Can you guys do a proper investigation into VALVe's attempt to conquer the living room.

This topic was created by Vince Lewis 1 .

  1. Vince Lewis 1

    Can you guys do a proper investigation into VALVe's attempt to conquer the living room.

    Chaps,

    I'm suprised that you have not properly analysed VALVes attempt to conquer the living room. All articles tend to gloss over how an average consumer will use a Steam Machine.

    If Apple used the same logic as VALVe, then I'd have to rebuy all my music if I got my wife an iPod.

    It seems even el Reg has been blinded by VALVes Holy light.

    1. Phil W

      Re: Can you guys do a proper investigation into VALVe's attempt to conquer the living room.

      I'm not sure how much there is to investigate (yet).

      Presently there are no official Steam Machines, and probably won't be until next year.

      The controller that VALVe are developing to go with the Steam Machine is still under development, and I believe has run into some snags which have to be ironed out.

      Steam as a platform for buying games and other software is already well established, so there's really not much point in an article on how that works.

      I don't really get your point in the comparison to Apple and iPods (well I get it, but it's not a Valve/Steam specific issue).

      Comparing the purchase of games/computer software and music downloads is apples and oranges.

      It's akin to saying if you bought an Xbox One you'd have to rebuy all the games you have on Playstation 3, it's only to be expected since it's a different platform.

      Digital download copies of games purchased through the digital stores related to existing consoles are tied to your account on that platform, and you wouldn't expect to be able to exchange them for new copies for free if you switched platform.

      In fact the Steam Machine case of this is better than a hypothetical Playstation 3 -> Xbox One transition since the Steam Machine will just be an extension of Steam's supported platforms and any games or software you purchase on your Steam account whether on a Steam Machine, Windows PC, Linux PC or Mac can be used on any other on of those platforms with which the purchased title is compatible. This is the case already minus the currently non-existent Steam Machine platform.

      Really a Steam Machine is more or less just a PC, running a custom Linux distro (based on Ubuntu I believe) running the Steam client in "Big Picture" mode.

      Aside from all of that one of the main developers of future Steam Machines, Alienware, have already said that when it does finally come to market it's primary target market will be existing Steam users, any "conquering" of the living room by taking away from existing console market share is a secondary thing and somewhat further down the line.

  2. Vince Lewis 1

    [quote]It's akin to saying if you bought an Xbox One you'd have to rebuy all the games you have on Playstation 3, it's only to be expected since it's a different platform.

    [/quote]

    Its more like the Xbox one having backward compatibility with 400+ games, but when you play one of those games the games on your original xbox will not play.

    My comments are regarding valve entering the consumer market with a system that actively punishes families that will have more than 1 steam capable machine.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon