This changes everything: Valve enters console race

It may not be a game changer in a physical, hardware sense, but more in way of how they look at content delivery to their user base. The 3 Manufacturers are still heavily reliant on physical stores to push their software sales, and with several of these companies closing down stores across the country they will need to have another way to deliver their games to the players.

This will require a new train of thought for the major console companies as Valve have such a head start on them. Yes, Steam may not be perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than what the console manufacturers have now.

Just the statement of a Steambox coming will have sent ripples through the industry, just not part of the industry that we all see…

@49 yeah, you’re right. Sorry guys for feeding the troll, it won’t happen any more, I swear!

@52: Troll he? I guess that’s what happens if you call Half-Life 1 and 2 incredibly BORING!

@49 Erthazus hates gaming, our dear FabioPal at least takes the hand of console gaming, which pretty much gave birth to the gaming industry, just my opinion though.

Nevertheless I’d buy a Steambox IF I didn’t had plans of getting a PC aimed for gaming, which sounds cheaper and more profitable since I can customize it the way my gaming needs want. But anyone be free to state a reason to get it even this way, I’d like to bring my console friends to the joy Steam is, but I can’t find a better argument than ‘DISCOUNTS!’ and somehow that isn’t enough for most gamers

#51

At least half the games I buy on 360 are digital download. At least half of those are in sales.

Some of the platforms highest selling, most critically acclaimed games are download-only (Trials and Minecraft having several million units sold each for example)

So apart from pricing, something that can be adjusted pretty easily with a few publisher deals, digital distribution is here and working just fine.

So for consoles there are no ‘ripples through the industry’, no major re-think of the platforms and services, just a continuation toward a download-only future that has been growing for the last 7 years.

Why do people assume HL3 won’t be playable on PC as well as Bigfoot? It might work on both using the same exact code. Or with very little work from valve.

The concern i have here is that if you essentialy stop PC game tech from progressing because of Bigfoot that could be bad. In other words three years after it comes out no one will want to push the envolope beacuse the Bigfoot won’t be able to run it. Or will it be upgradable?

In a sense we already have that problem, consoles have been holding PC back for years now. BigFoot may add to that.

But I know consoles needed a rethink. Maybe Valve can breath new life into things.

I am thinking at this point that there might be so many devices next gen that no one enitity will gather one large piece of the marketshare.

I can tell you one thing, I was not all that excited about next gen. I have my WiiU and my PC. I was happy with that. I will take a wait and see approach to what MS/Sony do. But in the end, if I decide to buy a console…I will also be looking pretty hard at Bigfoot/littlefoot.

Also amazing to see all of the console fanboys sniffing the wind, it just doesn’t smell right to you guys does it?

@55

And what about your ‘Triple A’ games? How are those digital downloads going for you? Consoles are still based on Physical disk sales. The transition to digital only will need a much better rethink than what they’ve got now.

Are you in the upper echelons of the industry to know what effect an announcement like this will have? Like me, you aren’t, so we don’t know what is happening in the management of MS/Sony/Publishers etc etc, as I stated at the end of the sentence.

Anything that effects the console-ecosphere will have management types talking about how to counter it or improve what they have. Publishers rushed to get mobile games out when Apple allowed games to be available via iTunes app store. This cause companies to quickly get mobile divisions up and running to tap that new group of players.

When the largest player in the DD market announces that it’s going to be bringing out a Console like device, then you can guarantee that it will get a lot of people in a lot of companies, talking about it and the ramifications of what it could do to them as a business.

I was pretty shocked to get back on the 360 and see just how crappy the digital offerings were. They’re stuck in a time pocket.

I sniff the wind and find it stinks of ‘the sky is falling’ bullshit OG.

Fact: The sky is not falling.

“And what about your ‘Triple A’ games? How are those digital downloads going for you?”

You might be amazed to learn how many gamers pay XBLA, PSN, or other such byte sized offering over the big box games these days. I buy only a very small handfull of trip a games in a year anymore. They are too much the same, overexposed, and lack frshness. Not to mention they are over priced and DLC fueled, in many cases.

lol sorry Gad, the sky is not falling. Never said it was. But there is a new way of doing biz coming down the road. That could make winners out of some, lossers out of others. For example smaller studios that can compete on Steams indies scenes could be big winners, retail chains could be big lossers. And fanboys that like to debate about which nearly indetical system is better then the other, are taking notice.

No matter what happens, it is change. And I think change is long long overdue.

Finally, the first step for valve to be doomed. NICE!

#57

As I said, the only thing required for consoles to decouple from retail is a pricing adjustment.

Tell me what else you consider needing a ‘major rethink’ apart from pricing.

The infrastructure is there. Things like 5 million Minecraft XBLA sales and the popularity of PSN+ says the public accepts console DD in a big way already.

All Triple-A makes it to console DD stores already, it just needs to get there faster than it currently does.

But this has been slowly happening for ages. It’s not radical, not a rethink, not a crisis, just a continuation of a trend.

That’s the point OG. I really don’t think that it’s a change at all.

UNLESS they’re actually making a console, which means that you can have exclusives, that the games are not compatible with the PC version etc. But, again, I don’t think they have the raw power/money to enter the console market.

Oh, for the records, I’m an eager pc gamer and I love Steam for what it offers.

I think that the people who don’t get how this could change everything are full on PC gamers, who don’t know how many of the filthy console gaming masses want to get into PC gaming, but are turned off by the extremely high psychological barrier to entry.

Whether it’s real or not, a lot of consumers think of PC gaming and think of an expensive rig that needs to be replaced/upgraded every year or two, high maintenance as regards patches and drivers, the low but significant chance that your game just won’t run correctly (or at all), and cables all over the shop…

You give me an affordable, presentable PC which I can use to play on my monitor AND my telly, and you stick a “Valve approved” sticker on the side of it so that I know that every Steam title will run on it, and I and SOOOO fucking on board it’s scary…

Now, can they manage that? I dunno, but if they can, and realistically it seems likely that they can at least get very close to that ideal, Sony, MS and Ninty are in even more trouble than they and the industry at large is already in.

Still not interested. At all. I also can’t believe people are still waiting for hl3. I’m more pumped for gta V.

Fabio I think Bigfoot will have a mega ton of exclusives. But they may not be trip a games. Look at all of the exclsuives PC has. Indiewise.

Plus, lets say Bigfoot can run Guild Wars or Rift or EQIII. What if Blizzard get on board and for 350usd you can play StarCraftII, Diablo III, and Wow.

Right now we know very little. Best to sit tight and wait and see what happens. But I think just about anyone with a level head could look at this and think it could be huge.

People talk about Vavle entering the console market. but I see it as more of the merging of traditional consoles with modern day PCs. I am not a PC techie. But I game on Steam. Almost everything is plug and play, very rarely do I have a problem. And with the community forums there I can fix the problem with user given step by step instructions. Modern day PCs are what they used to be in the mid 90s.

Consoles and PCs have been on a collision path scince day one.

That is all Bigfoot is really going to end up being a more console like PC or if you like a PClike console. Look at the services the xb360 already offers. They are trying to do a lot more then just games. I bet they continue down that road with xbnxt. Consoles in effect are morphing into locked down PCs.

It amazes me that so many people get up in arms over this at all. I guess people just don’t like change.

For long time PC gamers I don’t think this represents a major impact. But for long time console gamers…it could be huge.

I can’t wait for it. I am so tired of traditional consoles. That is why I play PC to begin with.

@65 they would still be playing on a console though… AND you won’t be able to mod games

@Eddie how do you know it support mods? It might.

#OG

“I am so tired of traditional consoles”

But not the WiiU, right? Cos that isnt a traditional console and you haven’t been raving about it since you got it, right?

I have popcorn and a LOLshield ready. Take all the time you need….

@OG “Plus, lets say Bigfoot can run Guild Wars or Rift or EQIII. What if Blizzard get on board and for 350usd you can play StarCraftII, Diablo III, and Wow.”

My only problem here is I would still want to use a keyboard and mouse for these games, and sitting on my sofa with them is not comfortable.

There are some MMO’s I could sit on a sofa with a controller but not many.

Same with FPS games.

This thing won’t even be announced this year, and probably won’t go on sale until late ’14 early ’15 at the earliest. I don’t think that Sony/ ms have too much to worry about as their consoles will already be out. Valve is not a household name like the big 3 are, and I don’t see many console/pc gamers jumping ship to a “consolized” pc. Of course there are people that will, I just think they are in the minority. This “console” has as much potential to do well as it does to completely flop.

@70 he’s under the influence of “nintendo magic”, and maybe a good dose of senility

“I have popcorn and a LOLshield ready.”

Oh man!

The WiiU GamePad adds to the game experience. So at least that is something. Still tho, I game on PC more then anything else. I have never denied that.

Also why assume that Bigfoot won’t also use kb/mouse?

I also don’t get some of the PC gamers here who have been known to knock consoles for thier “shitty sub par graphics” but seem ready and willing to accept this, when this hardware will face the exact same problems.

Will the hardware in Bigfoot not age just like any other console and be out dated by the progression of PC graphics cards?

@70
I can pre-order the LOLshield?
Consoles really are fine the way they are right now. Only digital prices need to be addressed, and they will be in due course.
And what #63 said.

@OG
“Fabio I think Bigfoot will have a mega ton of exclusives”
Yeah right. And they will support a steambox instead of millions that have PC?
PC gaming is not steam, its much bigger than that.
I like how console fanboys doesn’t include wiiu lovers. Keep going mate!

@76 Why is the argument always horsepower though? I always thought that was the most braindead thing you could use to divert a discusson from the actual experience of using a device.

The experience is what matters to me. I’m not looking for gauges to max themselves out, I’m looking for something that does a lot of cool stuff, in a way that’s convenient, and that I enjoy using.

Maybe I’m the atypical PC gamer, but fuck horsepower. That’s really always been little more than icing on the cake. I’m encouraged by the fact that Newell isn’t actually talking about that, and instead focusing on systems and real performance, like improving the controllers, instead of just putting more raindrops on Batman.

That being said, it’s not like we’re in position to answer any of the big questions right now. My interest is piqued though.

I foresee this magical open valve steambox console being hacked to pieces. Do Valve think by offering an open platform that hackers will not try to get free games and steal source code just because they can?

”You give me an affordable, presentable PC which I can use to play on my monitor AND my telly, and you stick a “Valve approved” sticker on the side of it so that I know that every Steam title will run on it, and I and SOOOO fucking on board it’s scary…”

^^THIS^^. huge market.

i really can see ms and valve getting along somehow, sharing pc knowlege/history, being both us companies, dealing out things, games for windows, sharing market. will it really run linux? sony will be shot in the head as a console hardware manufacturer at some point, continuing to produce great games, nintendo might survive. they have a different busines modell. a good one. could be enough.

i wasn’t that excited about the nextgen but this really does change everything, it’s a bomb…i am excited now, that’s for sure, thx valve and good luck. good chance you’ll get my cash.

No God of War….No Uncharted series….No Gran Turismo games….WTF is it changing? Its just going to confuse more consumers out there with already established brands like PlayStation and Nintendo. I think they’ll have better luck if they call the machine Sega Dreamcast 2. Half-Life ranks nowhere near my top 10 fav games of all time so I can care less about HL3 unlike some of you. Even if Valve launched this box at $199 I still wouldn’t pick it up before I invested into the other 3 major players.

I’m sure Valve will do a hell of a lot better than the phantom did but main stream take over I highly doubt.

@69 Only if we use an external HD on it, unless the Linux system they add to it allows us to download and manage them.

@81 They must bring us new IPs though.

Xbox 720 is probably taped out at this point in time. PS4 is probably more or less done, too. You’re looking at an AMD 7000 series GPU/APU in both. Best case.

Valve just needs to wait for definite specs to show up and gazump them in the hardware stakes. Think less about it being the Xi3 ‘mini PC’ but more of an open ‘Xbox 800′.

It’s far more exciting this way. Nobody wants a cheap ass PC sat in the living room.

@82 Newell was pretty clear in saying that you could. They haven’t talked about any restrictions, other than the fact that they prefer to have none.

“[it’ll] be a Linux box, [and] if you want to install Windows you can. We’re not going to make it hard.”

Obviously it’s going to come with some form of app to make Steam ready and easy for anyone who buys the box, but it sounds to me like you can do whatever you want with it beyond that.

It’s not a closed console. I reckon choosing Linux has more to do with keeping costs down, and of course deferring that potential expense to you.

@84 I’ll check this out but if that is so you clearly changed my view on this console, so thank you. As for now I still won’t be planning on getting one for price matters, unless Valve manages to make it cheaper here in Brazil (that is $999 dollars converted into reais and not $999 dollars converted into reais then added 200% in taxes)

Here’s the full interview, well worth a look:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3852144/gabe-newell-interview-steam-box-future-of-gaming

I honestly don’t think this Steambox will be a traditional console. I just think it will be for those that just don’t want to have a PC they have to manage and worry about upgrading. Just don’t see Valve pulling a MS and shunning an entire market they have built just to get a swing at console market especially since consoles are being predicted to be on its last gen. What we understand as consoles now will eventually become a service that the big 3 will provide to consumers.

@86 This article was more complete than I’d thought, clearly changed a lot my view, although the price still quite… horrifying

@Gad

You’re right on on how quickly can they get a game to Digital from retail, but also how will a new player effect them. Look at Sony. They didn’t discuss the effect MS had with the first Xbox, they were expecting the PS3 to sell just as well as the PS2 in their short sighted arrogance and look what happened when the 360 was released a full year ahead of them?

In an industry which is so competitive, any hint of a new console from any major players, will get people asking what will it be capable of, what features might it have that they don’t. With a Steambox, they’ll more than likely go look at steam and examine it at lot more thoroughly and keep an eye on it’s development a lot more. Knowing what your competition is doing helps you keep a step ahead or on a level field at least.

If companies are not talking about it, then they haven’t learned from Sony’s mistake.

@86
Good article, gives a much bigger insight into what Gabe wants from the Steambox.