Valve Plans to bring PCs to the living room
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Ghosty
Valve appear to be doing more for the PC market than Microsoft have. All be it on a Linux platform. Interesting idea, it could work well. Low cost, better flexibility than consoles.
schmidtbag
I'm sure linux is chosen due to how valve hates the windows marketplace and because you can easily customize linux to work as a console and not just as a PC. You can eliminate a lot of PC related features to give games extra performance.
mw8t
My system that I'm building at the moment is going to go under the tv and is focused on big screen gaming and media playback with a separate screen/mouse and kb elsewhere for normal pc stuff.
The days of being slumped in front of a crummy old desk while looking at a massive ugly tower case is on it's way out 😀
PhazeDelta1
Sorry Valve, but I already have a PC in the living room.
Nchinmay
Please support KB+M on all the games that come out on the console. I dont care if it supports other controllers and joysticks and what not alongside the KB+M.
mw8t
kanej2007
chalky
The day they give up on mouse/keyboard is the day i give up gaming and upgrading
Speed Weed
If my current monitor gives up the ghost, I will be sorely tempted to replace it with a HDMI-type tv as monitor.
But that's all it would be used for ---- a monitor.
Certainly won't be allowing Steam, or any of its subsidiaries near the rig.
That's probably why the only new game I've bought this year is Witcher 2.
kanej2007
Redemption80
Even though i'm a living room gamer, and only use mouse/kb on about 10% of my games i still don't think this is a good idea.
While using Linux would keep costs down, it would also essentially be restarting PC gaming, which i think would just create a huge mess in PC gaming.
Say they do build it using Windows and alot of dev's are keen on the idea, that would mean good support for those who own this SteamBox/SteamStation PC, but the controller centric side of it would mean that mouse/kb support in games would now be even less of a priority.
Then there is the hardware side of things, dev's would likely optimise games very well for Valve's hardware, but not so much for those who have their own custom built PC's.
Which GPU vendor would Valve pick, initially i thought AMD due to lower costs, but with them struggling, i'm sure Nvidia could reduce costs to also get such a lucrative contract.
Either way this will be bad news for many people.
None of this is particularly bad news for me personally, but i was raised on desktop gaming, mouse/kb controls and upgrade-ability, so it would be sad to see all that pushed even further down the priority list.
Denial
Redemption80
Valve games might be fine, but I still see a lot of complaints about games that while the it supports mouse/kb controls the UI and gameplay are built around a controller, and this will only get worse if there are now PC’s built around controller use as the market for mouse/kb will just keep getting smaller and smaller.
Nvidia/AMD might not be a million miles apart from a hardware point of view, but there is a difference, and you could argue even moreso when it comes to drivers etc...
I also think this is a good thing, due to the fact that the older I get the less time I get to mess about with games, so need something more plug and play, working on a mouse/kb all day means I have zero wishes to game on these, and my dedicated PC room is now a gym, so gaming is living room or not at all.
Not convinced everyone will feel the same though.
schmidtbag
@redemption
I completely get what you're saying but i think you're also looking at this from the wrong perspective. I don't think valve is trying to restart PC gaming but rather create a new gaming platform as a whole. Basically a console with freedom of choice. You don't get the complete freedom with windows. Linux joining the gaming industry like this is basically the same idea as when MS created Xbox around the same time GameCube came out.
Nchinmay
WindtalkerCS
bryonhowley
Aura89