The Glade 4.0

The Verge hands on review of the Steam Machine

http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/4/50637 ... the-future

So... the hardware specs are totally up to the partners? Sounds like a great idea...

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An upgradadble (read: scalable as next and next and then next gen systems come along) console with components easily replaced, along with digital feedback as to what your current system can play and play well?

Sounds good to me.

I still hope and pray Valve can eventually (down the road) get enough support and throw enough of their massive money weight around to get all the big console developers on board. Because if they can do that, it will not be *a* game-changer, it will be *the* game-changer.

But as it sits, it's still a pretty big announcement.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

The part about the controller design process and some of the discarded iterations was pretty cool.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Keep your dick in your pants, Numbuk

Nice. The more I look at those, the more I think I'll prefer the haptic trackpads.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I still am not caring about this. Its a PC. We've been building those for years...

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Holy shitsnacks!

The steambox, sure. But that's only a smart part of the whole.

The bigger thing is you don't need a steam box, you can use your own hardware. There is also the push for an OS that is dedicated to running games. If I could drop Windows and play all the games I like to play, do you have any idea how fast Windows would be destroyed in my house? The other part is the serious attempt at bringing PC gaming to the living room, with the eventual merging over into console territory.

A gaming rig (your own that you built or one you purchased) that can play *any* PC or console game (save 1st party exclusives) from the comfort of the living room and maintaining the precision of a mouse and keyboard and the analog control of a controller, all the while pushing microsoft out of the "required for gaming" model they've built upon for years?

That's what's going on here. Sure, "It's just a PC." But it's also a hell of a lot more.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Just a PC in the sense that the first iPhone was just another "smart" phone.

Actually, I take that back. Its less than a PC. It can run SteamOS. So its a PC that'll just do games.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I am intrigued by this, but until I see a set of input devices that impresses me, I'm going to be on the outside looking in.

The controller they've been showing looks too small to me.

The games I play now require a mouse and keyboard. The reason they require them is because they can. They could do the controller thing on the PC now, and they don't. There is a reason for this.

I don't see how, no matter how 'touch sensitive' it is, that device is going to replace my mouse and keyboard (and G15), without totally screwing up the games themselves.

Ummm... where did you see it will run console games or are you saying it can be haxxored with mod chips?

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I think Numbuk was looking ahead at future-gen possibilities (assuming this thing flies).

Um, you can still install Windows on it and do anything a normal PC can do.

There are many people out there that don't know how to build a PC, or just don't care about hardware in general. Right now their options are basically buy a "gaming" PC from alienware or the likes for $800+ or do several days of research on how to build your own and what components to buy.

For PC gaming enthusiasts, yeah, this is nothing new. But it's about making the platform more accessible to everyone. Think about all the young console gamers who don't even have their own money to spend on this kind of thing. It's probably hard to convince your parents to buy a gaming PC that costs at least 2x as much as a game console. And what parts should they upgrade? Where do they get their games? How can they play with their friends? What controllers should they get? It's a pretty big mess right now.

Consider this. Right now there is absolutely nothing stopping someone from buying/building a gaming PC, hooking it up to their TV, buying some USB controllers, and then buying/installing a bunch of games to play on the couch with their friends. How many people actually do this? Hardly anyone from what I can tell, especially among those who aren't into computers. Consoles are the preference in this situation by far. Is that because the PC is inherently an inferior platform for this kind of thing? I don't think so, and I think the Steambox will prove it.

But this doesn't solve any of that. This PC will work with the games published this year, next year when graphics advance AGAIN and RAM requirements go up AGAIN this box will need to be upgraded with a new video card and/or RAM because it is a PC in a small box. Not to mention since there is no hardware standard across manufacturers, if you buy a cheap Steambox from ASUS that uses on onboard Intel graphics chip it can't play the games that your high-end Steambox from Alienware will with its premium graphics card.

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Hop, think of it like a PS4 or Xbox One. You buy a package that has everything you need; and in a few years it's going to need upgraded. Except with Steam Box/OS, your games are platform agnostic and everything you purchased this gen goes with you into the next gen... and the next one... and the next one.

All of the services that most people use and love are now platform-agnostic. Netflix is on everything from my phone to my TV, as is Chrome / Google Products, I can get Photoshop on an array of devices, watch TV from anywhere with Hulu... Why should video games be any different? Buy them on Steam and play them wherever you want - in your office, from your couch, or on a system you buy in 10 years and want everything to still work on.

Yes, it's something that you can do on a PC right now, but that's not the point. Valve is trying to simplify the entire process and make PC gaming as easy as console gaming. That's the entire point, lowering the barrier of entry, because we all know that the PC is the master race of gaming but we're all annoyed by its inconveniences.

I am missing your point. This is a PC you plug into a TV. I have been doing that since Windows Vista. What does Steambox do? It is creating another hardware fragmented platform.

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It's no more fragmented than the PC. But they're working on ways to streamline your upgrade path and evaluate your current hardware's capability to utilize a given application/game.

It's not designed to make plugging your PC into your TV suddenly more appealing to people who already do that. It's designed to make plugging your PC into your TV more appealing to people who *don't*, and who instead rely on a console for that experience.

It's also designed to make the PC a more natural interface for that TV/living room experience, with Big Picture mode (a precursor step towards being ready for SteamOS/SteamBox) and a controller form factor that can be readily adapted to the demands of PC software; as well as to squeeze more performance out of a PC with a price point that's closer to console competitive (switching to a lightweight Linux from Windows).

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

No Hop, it is creating a platform that doesn't give a crap about hardware. Valve is trying to move gaming from proprietary platforms to open source while also trying to maintain the convenience of the console experience. Buy a new box and ALL of your games work. Forever. Can't say that with Nintendo, Xbox or Playstation.

Yes you can do this with your current PC, but you continue to ignore the fact that most people don't do that because it's really annoying. I have a laptop and I don't even like plugging it into my TV because using a computer hooked up to a television is not a fun experience. SteamOS aims to give you the flexibility of a computer with the ease-of-use of a console.

Except not. If what you are trying to say is true then no one would ever upgrade a PC because the PC you bought 10 years ago would play the game you buy tomorrow. That is not the case, tomorrow's PC games that you play on Steambox will require a faster graphics card than is in the box today and yesterday's games won't work on it because it is not Windows/Mac. It feels like Steam started out with a great idea, realized it wouldn't work and is now focused on selling controllers for PCs.

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You don't need to upgrade your gaming PC every year, that's ridiculous. Processing power has increased so much that you should be able to get by 5+ years on the same PC if you really want, just like a console. Sure towards the end you'll be running games on medium graphics and maybe 720p, and maybe you'll struggle with the latest blockbuster with the fanciest graphics. But how is that any different than the xbox360 and PS3 today? At least with the Steambox you have the option to upgrade if you want.

If people had the option to drop $100 on a GPU upgrade for their Xbox360 or PS3 today, and then suddenly it would run every game flawlessly at 1080p with better AA and AF, don't you think there would be a market for that?

Honestly, what you've stated sounds like an argument coming from experiences 10+ years ago. Today, hardware is so powerful that it'll be a long time before your system is so outdated you'll have to upgrade to play modern games. The people dropping hundreds on new graphics cards every year or two are enthusiasts trying to game on multiple monitors at 2560x1440 resolutions and the like.

I feel like you are being intentionally dense. I'm not saying you will never have to upgrade your hardware. I'm saying that UNLIKE CURRENT CONSOLES, upgrading your hardware will not mean locking you out of your previous game purchases.

I dropped out of the PC upgrade cycle 5 years ago. At the time every Christmas a game came out that you couldn't play because of some combination of these factors:
1) your processor wasn't powerful enough
2) you didn't have enough RAM (or the WRONG kind of RAM)
3) your graphics card was too old

If you are telling me that is no longer true or that "only" hard core gamers upgrade their systems then I'd have to ask why Intel and NVidia's market caps and profits are higher today than when I left the market?


And this is different than a PC how?

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No one makes PC's in console-like packages with easy-to-use television interfaces. That's the point.

Hopwin, that doesn't happen in one year. I don't think a modern GPU has ever been unable to play a game one year after release, at least for ones costing more than $100 or so.

5 years ago, you could buy a Radeon HD3850 for $200, or a Geforce 8800GT for $250. Both of these cards can still run most modern games at reasonable quality and framerates. There may be a select few games that they are incompatible with or will struggle to run at all (Battlefield 4?), but for most people they will do just fine. If you bought one of these cards 5 years ago and want to play Battlefield 4, but are light on cash, you can buy a modern card for $100 that will run it on high quality and will last another couple years at least.

I suppose the Xbox 360 is pushing 8 years now and it will run Battlefield 4 (although somewhat crippled compared to the PC/modern consoles). So yes, it does have a longer usable lifespan compared to a PC gaming rig, but it's not by a whole lot. But BF4 will look like **** compared to PCs, and if you want to upgrade you're going to have to pay $500 for a new console. This also assumes your original Xbox 360 could physically survive 8 years anyway, which is far from guaranteed.

I'm not trying to say you're wrong or the PC way of doing things is objectively better, but I think you're exaggerating a lot.