Zachary Amaranth said:
Linux: So the basic idea is that the guys who made PC gaming marketable are so phenomenally stupid as to make a big deal about the Big Picture, build a console PC around it, and then launch it with an inability to play most of the games that are promoted for it?
Makes sense.
Premise 1: Steambox comes with Linux installed.
Premise 2: Linux lacks the API necessary to run Windows games.
So it would seem. Or do you have any other explanation?
Forgive me if this is supposed to be a joke; with an introductory point like "I don't like the controller," it's quite possible.
Well in case it wasn't obvious; what I described under the "I don't like controllers" point was not as much my personal opinion on controllers as the potential drawbacks that come with a controller centered approach. You know, such as the effect this might have on genres such as RTS, and how it might lead to simplified gameplay mechanics. There are things that controllers simply aren't good at: switching between items in a large inventory is one thing, which is perhaps the reason why many AAA-console shooters these days only have like two weapon slots.
This could definitively discourage some gamers that might otherwise flock to buy hardware from Valve, and affect the long-term popularity of the system.
So no, I don't think the reason a product might fail is because I personally dislike one of the aspects with it. Just thought I had come with a funny header, and I hadn't expect that people would base entire straw-man arguments on it.
Competition: This is aimed at families and console gamers. Piston was never marketed as a Steambox and we have no idea what the final Steambox will look like or cost. Assuming it's not viable based on the price tag of another unit is folly.
Firstly, yes the Piston was marketed as a Steambox. They called it the bloody Piston, Valve displayed it at their booth at E3 as one of the first products in their upcoming Steambox family. Why are you saying things that just aren't true?
Secondly, never once did I make any assumptions based on the Piston's price tag. Again, a complete and utter straw-man argument. What I wrote was:
"And the console gamers are not going to want to buy a PC/console hybrid for 999 dollars over a PS4 or whatever the next Xbox is going to be called. And if the Steambox is looking to compete with the price tag of the next generation of consoles, you're looking at a really weak Steambox which, coupled with the existing Steam-library of performance-demanding PC games, is going to suck to play on."
See, there's a big disjunction there. Either they fit the Steambox with decent specs in which case the price tag would end up being somewhere between 600 or 900, or more. Now, that will give you a "decent" machine capable of playing most, but not all, current PC games without lagging.
Or they give it a price tag that can compete with the next generation of consoles, which is the only way they'll attract the console crowd, but then the Steambox would struggle to play most existing PC titles without lag, not to mention the problems the machine would have in the future.
After all, the Steambox must handle PC games, which are normally more demanding than console games and of course not optimized for any specific hardware configuration. So to compete with the graphical fidelity of console games, the Steambox needs to have better hardware. Why should any console player make the switch to this PC/console hybrid which costs more and feature inferior graphics? I think that's a pretty reasonable question to ask.
