Is it really “worth remembering”? The past is passed. They’re not the same company and the PC space is not the same as it was back then. Who cares?
PCGamer’s advertisers care.
How will Corsair sell $500 cases and $300 water cooling systems, with $600 of attached fans to people just buying a SteamDeck.
PCGamer’s advertisers need the clueless to think that buying all that is essential.
Yes, it is worth it to remember.
They naively expected publishers and developers to give a shit.
But after that failure they worked hard for years and contributed and donated to open source projects.
That allowed Linux to become a true competitor in gaming space with zero vendor lock-in.Whatever their reasons were, the results are objectively positive for nearly everyone.
Indeed. I would say the Gabecube is essentially just another PC and a little overhyped already. It‘s SteamOS that deserves a lot of praise. Especially with the upcoming desktop version.
I won’t be getting one (because I don’t need one right now) but I’m hyped for 2 reasons.
First is getting a company to come out with an official Linux gaming OS. Not because I want some kind of a corporate OS-s but because bigger game developers have a reason to target Linux as they will see there’s not only a market but a supported market.
And the second is standardized hardware for a Linux platform. It will make game development easier because you can target specific hardware and (together with the previous point) specific OS to make games for Linux. I can’t find the link anymore but a developer once said that the majority of their bug reports came from Linux while Linux was also the smallest platform they supported and most of the probably comes from the fact that you can have so many combinations of hardware and software that offering Linux support costs more than offering Windows support. If that can be reduced to specific hardware and specific OS that would give more of an incentive for developers to try out supporting Linux (even if it’s only SteamOS on a Steam Machine).
I don’t care what Steam Machines and SteamOS can do when they release, I care what they can do 5-10 years down the line. It’s all about getting the ball rolling and once it’s rolling it’ll get to the destination, making gaming on Linux as good as it is on Windows, on its own. I know, I know, gaming on Linux is already pretty good. But gaming on Linux is still dependent on Windows and if MS wants they can screw proton over (for example making UWP mandatory) so getting native games on Linux should still be a goal. And there’s also the lack of official support from other companies in the gaming space. The most obvious is most popular online games not working on Linux due to anti-cheat but there’s also the fact that some more niche peripherals are hard to use due to no official drivers. It took some tinkering to get my Thrustmaster steering wheel to run, which instantly is a no-go for the average gamer. We’re like 90% of the way there to make Linux a great platform for gaming but that last 10% is going to require collective effort to achieve and that’s really difficult to achieve.
You think Gabe Newell hates Microsoft so much that he has his company contribute to Linux and open source, simply out of spite?
Considering he helped create Windows while working at Microsoft, and allegedly left due to the direction it was going, yes.
He has stated as much, so, yeah.
I mean he quit working for Microsoft and started Valve because he disagreed with their direction.
Yes, actually.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18996377
“We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well,” said Mr Newell.
“Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.”I don’t think that was Gabe “hating” Microsoft; I think it was him recognizing that the Windows Store/appx stuff that Windows 8 pushed was a threat to his business model.
I don’t think that is true, but I certainly like the idea of it being true.
I doubt it. On the Windows platform, Valve has to do what Microsoft decides. If Microsoft decides all apps are required to go through the Microsoft store app then Valve would be toast.
Good reason to have an independent gaming OS, I suppose 😉
If Microsoft ever pulled this play at least EU probably would like to have a word. Microsoft already got kicked in the balls over here for such moves, and it hurt.
Yes, but also money.
Why would you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a PC that used a brand-new operating system and had a gaming library a fraction of the size of that of Windows machines?
I had one of the old Alienware Steam Machines. I know it wasn’t a popular answer, but my answer to this was that Windows was atrocious for the living room just like it’s atrocious for handhelds today, and I had easily and cheaply amassed a large library of Linux-compatible games even back then by way of Steam sales. But this wasn’t even the only problem. We only had OpenGL ports rather than lower level and more performant APIs like Vulkan. Running a marquis Linux title like Shadow of Mordor would come with a sizable performance hit compared to the Windows version, even when run on exactly the same hardware, and that would also require a machine that cost $200 more than a PS4 that could run the same game just as well.
The failure of the Steam Machine is why Valve hosted Khronos group at their office to kick off Vulkan and funded LunarG etc in the early days to get things moving quickly.
Valve took their time but this new hardware range is based on years of learning and solving the problems from their original foray into hardware and Linux for gaming.
And I’m so thankful for it!
As someone who owned the Alienware one with windows 8 (and upgraded it to windows 10, and a 2TB SSD), I’m glad to find anyone else who actually bought one, especially the steam OS variant, and has expertise with it, rather than regurgitating what articles say.
Oh, man - I can do you one better. I still have one of these, still hooked up and running. We use it as a game server for some low-requirement stuff… currently Vintage Story.
So, funny story, I bought it as the Windows variant, because it was $50 cheaper for some reason. Bloatware subsidies, maybe? My roommate and I tried it for a little while, but using Windows from the couch sucked so much that I put SteamOS on it. My roommate only booted back to Windows to play Hearthstone. I just rocked whatever SteamOS would let me play local, since streaming games from my desktop in the other room wasn’t cutting it for me. I played through KOTOR2 on that machine, on SteamOS, and had a great time.
I was able to overclock it to a crazy level. Played all kinds of games on it between me and my roommate. It was finiky using big picture mode (I ended up buying a dedicated mouse and keyboard for it to use on a lapboard at the time), but BPM gave me trouble with controllers, refusing to quit to desktop, and hanging on launching games occasionally.
A lot of Dell’s BS software went the way of the dodo bird as soon as I could get rid of it for similar reasons. The update to windows 10 I also seem to remember giving me trouble. MS didn’t consider it supported hardware. But it all worked out and now that thing is my media center PC. It’s still running after all this time, which is crazy.
I bought the i5 varriant from ebay for $150 in 2016 that someone I think tried to pass off the yellow ring of death to me, as the system failed shortly after I bought it, BUT, it was still under original manufacturer warranty. I sent it in to dell with no proof of purchase requested from me, they sent my system back fixed, and accidentally gave me another steam controller in the box back, haha.
After getting it back, I wiped windows and have been running Ubuntu on it since then. Still using it as a HTPC right now, though it is getting long in the tooth for web video like YouTube, etc. Probably gonna be replacing it soon with something else, but 10 years of usage for $150 ain’t bad.
I want Amd to have 4k 120hz support on Linux please? Stupid hdmi forum.
I switched to a display port monitor because of this.
This is exactly why they SHOULDN’T have named it Steam Machine. The Steam Deck was released and no one talked about Steam Machines. Call it Steam Machine and suddenly everyone is reminded of the colossal flop all those years ago.
Really, how many people cared about or even remember the original? The original program was a flop but that hasn’t tainted the name.
I remember it, and that memory is why this one kind of has me hopeful.
Same. I don’t have any immediate need for any of the newly announced hardware products, but I’m hopeful they succeed because they indirectly benefit me as a Linux gamer.
how many people cared about or even remember the original
The people who wrote this article do. And now so does everyone that came across it.
I kind of wish they’d called em steam engines
There’s so few people that remember… Nobody cares.
And Steam Machine is going really hard as a brand and as a device name, really. I bet there’s a lot of salivating at this level of brand recognition in a lot of marketing departments.
I was holding out for the Steam Engine.
Game engine from Steam? Sounds like a logical next step.
Get the Steam Engine, from the Source :)
Does it matter though? You can put it as a failure that got so bad Valve eventually cancel it, or you can put it as a product that got good from countless iteration. Its kinda like glass half empty half full kind of situation which eventually doesn’t really matter.
Ask anyone who works in marketing if branding is important.
It is. “From failed product to global success” will also drum up a positive vibe about this particular hardware. What i meant by it is it doesn’t really matter if the previous iteration is a failure, what people really care and what’s important is the current iteration and what Valve learn from their past mistake, and the marketing team of Valve know exactly that. It’s marketing after all, turning negative vibe to positive one is part of the marketing strategy.
Going from YouTube comments on gaming channels that don’t focus on PC gaming or Linux, I don’t think many people remember the first Steam Machines from 10 years ago.
The goal of marketing is to get as many people as possible to be aware that a company’s product exists. These articles are doing just that, for free.
Initial sales will probably take a hit bc of the negative articles. I don’t think they’re being written bc valve decided to stick with the same name though. The articles are probably being written bc negative headlines get clicks.
If the new steam machine proves to be a solid product this time around then gamers are going to buy it. If it’s such a solid product that it manages to turn a product line that was once associated with failure and negativity into a product line that’s associated with success and positivity then I really can’t think of anything better the new steam machine could do for valve’s brand. The (hypothetical) articles comparing the huge (hypothetical) success of the new steam machine to the dramatic failure of the past will also be a bit easier to write a headline for. More free marketing.
