Excellent move. Time to get rid of some legacy stuff.

Yes, there will be a few bumps along the way, but the longer people wait to move forward with this, the harder it will get.
Better sooner than later, then. It is inevitable, anyway.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Good news, indeed!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This really looks interesting. I'll follow it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I am really curious what the review score of those exlusive titles will be on Steam, once the exclusivity wears off...

It will kind of show how long the memory of people lasts.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I switched from a Steam Controller to an Xbox One controller a few months ago.
The right "mouse pad" is simply the wrong choice for a great deal of games, not even talking about the lack of support for it (many just treat it like an analog stick, which obviously won't work).
And the flat d-pad just doesn't give you the same, clear 4-direction feeling that a proper d-pad does.

One thing that amazed me however, is the extreme battery life. I seriously cannot remember ever having switched batteries in my Steam Controller.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I loved playing Faeria, what an amazingly beautiful game.

About the campaign: Too much face time. Too little game time.
What they should have done is make a video only about the game, and have a Yak narrate it. Those Yaks could sell me anything.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

What a weird announcement. Omitting all infos about gameplay.
I mean, if they say 5th edition, then at least it will be an RPG in some form I guess?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: ArehandoroIdea: For a long time PC users have wanted to play like console users.

In which universe, please? And what is "like console users" :D ?

People who want to play on a console, they have a console.
People who want to plan on a PC, they have a PC.
People who want both, well, those with money have both, and the others are obviously not the target audience ;)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: TheSHEEEPNot to downplay the device, but a feature like that should simply become available via tablet/smartphone (+ controller attached, of course). I don't really see the need for an extra piece of hardware here, to be honest.

I don't personally expect it to be a success. But consider trying to play games on a tablet/smartphone while holding a controller--you can't also hold the tablet/smartphone, so you will need to put it somewhere and that somewhere will have to allow it to be propped up in a stable way where you can see it properly while gaming and the controller itself won't block your view of the screen. Even with one of those little prop-up-a-tablet thingies, that lets out planes, trains, and automobiles, not to mention buses and many coffee tables (too low). With this you would presumably be able to play on the go, with real PC games, plausibly even continuing the same game you were playing on the PC at home.
So there's at least one use case. Dunno if that's going to be enough, though. If nothing else, to sell something like this in big numbers what you need is a big advertising/marketing budget to prompt people to think they should buy it because it is a new shiny electronic thing. I don't think they have that budget.

There are controllers (and/or frames) that attach the controller firmly to the smartphone/tablet, so you do not have to hold two devices. Stuff like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Bluetooth-Android-Controller%EF%BC%8CBRHE-Controller/dp/B0772SXD12 [External Link]

Maybe that one isn't optimal, but what I'm saying is that a more optimally designed controller-for-smartphones/tablets sounds like a better idea to me than extra display hardware when all you really do is stream image/audio to and input from the device. Two things smartphones are already capable of.

Hang on, I thought it was supposed to run the games itself, not stream them.

You might be onto something, there. I think I misunderstood the entire project. Oops :D

So it's basically a handheld gaming device, like a DS, just with desktop games running on it.
That does seem a bit more usable, though I still don't think many would choose this over just doing their "gaming on the run" via smartphone.
I can't really look at screens for a longer time while in a bus, train, etc. as it makes me dizzy so it's not for me anyway.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: TheSHEEEPNot to downplay the device, but a feature like that should simply become available via tablet/smartphone (+ controller attached, of course). I don't really see the need for an extra piece of hardware here, to be honest.

I don't personally expect it to be a success. But consider trying to play games on a tablet/smartphone while holding a controller--you can't also hold the tablet/smartphone, so you will need to put it somewhere and that somewhere will have to allow it to be propped up in a stable way where you can see it properly while gaming and the controller itself won't block your view of the screen. Even with one of those little prop-up-a-tablet thingies, that lets out planes, trains, and automobiles, not to mention buses and many coffee tables (too low). With this you would presumably be able to play on the go, with real PC games, plausibly even continuing the same game you were playing on the PC at home.
So there's at least one use case. Dunno if that's going to be enough, though. If nothing else, to sell something like this in big numbers what you need is a big advertising/marketing budget to prompt people to think they should buy it because it is a new shiny electronic thing. I don't think they have that budget.

There are controllers (and/or frames) that attach the controller firmly to the smartphone/tablet, so you do not have to hold two devices. Stuff like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Bluetooth-Android-Controller%EF%BC%8CBRHE-Controller/dp/B0772SXD12 [External Link]

Maybe that one isn't optimal, but what I'm saying is that a more optimally designed controller-for-smartphones/tablets sounds like a better idea to me than extra display hardware when all you really do is stream image/audio to and input from the device. Two things smartphones are already capable of.

Quoting: MaathRegarding the alternative via phone, does this really work well? I tried Steam Link maybe over a year ago. My Linux PC is directly wired to my 5Ghz Wi-Fi router, and my phone was about five feet from it, and it's simply unusable. It was like VNC at its worst. If this has changed and now I can even play over LTE then WOW, times have changed and I need to catch up.

The main point here is that the technology for this is software. What you need here is good video and audio compression to send and receive the data as quick and small as possible. This only relies on hardware insofar that the receiving device has to be able to decompress the data fast enough to present it in a quick manner. If you had problems with this before, then that problem was either a too-slow smartphone or an insufficient compression.

Any modern smartphones of the higher end should be more than capable of that, so that really leaves software as the only problem. And that leads to the question of why you'd need extra hardware that goes beyond that of a controller(-frame)?
It's not like you can use the thing as a smartphone, you'd instead be carrying both. And it looks way more bulky than a DS.

View this comment - View article - View full comments