Steam sharing beta. Exactly what it says on the tin

Renzatic on 3/10/2013 at 04:27

Yeah. They're teasing us with a game Gabe Newell will never ever EVER release.

Oh, they're making it. They know we know they're making it. But they're dangling it out in front of us, like a rumor carrot to a hungry donkey. And they're using this rumor carrot to make us to buy more Steam games.

Cuz you know that's the whole reason we all use Steam, right? It's what we do to occupy ourselves while we wait for Half-Life 3. We're always saying "Oh well, it's coming out sooner or later, might as well stick around and buy these 600 games that are gonna be 90% off for the next 45 minutes so I HAVE TO GET THEM ALL NOW LIKE RIGHT THIS SECOND CUZ THEY'RE ALL SUCH GOOD DEALS OH NO 20 MINUTES LEFT BEFORE IT GOES BACK TO REGULAR PRICE OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT while I wait". Then Gabe Newell makes a whole bunch of money, which he uses to make Half-Life 3 even more awesome, and thus 1000x more tragic for us, cuz we're never gonna get the chance to play it.

I fucking hate Valve. So much.

Wanna know what happens after Episode 2? STEAM SALE!

Renzatic on 5/10/2013 at 03:46

(http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/10/valve-reveals-specs-for-its-prototype-steam-machines/) Steam Machine specs have been released. And they range from solid performers to OMG OLOL.

If Valve can standardize a set of computer components, pack them into a box roughly the size of the 360, and sell the low-mid end for under $600, it would be a very, very tempting thing to buy. There still are a ton of whats, maybes, will-its, and ifs surrounding it, but it does have potential. Steamboxes could end up being the perfect crossing between the power and flexibility of PCs, and the convenience and ease of consoles.

Sulphur on 5/10/2013 at 04:13

I don't see any OMG OLOL in there. The slowest combo's a 660 GPU/Core i3 CPU, and both are fairly solid performers. For this generation of games, anyway.

edit: oh, of course, you meant the boxes with a Titan in them. Hah. That would be fun, wouldn't it?

Renzatic on 5/10/2013 at 04:41

Yeah. Expensive fun. I mean hell. How much does a Titan cost by itself? $1100? You have to be hardcore to take that option.

Though on the plus side, you'd be future proofed for the next 5-6 years at least.

jay pettitt on 5/10/2013 at 16:49

Curious hardware choices me thinks. Which is fine by the way - noticing rather than being critical at the mo.

Firstly, those are some big graphics cards. I can't think of anything on Steam right now that runs on 'nix and that'll benefit from a GFX TITAN. So mayhaps Valve are anticipating beefy AAA titles to be running natively on SteamOS in the not too distant future.

Case dimensions are seriously tiny - which makes good sense for the living room.

Hard Drives are what, 1TB of traditional HD for storage and 8GB of slinky SSD for system files. That means that Steam OS is quite tiny and Valve's equally tiny case has likely just got one drive bay.

Renzatic on 5/10/2013 at 18:45

Quote Posted by jay pettitt

So mayhaps Valve are anticipating beefy AAA titles to be running natively on SteamOS in the not too distant future.

I wouldn't doubt it at all. Valve has been working on this behind the scenes for quite awhile now, and they're gonna want a platform that can complete directly against the new consoles. I'm sure that when SteamOS launches, there are probably gonna be a few high end AAA surprises in there waiting for us.

There are probably a couple of hints right there (http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/) on the SteamOS page. All of the games they're showing of are available for Linux: Europa Universalis 4, Trine 2, Metro Last Light, Football Manager 2014...and Rome 2, which hasn't been announced for Linux yet. Same thing with Civilization V, which was in one of those first cardboard livingroom shots. Valve's pretty smart, and likes to drop subtle clues. I doubt they'd be showing a bunch of Windows only games when talking about their native OS, even if it can stream them from a Windows box.

Yakoob on 7/10/2013 at 03:21

Obligatory: Can I run Windows on it?

:p

SubJeff on 7/10/2013 at 07:40

When is this thing out again?

I'm sure Half Life 3 as the poster boy game is their dream.

Renzatic on 7/10/2013 at 10:55

Quote Posted by Yakoob

Obligatory: Can I run Windows on it?

:p

Yup, but you have to watch a 2 hour video of Richard Stallman eating his toe jam before you fire it up for the first time.

Renzatic on 11/10/2013 at 22:11

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeAjkbNq4xI#t=112) Controller Demo!

Shooters look to be pretty decent, offering up a nice blend between a mouse and analog stick. I'm not so sure about point 'n click games, though. Civ V and Papers, Please looked like they controlled alright, but I dunno if they'll be as comfortable to play with this as they are with a keyboard and mouse.