Valve Announces "Steam Machines"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Valve Announces "Steam Machines"

After Valve announced SteamOS on Monday as their highly-optimized Linux distribution for gaming, today they announced the first "Steam Machine", a.k.a. their SteamOS-powered console for the living room...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTQ2ODU

[not.sure]

Wow. Again, no actual info on anything.
Starting to sound like we'd have to rename Vapourware to "Steamware".

[johnc]

meh

too much hype, not enough product

[Temlar]

Well, at least we know there will be prototype this year.

[AJSB]

Actually there is lots of info there ...like to be able to change OS, use standard software (the reference to even control robots implies it), OS can be downloaded (including the SOURCE CODE...but of course that doesn't include the critical parts of Steam client ) and we can make our own SteamOs boxes....it also answers that no matter seems optimized for gamepads, we can also use mouse+keyboard for playing games.

The question that it's not answered and i would love to know is if SteamOS only be available to download after 1st shipping Steambox model starts to ship or if its available right at same time than these 300 prototypes ship so any one outside this 300 prototypes can start to checkout this SteamOS and/or make our own SteamBoxes "right now", i.e. still this year.

[Serge]

Wow. Again, no actual info on anything.
Starting to sound like we'd have to rename Vapourware to "Steamware".

I like your joke. Steam really is water vapor, so it definitely fits.

But on a more serious note, I think it is interesting how much excitement Linux users have exhibited in response to these announcements. Usually we treat announcements not accompanied by substance (code, specs, etc.) as publicity stunts. I think our willingness to give Valve a pass shows how great our hopes are for what Valve is promising to do..

[cbgoding]

Yeah, we can usually count on valve to finish projects once they've started them, and not just pretend that the project doesn't exist, so calling this "vaporware" is very unfair.

But in all seriousness, this is an exciting time to be a Linux fanboy, and I'll be sitting on the sidelines with popcorn at the ready.

[Kernelcoffee]

Beyond the Steambox

What's interrest me here, is not really the Steambox it self.
But through the creation of the "Steam Machine" label, it brings a reference platform for a Linux Gaming Machine, so that Game Publishers can now have a clear target for Linux (and not x distributions) and can bring real support for it (just like a XBox / PS / Wii / Window)
Also SteamOS is going to be shipped with the machines (and not windows) so it can be widespread amonst the mere mortals who don't know how to install Linux on their computers, so manufacturers would be more interrested in drivers for Linux, so the whole Linux world could benifit (SteamOS is after all a Linux with steam on top of it)

[johnc]

If Friday's announcement doesn't include a game I'm going to yawn at the whole week's events.

So far we haven't learned anything that hasn't already been known for the past year.

[Pajn]

So now we know that the third announcement is a controller

Am I going to be using a mouse and a keyboard in the living-room?
If you want. But Steam and SteamOS work well with gamepads, too. Stay tuned, though - we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input.