SteamOS, SteamMachines, Steam Controller

General Discussions
#1

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/

I know some people, including me, were excited about a more ‘open’ access console system, or at least one that supports java like approach in the Ouya. But I think this has potential to be far greater in the long term. And while Steam still is still the ‘gatekeeper’ and isn’t as open as say iOS or Android stores are. It does mark a potentially new highly viable source for games to be deployed with consoles, outside of currently available environments, and since it’d be running a variation of linux. I would expect some java support, or the ability to deploy a bunlded one with it, or at the very least, the ability to deploy AoT to it directly or some variation of it.

What is everyones thoughts on it?

Good? Bad? Hate the controller? Interested to try it out? :point:

I am just happy that Steam/Valve is a big enough company and influence that they could bring some real support to Linux for games. Also having a potentially better PC/livingroom experience.

#2

Yeah I’ve been following this since the first announcement of the SteamOS. The controller looks really sick btw, here’s Super Meat Boy’s dev talking about it.

#3

I don’t get the controller at all :S There will definitely be some transitioning pain for some gamers though, that’s for sure.

It looks cool, but SteamOS is going against some pretty big players in the console market. The only reason they’re doing this is because Microsoft has become a direct competition for them. Plus, if Microsoft dominates this generation of the API wars again that would really suck for Steam trying to get their games library multi-platform.

I think MS is trying to implement what Steam has as a game distribution HUB. They’ve recently employed a very influential steam employee that helped design the entire concept.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/13/08/15/new.hire.holtman.to.help.microsoft.gaming.efforts/

MS is really packing a punch for the Xbox One, so I’m not sure. We’ll see.

Steam also has some very controversial policies that people have forgotten about whilst bashing Microsoft for implementing lighter variations of those policies.

#4

its nice that they take a risk with the controller (which they have too since its supposed to work with games that have no controller support)
but I’m pessimistic, you need haptic feedback. you could never do anything precise on that controller, so the most fun and challenging games are out

but hey its valve so lets test it first

#5

Hey Cero, pls read the link ra4king posted. I think this shows that not having some real buttons for movement isn’t bad at all.

#6

I am super exited for all of this. I have always wanted a way to put my Steam game on my television. This may also open up some more programming opportunities.

#7

Valve always takes risks for everything, but they still seem to be doing fine.
I should also mention, today Valve got the trademark for Half Life 3, so perhaps the Steambox has a launch title :):

  • Jev.
#8

Ha! That’ll be the day… I still love playing half life 1 (the old, “bad” graphics one), Half Life 3 better love up to the years of hype!

#9

HL3 will be to SteamOS what HL2 was to Steam.

#10

Well we would hope… But seeing as we know nothing, who really knows? I’ve given up on playing games anyway, I just love programming too much!

#11

The funny thing, is back in June there were a ton of Korean puzzles about HL3 and when it would be announced, and one of the theories was something to do with the solar system and September 27th-29th. EDIT: Source.

Valve got the trademark on the 29th.
My brain is confused right now.

I’m kind of glad SteamOS is becoming a thing. It means companies like NVidia and AMD will start paying attention to us Linux users more.

Did they say it would be open-sourced?

  • Jev.
#12

Yep! 100% hackable and opensource everything(though not available immediately in beginning)

Including the controller!

#13

Gotta Love Valve.

  • Jev.
#14

Hi guys,

Curious about your thoughts in light of SteamOS being released and Steamboxes being available.

From what I can tell, SteamOS is basically a modified Debian Linux, optimized for gaming, that boots directly into the Steam client full-screen mode. It caters specifically to running games/apps on your TV and controlled with a gamepad.

Now I don’t really see anything ground-breaking with regards to the hardware or OS itself. I think the big game changer is the platform (think app-store for games). They provide a good platform for games, port it to all the major OS’s, then hope that game makers target SteamOS. I think they have enough momentum to really take this somewhere.

Given all this, where does Java fit into the picture? Sure we can run Java on Linux, use OpenGL via LWJGL, and design games for full-screen mode. Is there other pieces of the puzzle missing here?

In the long run I want to target games that can run on multiple platforms and be experienced by a wide variety of players without too much fuss. Targeting Java has been a good solution up to date but if this SteamOS really takes off, then targeting it instead would make sense.

#15

What are you talking about? SteamOS is a platform and java is a programming . You don’t choose one OR the other D:

And steam == steam os
It’s just a linux version with emphasis on the fullscreen mode

#16

Java games should run pretty well on SteamOS. You just bundle the standard i386/x86_64 JRE with your game. Libraries like LWJGL, LibGDX, Slick2D, etc already work on it too as its just standard Linux under the hood.

#17

Java and Steam are a great combination :slight_smile:

Finally - a console that we can code for. And just so happens to be the best one too.

If anyone gets seriously down the road of getting a Java game on Steam we’ve built the Java interfaces to Steamworks APIs btw. Tweet me @puppygames if you find yourself in that position.

Cas :slight_smile:

#18

[quote]Insert Quote
Java and Steam are a great combination
[/quote]
Hi princec, from what I understand you use a micro-VM,
not just a stripped down bundled runtime (that would still take over 20MB for Java1.6, and even more for Java1.7).
There is lots of needless stuff, that obviously is not allowed to be removed.

Do you have any more information on this?
Is this supplied by Oracle, or some other vendor?
Or a special creation for Steam.

#19

Hi princec, from what I understand you use a micro-VM,
not just a stripped down bundled runtime (that would still take over 20MB for Java1.6, and even more for Java1.7).
There is lots of needless stuff, that obviously is not allowed to be removed.
[/quote]
I’d really not worry about the JRE size overhead anymore (unlike a few years ago), it shouldn’t really have any impact on your game/sales. Even the full JDK can easily be included. Due to advances in internet speeds and cheaper storage costs, people spend more bandwidth on surfing a few sites or watching a few minutes of online video. Average Steam PC game sizes are in the GB’s and a few hundred megs here or there isn’t an issue anymore.

e.g. Team Fortress 2 and DOTA2 both take up between 4GB to 15GB in disk space (probably even more depending on mods installed). Another example, the recent indie game Starbound uses over 3GB of hard disk space.

#20

Hi princec, from what I understand you use a micro-VM,
not just a stripped down bundled runtime (that would still take over 20MB for Java1.6, and even more for Java1.7).
There is lots of needless stuff, that obviously is not allowed to be removed.

Do you have any more information on this?
Is this supplied by Oracle, or some other vendor?
Or a special creation for Steam.
[/quote]
We don’t bother with the micro-vm any more. Bandwidth is ubiquitous. We’re amongst the smallest games on Steam.

Cas :slight_smile: