Yesterday Gabe Newell took to the stage at LinuxCon to talk about how Linux and open source was the future of gaming. During the talk, which you view above, Gabe expresses his own disdain for closed platforms and hints towards new hardware to sit in the living room.
Valve’s Steambox has been the subject of speculation for a while. Back in January we reported that Valve were considering a console that would run off Linux, which has been confirmed with yesterday’s conference. Â A few days after there was a story saying that Valve had teamed up with Xi3 to create a piece of hardware called the Piston, though it was an expensive piece with rumours suggesting a $1000 price point.
Since then the Steambox story has died down a bit, but with Gabe saying there will be an announcement next week more than likely means Valve are ready to show off their own open source gaming hardware. Hopefully it won’t cost $1000.
cam the man
You could buy a PS4, X1 and Vita for that price, and still have change for a few games.
transbaconist (formerly bacon_nuts)
A grand is a lot, but if it’s a quality gaming PC style console then I’m interested, particularly with the steam sales… I’ve always been interested in PC gaming, but I hate playing with a mouse and keyboard at a desk, so a pc style console with controller support would be lovely.
Would be nice if it was upgradeable too, but that’s doubtful really.
leeroye
You can use an xbox controller on the PC, and a lot of steam games support it.
transbaconist (formerly bacon_nuts)
I have a mac, so I installed windows 7 as a secondary OS to run windows games. I hate the 360 controller, and I’m still playing on a smaller screen at a desk. This doesn’t solve my problem. I could move my computer to the TV, but I don’t want to do other computer things at a sofa, so I could use a secondary computer at the tv and RDP into my primary one, but that’s a huge hassle. I could add a big secondary screen to my mac and put a sofa in that room too, but then I have to change rooms depending on the game.
I think I’d just get a steambox…
bunimomike
Completely understand the pickle you’re in. Thankfully, here, I work on the PC but it’s in the same room as the TV so I duel-screen it if necessary and then use my PS3 controller to play anything third person (Tomb Raider). Looked fantastic with max settings and felt as comfortable as can be on the sofa with my trusty PS3 controller being my preferred device of input. However, mouse & keyboard means I’m back to my desk for anything first person.
blarty
‘Gabe talks about his own disdain for closed platforms’…
Could those closed platforms be
* One that allowed him and Valve to make a shitload of money?
Or
* A digital marketplace that places restrictions on where you can buy DLC from for games you already own?, but manages to get away with it by having great sales?
Steam may be great, but it’s not exactly the GNU or OSS of gaming….
My bet is that whilst the hardware will come as standard with LInux they’ll do a Windows installation for extra, simply because the Linux drivers still aren’t up to scratch.
stonyk
So long as it’s not more expensive than a PS4 then I could be interested. It must also have top quality games and not cost anything to upgrade for about 10 years. Remember Gabe, I drive a Ford and can’t afford a Porshe…..
bunimomike
It is interesting to see the alleged price. I thought they were going for something that would have a far shorter life-cycle than the current consoles (360, PS3, etc.). :-\
blarty
AS long as they allow swapping out/addition of HDD, mem and GPU then price and lifecycle won’t really be a big deal, at this point…. of course that all depends upon what the next revisions of CPU & motherboards bring….
TheShepanator
$1000 is way to steep. Anybody willing to spend that much money on a gaming device would surely build their own rig