The Glade 4.0

All the OS manufacturers are making walled garden marketplaces.

My best analysis is that Valve figured it better present an entry into that market lest a move to exclude them from their new competitors's OSes leave them high and dry.

Until such time, I'm not particularly interested, though it's good, I suppose, to know that Valve's at least laying the groundwork (providing an option to standardize as they promote non-Windows platforms) in case Microsoft goes all delusionally megalomaniacal...

say what now? what's a "walled garden marketplace"?

I don't think this is meant to replace Windows. It's meant as an OS for media center PCs. The main advantage it has is streaming your games from your more powerful desktop to your TV. It's also probably going to be the OS for the Steam Box when that's announced later this week.

I'm lucky in that my TV downstairs is directly below my computer upstairs, so I just have an HDMI cable running down the wall and a few USB extensions as well. But later when I move and don't have as convenient of a setup, I can see this being useful.

Nah, according to Gaben's recent comments, he thoroughly believes Windows 8 and it's closed app store is the devil

Following the SteamOS announcement on Monday, time has been ticking away, as it has a tendency to do, and we now find ourselves on the farside of Valve’s second announcement. It’s a Steam-powered Box! A group of them, to be more precise. And, boy, am I glad it is, because I wrote this pre-jump section of the post an hour ago, having spent the day polishing my crystal ball. If, like Brad Pitt, you want to know what’s in the frickin’ box, join me below for a brief tour.

Everytime I write SteamOS, I imagine a terrible breakfast cereal.

Anyway, on with the show.

So, what is in the box? We don’t actually know yet because there will be several to choose from.



Three hundred lucky people will get to fight in the shade test out prototype versions of the Steam Machine and can do so by following the instructions at Valve’s new page.



To be in with a chance, you’ll need to follow the instructions before October 25th.

Exciting? I reckon it is. But is it a PC? What’s inside?



Thanks! I guess it’s locked down to SteamOS though and you’ll arrest me if I fiddle with it in any way? Oh. There’s a FAQ question for that.



Prototypes will ship this year and the Machines themselves, with a range of specs and from a range of manufacturers, will be released from 2014 onwards. One of those, from what I can gather, will be based on the prototype and built by Valve themselves.



Interesting times. Friday’s announcement, the final of the batch, may well be to do with input devices rather than bundled games.



Virtual reality? Or maybe motion control is back!

I don't see SteamOS offering any features above or beyond what Xbox One or PS4 offer. What do you expect them to do that will wow you when MS and Sony haven't? The games will continue being made by the same people that have been making them for decades so nothing is gonna change on the gaming front. What console features do you think Steam will implement that MS and Sony haven't already offered or thought of?

Supporting new peripherals and stuff is great but then you just run into the problem that very few developers are going to bother supporting completely optional third party hardware.

If the only other benefits are, "you can make your own box!1" well, who gives a crap because I can already do that with a regular PC and Steam's TV mode.

Open platform, not relying on DX, all that stuff is great for developers. What will make me want to own this as a consumer? What can I do with it that isn't already possible?

Yeah, my give a **** o meter isn't even registering when I run this past it.