Okay, that's software, what about hardware?
Junior Minion 2: Oh, that's easy, we'll just pick up a pile of dirt cheap PC bits - heck, Sony and Microsoft both now use some standard PC parts.
Boss: Okay, sounds good, let's do it.
Windows PC you can slap on anything. But a SteamBox seems to be limited to games, video and music (and perhaps a Lovefilm/Netflix in time) ... just like the PS3/4/XBox360/XBone. I'd assumed that what you'd got in the SteamBox was the "no fuss" nature of a console, but with the serviceability and upgrade-ability of a console. Unfortunately at a price point closer to a decent PC.
PS, the rest of your quote above - the bit I cut out to save space - totally agree.
I've got a smallish library and I think it's only the indy titles I've got that aren't controller compatible. Of the top of my head, all Saints Row, Far Cry, Far Cry Dragon, Assassin's Creed 2,3,4,..., Bioshock Infinite all work fine. Actually, Rocksmith (original and 2014) don't work with controller, since they need a guitar, but then again I don't think they're BP-compatible.
Career status: still enjoying my new career in DevOps, but it's keeping me busy...
I was talking about the rest of your previous post:Going to disagree Cat ... I obviously don't get it if SteamBox is a Windows PC competitor. I'd assumed that the design meeting @ Valve went something like this:
Boss: we need a new market for Steam, Microsoft are trying to push this "Games For Windows" nonsense, so that could end up with us being forced out;
Minion: How about consoles - we could "do" a Steam console, then it's our baby and no need to rely on the good will, or otherwise, of Redmond;
Boss: cool, we'll need hardware and software. Won't that be expensive to develop?
Junior Minion 1: Hmm, how about we just use this Linux thing as our OS - it's already used in routers etc, there's a couple of Linux games already, and we can just download a copy. All we'd need to do is port Steam and a couple of our games to get the ball rolling. Best of all, we can strip out anything not needed, and make sure that we're in the driving seat.
Boss: Okay, that's software, what about hardware?
Junior Minion 2: Oh, that's easy, we'll just pick up a pile of dirt cheap PC bits - heck, Sony and Microsoft both now use some standard PC parts.
Boss: Okay, sounds good, let's do it.
Windows PC you can slap on anything. But a SteamBox seems to be limited to games, video and music (and perhaps a Lovefilm/Netflix in time) ... just like the PS3/4/XBox360/XBone. I'd assumed that what you'd got in the SteamBox was the "no fuss" nature of a console, but with the serviceability and upgrade-ability of a console. Unfortunately at a price point closer to a decent PC.
PS, the rest of your quote above - the bit I cut out to save space - totally agree.
I should have made a better distinction. Oops!
Another factor is most people don't want desktops anyway,ie,having a console and a laptop is preferable for many to a desktop. I can see what Valve is trying to do,ie, push the gaming PC into a more home friendly form factor. However,the thing is I see it more targetted towards existing gaming PC owners,not console gamers.
It worries me if the SteamBox is being sold as a console replacement,since non-techy people might expect the same lifespan as a a console. Remember what happened when netbooks were sold by companies,as proper laptops instead of being a secondary PC?? Within a few years the whole market collapsed as people realised what limitations they had,and the ARM based tablets were the final blow.
Imagine if someone buys that $500 SteamBox and it cannot run Crysis4 well in 2 years time,and yet their mates two year old $1000 one is OKish. Another mate has a new $750 one which destroys the other ones in the game. For a non-techy person that,yes they can upgrade some parts,but that is more cost and hassle.
Remember,for many people upgrading their PC is a job done at PC shop or if they have a techy mate or something. However,things like CPU sockets don't last that long. The current socket 1150 based SteamBoxes will properly be replaced by a new socket one next year,meaning new chips will be hard to get in 2016,etc. You can go secondhand but again plenty of people don't like buying secondhand parts.
Even among my friends,the main reason many have stayed on the PC,is because me(and another mate)are knowledgeable enough to know what cheap hardware to get,and how to optimise settings well for certain games. If we were not around,I am not sure how many would still be doing much PC gaming. In fact I have seen quite a number of people I know move over to consoles from PCs,due to the convenience and longevity of using consoles. Its not because they are incapable of building a decent spec gaiming PC but its more the case they are really not interested in reading about hardware.
With a console bought today,every one of them will have the same performance,and the same consistent performance in 4 years time,6 years time or 8 years time. People don't need to think whether their hardware or software is up to date,or even need to muck around with the settings. All their mates will have the same gaming experience too.
That is the kind of market consoles are targetted towards IMHO,ie, those who just want a plug and play gaming machine with hardware which does not mucking around with for years. They do not want to be farting around with hardware and settings,since they have got better things to do.
Think of it has the easy bake cake of gaming.
The problem is that even if SteamOS reaches the same level of plug and play functionality as a console,the other issue is hardware. Valve would need to guarantee a minimum hardware life for the SteamBoxes,and for all games on the platform in that time period.
Regarding the SteamBox and why I consider it more a PC competitor is since there is noise that MS is attempting to push software distribution to the app store,since they can make a cut out of it. TBH,I think MS would be fined if they did it but its not suprising if they did try it on. Plus GN,did have a go at Windows 8 last year too. If he was having consoles in his sights he would be complaining about them,but instead he complained about Windows instead.
Moreover,how many console gamers even know about Steam as a whole beyond it being some PC games shop?? The Steam brand is far better known and Valve far better trusted among PC gamers. If anyone was going to try and take on Windows for gamers it would be Valve,as they have a whole lot of goodwill from PC gamers,NOT console gamers IMHO.
My main hope is that SteamOS will give MS a kick up the arse regarding Windows,as they have been far too complacent.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 06-01-2014 at 11:07 PM.
As far as I know you can install Windows on a SteamBox anyway, the SteamOS is just there to cut the price down a bit and (maybe) improve game performance
Whilst SteamOS is in natural competition with the consoles, this isn't just about providing "cheaper" hardware than a console (because it'll be nigh on impossible to compete on the same volumes. It's about providing the flexibility that PC gaming has enjoyed on a more accessable scale. As long as SteamOS delivers on it's goal of ease of use, I'm expecting an almost Apple-like UI, straight forward and practical, but without locking anyone down (beyond obviously needing to purchase games for SteamOS via your Steam account).
For skilled users, they'll be opportunity to dual-boot your Steam box, build your own machine, upgrade when you want. I really don't see the need to slate the innovation just because there are other options out there with their own advantages.
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This is bunny and friends. He is fed up waiting for everyone to help him out, and decided to help himself instead!
tbh, SteamOS is still very much an unknown. There's been lots of marketing fluff about it being designed for the living room, but last I heard they still hadn't got any media playback/streaming built in to it. It's meant to be for streaming steam games off your uber-gaming-PC, but partners are putting out high-end gaming configurations with SteamOS - so maybe it is meant to replace a gaming PC, except it can only play linx games natively, meaning you still need a decent Windows machine for big chunks of your library.
It's a solution without a problem and a problem without a solution. Until we find out more about the media and game streaming functions, and we find out how many Steam games will get ported to linux/SteamOS, we're arguing over vapour and assumptions. Maybe it's a console replacement. Maybe it's a PC replacement. Maybe it's something different that we'll all wonder how we did without in a few years. I'm sure time will tell; and that arguing on the internet won't
Not sure where to start, but IIRC it is you who has repeatedly spammed this thread with repeated walls of quotes, paranoid counter attacks on some perceived malice towards consoles and attacks on other forum members.
And my perspective is far from limited as unlike you i have enough sense to know not everyone has the same needs or wants from a gaming device, its why i said "it depends on how many games you buy as to what would work out cheaper." So far from your closed minded attacks on anyone who happens to disagree with you I'm willing to embrace the idea that other people may find one system better than another.
AFAIK the only mistake i made is engaging with a sociopath who is intent on starting a console vs PC war and spamming walls of quotes, so i wont be feeding into your paranoia anymore.
It seems a lot of people missed the memo that SteamOS was designed as an alternative to Windows Marketplace, as introduced in 8.0/8.1, because Gabe was afraid M$ was trying to muscle in on his marketplace. The Steam Machines are simply proof of concept - they are nothing more than PC's. You can make your own Steam Machine at home - just download the latest Beta and install. You might have to wait a bit to have an 'official' Steam controller, but you kind of have to do that anyway. All these 'partner' companies are doing is announcing that they'll sell you a pre-configured machine, probably at a 50% premium (or more like 250% if you buy the Alienware, er, Dell offering...)
SteamOS is nothing more than a custom GUI on top of Debian Linux - a crippled Gnome or KDE. No voodoo, other than to install it on an existing PC in dual boot mode, or in any configuration other than Intel/Nvidia.
People are too sensitive. If they aren't paying your rent/mortgage, electric, food, or keeping the other side of your bed warm, why do people get so bent over console vs PC? It's a video game...
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