Valve Announces "Steam Machines"

[tomtomme]

MS and Sony sell their boxes at a massive loss. There's no way a Steam Machine is going to compete on price.

Don?t guess here, there are facts available: (in german... sorry)
http://www.golem.de/news/playstation-4-dank-guenstiger-bauteile-nur-60-dollar-verlust-pro-konsole-1309-101716.html

in short:
- MS sells it with a win of unknown height
- Sony at a loss of about 60$
- sony bases its console on FreeBSD (thats a Unix, similar to linux)
- MS bases its console on the windows kernel + a new xbox kernel + hypervisor

so both and valve should have similar developement costs for the operating systems. it will come down to the hardware. valve may subsidise it as sony or sell it at a higher price as MS. we?ll see

[b15hop]

Controller & Big picture

Damn it... I don't have a controller. :S

I have everything else though...

Well it's pretty obvious this machine is using nVidia now. So the question is it tegra or real gpu power like GeForce.

[AJSB]

OK, it uses a Nvidia GPU....i was thinking a kind of APU from AMD but i guess not.
I wonder how will be the price tag of the Nvidia part for Valve SB and how that will influence the total price of the SB.

OTOH, this is not a total surprise....we all know that best blob is from Nvidia and after Nvidia got kicked in the nuts by M$ and Sony for their nextgen consoles, Nvidia was EXTREMELY motivated to not loose the nextgen consoles altogether so their only option was Valve.

This goes in line with suddenly Nvidia started to publish non-NDA stuff for their GPUs....they also seemed to help a lot Valve with the gamepad....wonder who will make the actual gamepad hardware.

...and that part about Nvidia "collaboration makes sense as both companies strongly believe in the importance of open-platform innovation" , i LOL'ed

I guess we have to thank Valve to make Nvidia see the light...Valve at least found a better argument than a "FU"

[ZeroPointEnergy]

If
o = SteamOS
[o ] = Steam Machines with SteamOS

what is
o+o = SteamOS + ?

I don't think they announce game controllers, they already announced them, sort of. The symbols really suggest some kind of software. The one thing Gabe Newell talked about was how they can support developers in bringing games faster to Linux. What if the third part is something like a complete game engine + support tools with Linux support under an open source licence like the LGPL that would allow for commercial games? It would make total sense.

[b15hop]

OK, it uses a Nvidia GPU....i was thinking a kind of APU from AMD but i guess not.
I wonder how will be the price tag of the Nvidia part for Valve SB and how that will influence the total price of the SB.

OTOH, this is not a total surprise....we all know that best blob is from Nvidia and after Nvidia got kicked in the nuts by M$ and Sony for their nextgen consoles, Nvidia was EXTREMELY motivated to not loose the nextgen consoles altogether so their only option was Valve.

This goes in line with suddenly Nvidia started to publish non-NDA stuff for their GPUs....they also seemed to help a lot Valve with the gamepad....wonder who will make the actual gamepad hardware.

...and that part about Nvidia "collaboration makes sense as both companies strongly believe in the importance of open-platform innovation" , i LOL'ed

I guess we have to thank Valve to make Nvidia see the light...Valve at least found a better argument than a "FU"

You mean when Linus said FU nvidia?

If
o = SteamOS
[o ] = Steam Machines with SteamOS

what is
o+o = SteamOS + ?

I don't think they announce game controllers, they already announced them, sort of. The symbols really suggest some kind of software. The one thing Gabe Newell talked about was how they can support developers in bringing games faster to Linux. What if the third part is something like a complete game engine + support tools with Linux support under an open source licence like the LGPL that would allow for commercial games? It would make total sense.

Sorry I was referring to the steam achievements. I have 4 out of 5 and need a Logitech F710 controller to run the game in big picture mode to get the last achievement. Then I would be eligable to one of these steam machines. More then likely I'll install steam OS on one of my machines anyway, just to give it a test run.

[AJSB]

Yes, i was referring to Linus saying "FU" to Nvidia

[sarmad]

Yes, i was referring to Linus saying "FU" to Nvidia

Am I the only one who thinks Linus is very arrogant?

[johnc]

OK, it uses a Nvidia GPU....i was thinking a kind of APU from AMD but i guess not.
I wonder how will be the price tag of the Nvidia part for Valve SB and how that will influence the total price of the SB.

OTOH, this is not a total surprise....we all know that best blob is from Nvidia and after Nvidia got kicked in the nuts by M$ and Sony for their nextgen consoles, Nvidia was EXTREMELY motivated to not loose the nextgen consoles altogether so their only option was Valve.

This goes in line with suddenly Nvidia started to publish non-NDA stuff for their GPUs....they also seemed to help a lot Valve with the gamepad....wonder who will make the actual gamepad hardware.

...and that part about Nvidia "collaboration makes sense as both companies strongly believe in the importance of open-platform innovation" , i LOL'ed

I guess we have to thank Valve to make Nvidia see the light...Valve at least found a better argument than a "FU"

It doesn't sound like it's going to be an NVIDIA exclusive. Valve made it sound more like they're going to have a whole bunch of different stuff.

[smitty3268]

Am I the only one who thinks Linus is very arrogant?

Of course he's arrogant. Nobody gets to create a project the size of linux without that kind of personality (or a ton of money).

[Serge]

No, but the price for PS4 and XB1 should also cover the investments MS and Sony make on their OSes, whereas Steam is picking up a free OS. Also, the use of commodity hardware should help reduce the price.

Other posters have engaged your points regarding the OS already, so I won't rehash anything there. However, in regards to hardware, I think you overestimate the effect of using commodity hardware will have. I assume the financial advantage of commodity hardware is in the economy of scale that comes from its popularity. That, however, overlooks the fact that PS4 and XB1 benefit from massive economies of scale of their own. In fact, they will benefit more from economy of scale because not only will they all use identical hardware, but they will be close to absolutely identical in almost every respect (regional mains electrical differences aside). Steam Machines, which will be built by third parties, will not enjoy that advantage.