Steam's Linux Future. A Smart Move?

[PokeParadox]

I also think it will be part of their strategy to launch HL3 on SteamBox (With SteamOS) as an exclusive for a duration. It makes sense. It might piss a certain hadfull of people off but most will probably just see a new console and buy it.

 

[comradekingu]

They did make a controller from scratch, and that markes a huge level of involvement. Since they are the biggest player on content they can afford to be open. And they reap the benefit from using freedom solutions. Hopefully this frees up great games from lockdown consoles. The gaming industry is what the music industry was 10 years ago.

 

[kasp]

Well - You don't have to use the steam controller.

Or even the SteamOS.

I'd say it looks fairly dodgy as well but on the flip side - when have Valve ever put anything terrible out?

My bet is it's a game changer and it'll be the IPhone of touch devices (touch screens were rubbish before the iphone. They took a concept that didn't work and made it fantastic)

Steam when it was first released was a horrible POS. It has come a long way in 10 years and now you couldn't dream of them releasing something bad.

Perhaps the hook will be free portal 2 for all SteamOS users.

 

[Grench]

USB standard allows for composite devices. I'm not sure how hard it would be to produce one though, and a built in hub might be easier.

Taking that idea one step past silly...

The USB stick could, in theory, boot - autodetect what the hardware on the box is, download appropriate drivers for the hardware from Steam's servers, figure out what the machine's HDD's file system is, store those on the local host HDD file system so future boots can be faster, cache whatever files it needs most to the host hardware, then run whenever the stick is installed. It could, in theory, work on any X86 based platform capable of booting off of a USB stick. So... all forms of WinTel boxes, X86 Macs... Can the Xbox box boot from a USB stick?

Then there is the thought of going without the PC, by bundling an entire X86 SoC into the stick or box, making it HDMI output - essentially a ROKU sized device with a Z3000 series dual core SoC in it.