Steam Steam OS (Downloadable now), Machines, Controller

Valves first countdown timer has expired, and it now link to this page.
A linux based OS, "designed for the TV and the living room".
You can now download it from here.

Steam machines, interesting.

And finally, a controller.

 

Sounds great! I particularly like this:

In-home Streaming
You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!

So theoretically I could pop a super powerful desktop under the stairs and use a super cheap/low power Steam OS machines to do everything else.

 

Probably only theoretically, as the cupboard under the stair would probably get quite toasty after a while, unless it's well ventilated.

 

Sounds interesting - it might mean I can play PC games on my projector. I assume they would need to limit resolution to get the streaming to work? Also would there not be controller lag?

 

Well I think they hit the nail on the head by pushing out their own distribution. Setting up a whole Linux system then installing the required libraries to run Steam can be a bit of a faff, so by simply distributing SteamOS they can avoid all the compatibility issues and just present one system to run everything.

I just hope they haven't culled out other Linux features in the process. It's Linux - I still want to do my crazy stuff on it!

 

Looks funky. Will need to keep waiting to find out more, but so far so good. Also I agree with rob. I want another Linux toy as well as a great gaming machine

 

F*** YEAH!

 

I must say that I'm very excited by this - having the power of my desktop through my living room PC (without having to drag the thing downstairs) sounds awesome I do have the niggling question about lag though... The rest sounds awesome!

 

Over LAN the lag will be pretty negligible. Look at Onlive, though FPS games are a no no, even through the internet most games were still perfectly playable.

 

Having experienced OnLive I now definitely would want to see one of these in action before I consider getting one. I will assume though that as streaming is local things would be a lot better. OnLive was just about the most terrible gaming experience I have had in a long time - the only upside was that it wasn't mine!

Instead of buying a next gen console I was looking at building a small PC to play on my projector, this may be a cheaper and more viable option as may even allow me to justify and XboxOne or PS4 sometime next year. It would depend on price and performance though.

The jury is still out...

 

I'll be playing GTA V using this on my htpc then. Great idea I was just saying I need this the other day

 

Actually in my eyes the ideal platform would be NUC 847 + some ram + some storage + passive case + streaming from the desktop.

 

Not convinced to be honest. Streaming is always going to compromise on quality somewhere - the encoders have to make cuts to get the video over the network. If that's the case, then why bother with a nice expensive rig, when you're just ruining the whole thing by streaming over the network?

Just put a decent GPU in the HTPC in the first place :/

 

Exactly this!

I can easily stream 1080p over my homeplug network. Also, lets not forget, you're going to be sitting 6ft+ away.

 

If it's Linux-based, wouldn't it mean the OS would be freeware, meaning anyone could run it on any system they liked (minimum spec allowing)? In which case, how many would buy the steambox?

I should point out here, I know f-all about Linux...

 

What percentage of console owners are happy building a slim & powerful custom built PC exclusively for media and gaming? How many of those would still build their own if a decent and upgradable system could be purchased for an equivalent (or lower) price?

The success of these depends on Valve's commitment, whether there will be any hardware available that competes in spec/price with the next gen consoles and whether enough the AAA titles get ported to it.

Also I don't want streaming to a steam box. I want streaming to another Steam installation (on my mac) and streaming to an iPad running the new iOS game controller APIs.

A tentative thumbs up.

 

I think any SteamBox hardware will be aimed at those who can't be arsed to install a Linux distro on a spare machine - perhaps aimed at families and console gamers predominantly. If someone was going to build a 'PC' and install SteamOS as an OS then they probably would build a PC and run Steam native in Windows anyway arguably.

It would only interest me if the hardware was cheap (much cheaper than a console), and switch on and go - I am getting lazy in my old age!

 

The Steambox is likely to offer a kind of certified set of hardware that guarantees the games will run properly. SteamOS will run on just about any PC, but obviously if you have an ancient graphics card the driver support may not be there.

I expect it's going to come down to any currently support nvidia/AMD graphics card (or Intel IGP), with the rest less important.

 

This is going to be next Doom, in that people will be trying to get the SteamOS to run an the absolute minimum hardware. Not because it will work well, but just because they can.

 

Steam Pi anyone