Rumors Arise Over State Of Steam Machines & SteamOS

[geearf]

Microsoft is famous for infighting and different department having different goals. The Windows team might want to get into the living room, if not for anything else to avoid Linux gets there, and they probably don't care what the X-Box team thinks.

It goes even deeper than that, at least it used to be under Ballmer:
A VP gets a bonus if he gets something done, even if that somethings is detrimental to another VP (who then won't get his bonus). That way you have awesome, non-technical, non-customer-oriented inside "wars" where the lower guys have to juggle with the weird requests.

[Xaero_Vincent]

There's a lot of discussion about the state of Steam Machines on the Steam Universe forums.

Many people, including myself, don't see them taking off.

Linux and therefore SteamOS currently has native access to 20% of Steam's game library--875 games or so but a good majority of them are Indie games. Valve hopes to use In-Home Streaming to fill the gap for all the missing games on Linux. For us Linux users on Phoronix, 875 games is a fantastic accomplishment to be happy about and we would also know how to hack SteamOS to put Wine / PlayOnLinux + Windows Steam, UPlay and Orgin clients on SteamOS and play almost all Windows games that at least minimally support DirectX 9 and then use In-Home Streaming for the DirectX 10/11-only games that Wine doesn't yet support.

However for the average user who expects to pick up their controller and go without any extra effort, they will see that Steam Console is largely just filled with Indie games and very few AAA titles compared to Windows, Playstation and Xbox, plus no support for Uplay and Orgin. So if they want to play Call of Duty or Farcry, they won't know of any other way besides streaming it from a gaming PC in their home. The problem is nobody wants to spend $400 on a game console where they would need to have some of their games streamed from another PC; $150-200 might be okay for streaming but not $400 and up.

The other issue is that SteamOS also currently lacks a rich entertainment hub. Look at Playstation and Xbox, they all have apps for Hulu Plus, Netflix, Pandora, Crackle, etc. and a store where movies and TV shows can be purchased or rented. This is something console owners also expect these days. While desktop Linux may support many of these, it all has to be integrated into Steam Big Picture Mode for a seamless experience and currently it's not.

I personally think Steam Machines with Windows also won't be a smashing success either but will have some units sold. Unlike the traditional consoles, many PC games aren't optimized for the livingroom experience and don't support game controllers effectively. I think SteamOS will have "wasd" controller keyboard emulation but that may not be enough enough and so a wireless keyboard and mouse may also be necessary for effective gameplay of these games and many gamers may not want to use a keyboard and mouse in their livingroom.

[nanonyme]

Microsoft is famous for infighting and different department having different goals. The Windows team might want to get into the living room, if not for anything else to avoid Linux gets there, and they probably don't care what the X-Box team thinks.

My guess is next Xbox will end up running a crippled version of Windows 10 that you can't use as desktop machine and looks like a console

[OneTimeShot]

The Windows team ... probably don't care what the X-Box team thinks.

Maybe - but I think that this is more likely to result in the next Xbox being a PC running a locked-down version of Windows. I just don't see Microsoft wanting to lose the 20% (or whatever) cut that they can get from Windows Store sales.

It's a simple and logical step to offer a "[runs on/only runs on] Xbox hardware" drop-down for submissions to the Windows Store...

[crispy]

Its a pretty bad business case for Valve to develop Steam for Linux and SteamOS if they don't also take advantage that now they can also make some easy cash on selling some hardware...

[johnc]

Technically the Origin PC CEO guy said that the term "Steam Machines" is dead. And instead we're going to call them Living Room PCs, which, IMO, I think is ridiculous. "Heyyyy maan, did you get the latest Living Room PC?"

This is the guy's business, so I can see how he would want to distort the narrative a bit to best serve his business.

All that said, I'm not too confident about Valve's Steam Universe plans, mostly because they seem to have fallen off the map. There have been a lot of changes to the Steam client, that's definitely true. But SteamOS is basically getting upstream updates only, and I haven't heard any rumors about new games, and the controller is rapidly turning into an Xbox clone. So it does seem like, if anything, these are going to be just Windows PCs from Alienware, etc. and the good stuff will be in the Steam client.

We'll find out at GDC.

[profoundWHALE]

My guess is next Xbox will end up running a crippled version of Windows 10 that you can't use as desktop machine and looks like a console

Actually, you're pretty much spot on.

[somini]

My guess is next Xbox will end up running a crippled version of Windows 10 that you can't use as desktop machine and looks like a console

This is already the case since the first (Direct)XBox

[duby229]

Its a pretty bad business case for Valve to develop Steam for Linux and SteamOS if they don't also take advantage that now they can also make some easy cash on selling some hardware...

Selling hardware doesn't make money. Actually the opposite is true, selling hardware costs money. I don't think any console vendor makes any money on its hardware. I know for a fact both MS and Sony lose billions. Not sure about Nintendo. Sega died because of it.

[hajj_3]

I don't think valve has ever addressed what the delay has been. We know that several of their games weren't released by the time the steam box was supposed to release such as counterstrike:go. I don't know whether it is because their upcoming games aren't ready to be released or if it is because intel and amd's gpu drivers aren't good enough yet. Shame valve won't be honest and tell us the reason why the project has been delayed for so long.