
Steam Machines and Steam Controller shipping to beta participants December 13th - CrazedGeek
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse#announcements/detail/1930088300965516570
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Lockyy
>We’ve had to make the difficult decision to limit our beta to the U.S. only,
because of regulatory hurdles. This was not our original plan, and it means we
can’t collect beta feedback from Steam customers world-wide, which is pretty
unfortunate. All things considered, we’re sure it was the right decision,
because the alternative was to delay the whole beta beyond the point when we’d
be able to incorporate any feedback into the 2014 products.

For those outside the US who were hoping to participate.

~~~
moloch
Even if you're in the US there's only a very very small chance you'll be able
to participate in the beta.

~~~
DoggettCK
According to the eligibility page, I'm seeing:

"You are now one out of 421,843 eligible beta candidates."

It's been at that number since the registration ended, and I'm almost certain
it's worldwide, since they didn't say U.S.-only until today.

I like my odds.

~~~
NamTaf
That was the number it showed when it ended and that is the number of
worldwide participants. Your odds will now be significantly higher at the
expense of my odds plummeting to zero :(

~~~
DoggettCK
If it makes you feel better, I didn't get one, either.

The random number generator must have been racist against me specifically.
Yeah, that's the ticket.

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benihana
I'm anxious to see how much Valve has learned since the launch of Steam a
decade ago. Steam is great now, but it sucked pretty hard when it first came
out. I remember the genuine shock I felt at having the friends functionality
actually work the way I expected it to after about 4 years of pure shit. I
have no doubt this will eventually be awesome, only question is how long it
will take.

~~~
Anonymous823
Well, they've overcome the number one challenge, that's getting something
launched. Valve does one thing great, and that's rolling out consistent
updates and features, so I have faith they'll improve the platform if it gains
traction.

In 2014 though, I think the biggest impact on their success will come down to
marketing. Will people know what this device is? Will hardware manufacturers
be able to get these units selling? Will people be raving about playing Steam
games from their couch and telling all their friends to pick one up?

They're going to be a small player in the console world. I can't picture them
stealing Xbox and Playstation users. Those Battlefield, Call of Duty, NBA,
Madden, etc., fans make up a huge part of the console market, and I think
they're incredibly loyal to their console, while being very unfamiliar with
Steam. The Steam Machines might have a market with PC users looking to
casually game in the living room, and they might have a market if they can
offer cheaper hardware and lower game prices than consoles. Offering better
visuals would be another huge plus. If someone visits their friend's house,
and says, 'wow, why does XYZ game look so much better on your television?',
that's going to drive some sales, since you always have a group looking for
the best of the best.

It's a long road, and I think everyone is watching to see how this plays out.
Valve is probably the only company that can make this happen at the moment, so
it's exciting to see them taking a chance, and I applaud them for that.

~~~
ekianjo
They are not inin the game to compete with consoles. Their strategy is for the
long run, to be free of winfows influence should windows one day become a
closed system. obviously they dont have any of the marketing muscle needed to
go mainstream and thats not their market anyway.

~~~
Anonymous823
They better be in the game to compete with consoles, because they're going to
be, whether they want to or not. If their long term plan is to simply run Big
Picture Mode, and that's it, they'll fail, and never be more than a niche
device used by a few PC gamers. The average person would much rather buy an
Xbox or Playstation since they can use them for watching movies, Netflix, etc.
Why buy a Steam Machine, if I need to buy something else to do the rest of the
job in the living room? And if I'm spending a few hundred on an Xbox or
Playstation, why bother with a Steam Machine for a couple of extra game
titles?

They have a chance to make Steam Machines a huge success. If they pigeon hole
themselves as strictly being a gaming device, and not a media device that
competes with consoles, they should change the name of their UI, because
they're missing the big picture.

However, I think you're wrong. Yes, they want a backup plan if they get kicked
to the curb by Microsoft. However, if that was the only case, they'd be
focusing on making Steam OS an actual operating system. Why spend the
resources on a gaming controller, and Steam Machines? Why not go hard on a
Linux OS that's a viable alternative for gamers? Their core audience is PC
gamers, so why not make an OS for PC gamers, and skip the living room hardware
all together?

~~~
ekianjo
I don't think I'm wrong :) If they were really in the game of competing with
consoles, they would have had a very different strategy and not adopted a
"anyone can make our box" kind of mode of operation. They are following the PC
model, which means that they are not targeting mainstream consumers. Consumers
who want to buy Steam Machines will have to be knowledgeable on what to buy,
they will have to look at specs and understand that that box is more powerful
that the other one, and get what that means for their games. It's very
different from providing a single box and telling consumers " as long as you
buy a PS4, you can play all PS4 Sony games". So, please tell me how they will
solve that problem for the mainstream, because their strategy does not address
it at all.

To me, they are still targeting PC gamers (and Gabe clearly said so, too) and
they want to expand that segment from the top, not from the bottom. Maybe they
will attract some PC gamers who did the switch to consoles a couple of years
back, by providing something better than consoles while still "living-room"
centric.

I think their strategy is however the following: \- a Steam gamer currently is
usually a guy in front of the PC in his room. \- By putting a Steam machine in
the living room, it offers the opportunity to open up Steam to family members.
\- Oh, by the way the family games management feature was introduced about the
same time as the SteamOS release this year... what a coincidence huh ? \- So
they plan to expand through immediate social environment first, not
necessarily targeting hardcore console users. That way they will create
awareness progressively. That's why I am saying they are in for the long run.

Just like Steam was not made to replace from Day1 the box retail business,
SteamOS's strategy will not replace consoles from Day1 either. Maybe it will
be a big player in 10 years from now, but I don't expect any significant
market share any time soon.

~~~
Anonymous823
I agree, it's a long term play, and their chance of winning over hardcore
console users is zero at this time. However, they will be directly competing
with consoles for space under the television.

As for solving your problem with hardware confusion, they could have
manufacturers ship Steam Machines with some kind of rating system. Remember
how Windows had those performance ratings for memory, processor, etc? They
could do something very similar. You look at a Steam Machine, it says
processor 5.7, memory 4.5, graphics, 5.1. Then you look in the Steam game
library and see a certain game recommends graphics 4.5 or greater. Or this
indie title plays great on anything 3.4 or higher. You use those numbers to
guide your purchase.

Changing hardware will come to their advantage though. Xbox and Playstation
will ramp up over the next few years, and we'll see some improvements and
major titles heading their way. However, what's happening 5-6 years from now?
Xbox and Playstation are dated, Steam OS has the bugs worked out, and Steam
Machines are available with the latest advances in hardware. Where are you
going to buy Call of Duty now, for your 6 year old console, or pickup a Steam
Machine that can run it twice as fast, at Ultra HD resolution? That's going to
be a big plus for Steam, and if people are buying in 5 or 6 years from now,
they're less likely to jump on the next console launch, since they already
have powerful hardware in their living room.

Another huge plus for Steam in the living room is Oculus Rift. If it's
released below $300, and exclusive to the PC and Steam Machines, they have a
unique experience the consoles can't offer.

Nothing is short term, I think Steam Machines will make a crawl the first few
years, but I think they're going to be pushing to replace consoles, and I
think they might succeed. Cheap games, big sales, Oculus Rift, low cost or
high performance hardware to choose from, and eventually an open store
available for anyone to publish towards.

Edit: Oh, one other huge advantage. They're backed by every hardware
manufacturer they get involved. Dell is going to be dropping flyers in every
mailbox around the world, with a couple of pages showing off their Steam
Machine line-up. Dell wants money, and if Steam Machines succeed, they get
rich as well. PC sales are down, they'd love another piece of hardware to
sell. Get every other hardware company doing the same, and that's a lot of
free marketing.

~~~
ekianjo
I also think, like you, that OcculusRift will be the big game changer that may
spell the doom for the consoles (because are far from being powerful enough
for these kind of things).

As for the ratings system, sure, it's possible but it does not mean it's not
confusing for consumers, and it adds another barrier to adoption - that's
basically NOT mainstream. And you mentioned Windows performance ratings as a
reference, but that's a failed example since nobody ever used these numbers
anywhere.

If they go for categories/benchmarking, then they will need to have a kind of
authority in place to attribute such numbers, and Valve's message so far is
very against centralization. So I don't expect them to lead such efforts. If
they ever did, I believe they would make it simple: SteamBox Level A to play
these games only and do streaming, SteamBox Level B to play all GPU intensive
games... etc...

EDIT; I don't think Dell will get rich, and neither most of the hardware
manufacturers involved for that matter. SteamOS is no more no less than an
Android OS-like for the PC, and that will push prices down for manufacturers
which will fight hard to make small margins on large volumes. It will only be
profitable for very few players.

~~~
kenrikm
The current consoles are plenty powerful for this type of thing, don't forget
they are basically just gaming PCs in compact cases this generation and share
almost the exact same hardware (Xbox One and PS4).

~~~
ekianjo
Really ? Even the Occulus Rift co-founder mentioned they are far away from
where they need to be.

WHen you want to do virtual reality, you need constant 60 fps (or more,
ideally) in order to give a good impression of movement in all directions.
XBone and PS4 are already struggling to display a SINGLE 1080p screen at 60
fps already, let's not dream too much. They are massively underpowered, and
the AMD APU is notorious for being mid-range in terms of performance _at best
in 2013_. Give it one more year and even the cheapest gaming PCs will be more
powerful than them.

~~~
kenrikm
One of my coworkers has a Occulus dev kit.. I'm pretty sure it's just a single
screen in there so 1080p Occulus would only require a single 1080p stream as
far as I know, which current consoles are more then capable of.

~~~
ekianjo
It's not just about rendering a single screen, it's about rending two
different scenes even if it's one screen.

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venomsnake
The important bit is that we will have steamos to play with soon. They say it
will be downloadable when the hardware ships.

~~~
stonemetal
Yeah, I think I am more excited about the new linux distro than the hardware.
Only two more days to go.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
This is what I'm excited about as well, but also can't wait until more games
are announced for SteamOS early next year.

------
elipsey
I'm very hopeful about the prospect for improvement of linux graphics drivers.
It seems to have a been a chicken and egg sort of problem in past; I really
hope contributions from valve will create some momentum, especially for the
FOSS drivers. It seemed hopeless to me only a couple of years ago, but then it
wasn't so long ago that you couldn't suspend your laptop without "blowing your
balls off" as Con Kolivas remarked...

I'm really concerned, though, about commercial vendors aligning with the one
distro/graphics stack (apparently Ubuntu in this case?), such that I have to
choose between putting up with Unity's "Shopping lens" and a ghetto of bad or
unimplemented 3d support for distros that don't adopt the same graphics stack
as Ubuntu as the distros move away from X...

~~~
javanix
Drivers are usually kernel-tied more than anything else.

I wouldn't expect too much improvement from the FOSS drivers like Nouveau (I
suspect the performance required of modern games is still out of their reach),
but the binary X drivers from should see some big improvements - any
distributions that currently can leverage those would benefit.

~~~
elipsey
In particular, I'm hopeful that the radeon and intel FOSS drivers will improve
(although I guess that nvidia said they will help with nouveau now:
[http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/09/nvidia...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/09/nvidia-seeks-peace-with-linux-pledges-help-on-open-source-
driver/)). I gather Valve has given significant feedback to all three vendors
([http://www.pcworld.com/article/2049369/amd-nvidia-ramp-up-
li...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2049369/amd-nvidia-ramp-up-linux-driver-
support-after-valves-steamos-announcement.html) and:
[http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/08/31/1551230/valve-
finds...](http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/08/31/1551230/valve-finds-open-
source-drivers-to-be-great)), and that steam games have, perhaps, stressed the
sort of hitherto rarely used code paths that would only show themselves to be
broken or unreasonably slow when some compositing DM feature wouldn't work,
for example when KDE 4 was famously broken on fglrx for a couple of years, and
no one cared enough to fix the driver bug because who plays games on linux,
right? Of course that's the closed driver but the same kinds of problems have
happened for all the drivers for want of heavy use, and of course they won't
be heavily used if they are way broken.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Wayland/Mir support must be added
to any driver that will support them, and I believe it's not yet clear that
that will be done. Intel has already refused a pull request for XMir support
([http://slashdot.org/story/13/09/08/0431242/intel-rejects-
sup...](http://slashdot.org/story/13/09/08/0431242/intel-rejects-supporting-
ubuntus-xmir)), and I think the proprietary drivers have no support for either
of the new WM's, nor will will they publicly admit to having any plans to
implement it.

KMS was added to the kernel five years ago this month, and the proprietary
drivers still don't support it, although the intel driver does. Imagine a
similar outcome for the new compositors, where the vendors don't implement
support for a long time, or, worse, where there are factions comprised of
certain combinations of driver/distro/WM... that would be bad.

~~~
mercurial
AFAIK Intel is pushing Wayland. As for Mir, I'm not aware of any group outside
of Canonical with the slightest amount of interest.

~~~
elipsey
Yes, so the question is: if Valve is creating an Ubuntu derivative will they
stay with X11 when Ubuntu switches to Mir?

As it is now, Steam is easy to install on Ubuntu, and possible, but maybe a
bit of a pain for other distros, depending on which one. It would be sad if
Steam eventually only worked well on SteamOS, because of fragmentation in the
graphics stack. If I wanted to choose my OS solely on the basis of what works
well for gaming, I would be running Windows.

Then again maybe Intel and Valve will sort of bring some adult supervision to
the distros by putting some pressure on everyone to pick one graphics stack
and live with it. I'm not sure whether I think this is a good thing or not.

------
samspenc
Looks nice. Just curious: does anyone know where Valve is making the hardware?

------
guidopallemans
I hope this is a good place to launch this idea:

Is it possible to make an android app which acts as a steam controller through
usb/bluetooth? Here is an example (JSON-ish) config file:
[http://gearnuke.com/steam-controller-configuration-file-
alre...](http://gearnuke.com/steam-controller-configuration-file-already-
present-steam-account-least-weeks/)

~~~
simoncion
> Is it possible...

Probably? It'd be best to wait until we get the hardware and software in hand
before specing out the task, though. ;)

------
Pxtl
I want to hear veteran RTS and FPS player weigh in on that controller.
Bringing PC-style gaming into the living room would be a dream.

~~~
Negitivefrags
I gave one a go for about 20 minutes a couple of months ago.

Honestly, I think they have some way to go, but I'm optimistic they can make
it work.

Using one of the sides to control a regular mouse in a game like Civ 5 I found
that it was not even as good as a regular laptop touchpad. I suspect that a
lot of the reason for that may be software though. There is a lot of subtle
stuff going on with the motion of a laptop touchpad that has been built up
over a decade of iteration and they just didn't have it tuned right.

Using it to control an FPS was interesting, but I was unable to tell if it
would be better or worse than, say, a 360 controller in the long term. You
certainly can't just pick it up and expect to do well with it quickly. I'm
certain that more muscle memory would develop in that area over time though.

At the time I tried it, the haptics were only used to emit a clicking sound
that was faster the faster you moved your finger along the surface. It
vibrates the surface which makes it feel sort of like you are moving your
finger across lots of small bumps rather than a flat surface.

~~~
Pxtl
That's disappointing. I don't expect it to be a smash hit in the pro-gamer
circuit - mouse-equivalent performance is way out of reach, but it needs to
beat the ever-loving crap out of a thumbstick.

------
watty
I have a 100 game library of games on Steam that I would love to play on my TV
but the SteamBox will only play a tiny percentage of them due to being linux
based. Seems great for those new to steam though...

~~~
gagege
Apparently the SteamOS can stream games, OnLive style, from your Windows
computer to your TV.

------
ics
Maybe by the time we get SteamOS they'll finally let customers change their
account names. Without losing access to their games. Pretty please?

~~~
namlem
You can change the name that other users see on Steam. It's been that way for
years. Unless you mean something else?

------
richardw
Is there a (legal/branding/whatever) reason why they didn't call it Steam
Engine? Seems like such an obvious name.

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
Sounds a bit too much like "Source Engine".

------
X4
Ew.. Friday 13th... wait til it passes.

I don't believe this crap, but coincidently my own PC burnt with fire
(literally), right after saying that and turning it on (a few years ago).
Yeah, bad coincidence. However, I got part of the money back, because I sued
the A/C Adapter company, whose part caused the fire. But I tell you, they were
such big assholes, who looked up for the cheapest comparable parts on ebay for
my hardware as a "base" price. Interestingly I had a $1200 worth collectors
edition graphics card and they paid just $100 bucks for it, because the next
cheapest and older model of the card on ebay was that much.

