When I look at the "Featured Items" in the Steam client I see the Steam Controller, the Steam Link but there's no trace of anything about the Steam Machines (I don't know if it's just my case) . It just feels like Valve knows too that the Steam Machines are not ready for "prime time" but they released it for us, Linux enthousiasts, to be an "open beta tester group".

I'm really curious to see what kind of weight Valve will put behind the official launch of Vulkan. I might be wrong but I think the contrast with the november 10th launch will be striking. With the first game releases that will use Vulkan, I think it will be the starting point where the whole SteamOS ecosystem experience will begin to be relevant for the majority of players. At least that's what Valve is hoping for. After all they said it themselves:

"Unless you are aggressive enough to be shipping a DX12 game this year, I would argue that there is really not much reason to ever create a DX12 back end for your game" -Dan Ginsburg

http://hexus.net/tech/news/software/86726-valve-recommends-developers-choose-vulkan-directx-12/ [External Link]

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Quoting: wvstolzing

Quoting: PsynoKhi0Every review of a Steam Machine should be one line: "Get one, then send an e-mail to the devs of your favorite, currently unsupported gaming asking for a native port. Bonus points if you mention that performance should similar across hardware vendors."

That wouldn't be a 'review', it would be an 'ad'.

I don't see why reviewers are supposed to mobilize people for some corporation's backup plan -- because that's what SteamOS is. And while Valve's 'ecosystem' (when there's a healthy one in place) is not AS closed-off as that of, say, Sony, it IS its own kind of 'walled garden' nevertheless.

Pretty remarkable how a DRM-empire can 'market itself' as the bastion of software freedom.

You are quite right but there's a major diffrence. The Steam client is a walled garden but you can still use it on Fedora, Ubuntu and derivatives, Arch, SteamOS and many other Linux distributions if you prefer. Can you say the same about Sony or M$ propositions?

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Mmm... I would like to see benchmarks of MLL on this console vs others at the same level of details. I don't know if it's still the case, but last time I checked, traditionnal console graphics quality of MLL could not stand agaisnt the PC version.

Has for SteamOS, based on my personnal experience with it and what I read from other platforms, the integration of the Steam Controller and Steam Link seems much less buggy in the SteamOS ecosystem than in any other platforms.

That might not be a game changer but I tought it was worth mentionning.

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That's why I wrote, on another post, that Valve's strategy is based on Vulkan. If Vulkan sends DirectX "out of business", the performance gap will, at least, vanish and ports will be much easier to do.

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Personnaly my rig is built on SteamOS and I don't have all the issues you're talking about. It feels much more seamless.

The only annoyance was in Dirt:Showdown, with the Gyro turned on you have to be carefull with the controller positionning or you get a non-stopping scrolling menu. Once turned off, the experience is awesome.

Edit : I must admit that I have no controller reference because I hated the dual analog stick convention. To me the Steam Controller feels really natural.

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I think Vulkan is the key in Valve's scheme:

A crossplatform api to replace DX12 with better performances will make it easier for game publishers to port their games to SteamOS. Once gamers see the performance gained with it, they will start to convert.

Be carefull, I'm not saying this is going to happen. I think, it's what Valve is hoping for.

Edit : Have you noticed the "Optimized for SteamOS" label on a couple of games? Alien: Isolation being one of them... Interresting marketing strategy.

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Quoting: liamdaweAh my bad with the time, I had the area slightly wrong heh the US is confusing with lots of timezones.

I might have been wrong too... Didn't have the right location for Valve:

Bellevue Washington is on Pacific Time. I'm on eastern time. Right now, it's 5h33 in Bellevue and 8h33 eastern time. The "sales update" happens at 1h00 PM, eastern time so it must be 10h00am in Bellevue, WA. What we need to know it's that we are 4h27 till next update.

Sorry for the confusion. :dizzy:

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Usually Valve update it's offerings, during Steam sales, at 1PM, where Valve is. I suspect it will be the same, today. They used the same pattern when SteamOS, the Steam Machines and the Steam Controller were first announced, 2 years ago.

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It's even worse when you consider the fact that the option "show only content for my system" is checked by default... What is this feature then???

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My main gaming rig is built on SteamOS and with the controller the experience is really great. I've played The Witcher 2, Trine, Trine 2 and Portal 2 and I love this thing and the customization possibilities. Didn't get any bugs and the controler's firmware update was automaticaly handled by SteamOS (don't know if it's the same for other OSs).

The M+KB mode feels really natural to me.

I'll buy a second one for Christmas. :)

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