Quoting: GuestIt reads like satire.

Yeah, but they're serious. These people frighten me. I hope they don't have children.

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Valve got an AI going nuts right now?

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Does cross platform mean that we can have Linux and PS4 clients in the same party?

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I don't think Valve will be offering a cloud service on this basis in a not so distant future. For people who have an appropriate network connection. Hence their commitment to SteamOS and AMD.

The PC market has not been a growing market for a long time.

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On Steam it already has the SteamOS symbol.

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[quote=Leopard][quote=1xok]

Quoting: NeverthelessEven when you have best service in your hands , there is still slowdowns and ping occurs. And with all that net neutrality thing going on ; Steam only escape from Microsoft to Isp's arms.

So ; i think local gaming won't be obsolete at any time.

There was a very similar argument 15 years ago when Steam came up. At the time, no one could have imagined that this would replace normal distribution via DVD. When did you buy your last DVD? Such developments take decades. My average ping time to the Sony Now network is 10ms. I can play Metro 2033 over it without noticing a difference. My input lag over the TV is more than 50ms. It's even higher on smartphones and tablets.

Let's talk again in 15 years. :)

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Salvatos

Quoting: 1xokBut the page is still there:

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/steam_machines [External Link]

Liam doing fake news!?? :O :P

I also get the Hardware tab on my end, just the Steam Machines are missing from the menu. Still seeing the Controller, Link and Vive.

I never said the hardware tab was gone, I said the hardware page was gone. The Steam Machine page also might as well not exist, since the links to it were removed.

But it gives us another glimmer of hope. ;)

I just wanted to point out.

Thank you for your report. I wouldn't have noticed about the link.

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Quoting: NeverthelessLinux wasn't ready at the time Valve announced Steam Machines and SteamOS. It stll isn't quite ready. AMD drivers need time, VR needs time, Vulkan still needs time.
I don't know why Valve came out with it prematurely, but I guess something had to be done at that time, to push Linux development and to slow down Microsoft closing down Windows.

My opinion:
[TLDR: Officially SteamOS it's about Steam Machines and now about VR, but I don't think that's the real reason.]

I think the people at Valve have to motivate themselves somehow. To say: Okay, let's work on it for 10 years and then see what we do with it is not very motivating. So they came up with Steam Machines and now it's VR. But with VR you can really count the Linux users on one hand. Economically, VR and Linux do not make any sense. Except Valve wants to sell a complete VR console, which I think is even less likely than Steam Machines. This is an absolute niche. At GDC GabeN praised Valve for now being strong in creating hardware and software at the same time. He compared it to Nintendo. But I don't think that's what that's all about in the end. Valve won't become a second Nintendo for VR. The real plan is a completely different one and much less specific.

Valve is currently building large computing clusters to detect cheaters in CSGO and Dota2 using deep learning. At the moment they still use normal CPUs. The whole thing isn't very big yet either. But they also want to offer it to others as a service. So this will grow and maybe they will use graphics units at some point. Of course, this is officially about anti-cheating, but I think Valve has also other reasons to invest in this technology.

I think that Valve and especially GabeN are aware that the PC era is coming to an end in the next two decades. Maybe much sooner. The cloud is becoming increasingly important. PC and console sales are stagnating, while mobile sales have surpassed them already. PubG and Fortnite switch to the mobiles. Steam machines did not fail because they were bad, but simply because the market is completely saturated. This market is no longer growing.

In the cloud, however, things are very different. Apart from Sonys Now, there are currently no major offers for games. The network must continue to grow. But when the train starts rolling it would be too late to develop something like SteamOS. Such a development takes many years. That's why Valve is working on it now.

Anything else makes little sense. Windows is the absolutely dominant OS for desktop computers and gaming. SteamOS or another Linux system will not change this. GabeN must have known that from the beginning. Steam Machines and VR are just nice stories. The truth will happen in large data centers. And Valve has no interest in running it on Windows and having to give Microsoft billions in license payments for it. For a system they don't even control!

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But the page is still there:

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/steam_machines [External Link]

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Quoting: JahimselfSo I guess at the head of zenimax there are some weird people.

Donald Trump's brother - Robert S. Trump - sits on Zenimax's board of directors.
Fun fact: Donald Trump blamed brutal computer games after the last gun rampage.

After displacing Christopher Weaver from ZeniMax, the company is run by old people who have nothing to do with computer games. These people are experienced in business and do many things right, I think. But they have no real love for Games I suspect. I think they work in a similar way to the big film studios. They give the makers (Bethesda) a lot of freedom, but always make strange decisions.

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