I don’t quite understand the criticism. It’s not gonna be top of the line, but it’s more than enough to replace my dying laptop from 2015 that I pretty much only ever use like a desktop anyway. And I can save myself the time and effort of picking parts, building, and dealing with shit not working as expected.
You don’t use Linux because of kernel anti-cheats
I don’t play CoD because kernel anti-cheats
We are not the same
This.
Exactly. Another lemming made a fantastic quip to this effect, claiming that consoles and windows are performing “SCP level containment” for the rest of us. Let them have CoD.
Yeah, but we know that Linux people would cheer and praise those games if Linux support was suddenly added
Valve is putting serious money behind Linux and has a lot of pull with game devs. They will fall in line soon.
Yep. No way Activision’s going to leave an addressable market as big as SteamOS is trying to be just sitting on the table. Especially if Valve puts some incentives behind it.
I have to keep using the megacorporate OS because the other megacorporation won’t let me play their slop game unless they can install a virus on my computer!
It’s Activision-Blizzard. It’s the same megacorporation
Ah right, I forgot MS bought them.
ActiBlizzcroSoft
Macroshaft
Honestly more trustworthy.
MicroVisZard
been playing on linux for many many years.
never once have I been stopped by kernal level anticheat.
Weird, its almost as if good games don’t use invasive spyware rootkits.
Eh, it’s gonna depend on your taste in games. If competitive multiplayer games are your thing, then it is a problem. But sure, there’s lots of people who have zero interest in competitive multiplayer.
Not all competitive games require kernel level anti-cheat. Marvel Rivals, Overwatch, Valve’s games, and Halo all work under linux. It’s only a problem for people who want to play certain games like LoL, CoD, or Apex.
Sure, but as it happens with multiplayer games, you typically have a friend group that plays a certain game. Getting all of them to switch to another game can definitely be a problem.
In all honesty, I think it might be overall better if games like Fortnite, CoD or Fifa never get patched for Linux. The vast majority of their players are just addicts who fell victim to the predatory mechanisms. One of the few effective solutions is to cut them off this stuff.
Ideally, these games shouldn’t exist, at least not in their current form. But it’s not like billionaire sociopaths will stop feeding on the weak and poor anytime soon.
Remember when Linux was about freedom? If the OS lets me delete root recursively, it can also let me play slop. It’s not my mom.
Linux isn’t stopping you from playing that slop, it’s just to sloppy to work on Linux.
Let’s not forget the whole Counter-Strike economy is based on gambling, which I think is also not good, especially because there’s a lot of young kids picking that up and becoming gambling addicts, which I think is a net negative for people.
Edit: People make games did a deep dive on this, as did Coffeezilla did a series on the whole ecosystem.
Oh wow I haven’t played since the original Source. I thought you were just talking about how you had to manage an equipment budget in a match. But no, legit gambling scheme with real time and money for what amounts to NFTs that can only be used within Steam’s ecosystem.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a black mark on valve however I imagine it prints a lot of money and they seem reticent to put an end to it.
While I don’t like these games either, I think it would be better for them to support Linux, so all users can enjoy the games they want.
The vast majority of their players are just addicts who fell victim to the predatory mechanisms.
I don’t play Fortnite, but the only players I know are kids, and they just play it because that’s what everyone else is playing and they want to play with their friends. I’m not excusing the company for monetizing the shit out of it, but (anecdotally) the players’ behaviour just reminds me of me and my friends playing Dooms, UTs, or Quakes back in the day.
they are not games they are slop that normies consume.
I don’t need it but I want it. The GabeCube has basically the best of both worlds, the ease of use of consoles and the multi purpose usage of a PC. That’s also why it can’t be priced like a console I’m afraid. It has to be sold at least at cost (production+development) and can’t be subsidized by game sales like a PS or Xbox. A console without games is pretty much useless, the Steam Machine without games is still a damn fine PC.
If it was sold at a loss, businesses would scrape the whole supply and pave them for windows desktops.
That just wouldn’t happen unless the steam machine costs less than $300. That’s usually the top a corporation is willing to pay for bulk mini nucs, which is all that they want for clerk desks. Information workers get laptops with dell or HP embossed in the lid. Workstations for top design or video editing require way more juice than the Steam Machine can deliver, those are bought on order to professional boutiques, or they just buy Apple. Also, no administrator will sit on the steam shop page to buy one at a time, they like their bulk purchases and Valve can simple refuse anyone buying hundreds of machines. Then, corporations don’t just want the PC, they want tech support, advanced guarantee schemes, etc. This usually come with a subscription per seat. All things Valve simply won’t provide. It won’t even register as an option for businesses.
This is an unfounded concern.
Not an unfounded concern if you remember the PS3. The original model was sold at a loss, and also able to run Linux.
People were buying them like crazy for non gaming uses, including building super computer clusters. An entire aftermarket of various small vendors essentially flipping PS3s with various Linux distros flourished, including offering the usual suite of tech support services that Sony didn’t. There was even a black market for the gutted bluray drives, which were expensive, but useless in clusters.
PlayStation 3 cluster - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster
Meh, sure it was an operational loss for sony. But there’s a slew of condintions so different from the ps3 to the steam machines that it’s very hard to compare them. First of all, the Linux PS3 never actually worked. It was janky and required a ton of workarounds and hacks, not really a viable desktop PC. The famous calculation clusters were created by universities and technology enthusiasts. The processing units are too niche for day to day use, having virtually no consumer software for them.
Second, Sony got pushed into a higher cost of manufacture than planned because of a shortage of blurays and the rise in costs of their unique silicon manufacturing. Some say it was more than 100% over their expectations. And I still remember people in the gaming scenes complaining that it was too expensive.
Third, speaking of bluray, the ps3 was way too ambitious technologically speaking, to not be a good target for this type of scalping. First commercial bluray, first HDMI output, a “supercomputer for the living room” vision. If anything, it was the cheap bluray angle that drove scalping and shortages, not the OtherOS capabilities.
I still think it is an unfounded concern with the Steam Machine. Valve already said, it won’t be sold at a loss. It has no specialized technological advancement in particular. It is a mid range entry PC at the most. Having worked with many IT teams and business acquisition teams, it is just not a very attractive proposal. It will be seen as a gaming toy. No exec wants to buy toys for employees.
Lotta small businesses out there.
Not enough to cause a shortage. As I said. No business will pay more than a couple hundred for a PC. If they need more juice, then the steam machine won’t be it. It is more like an enthusiast or a content creator midlevel machine.
You are taking the comments too literal. If something is subsidized (which means cheaper than normal) and it is useful as a PC or PC parts, it will be vacuumed up by non-gamers as well.
You are technically correct about mega corps and such but missing the point being made. Every subsidized PC not bought by gamers is lost money for Valve.
Megacorps won’t sit and refresh Steam sure, but fucking scalpers absolutely will. There are lots of shady middlemen companies that will buy them up from eBay and resell to small businesses too.
Hell, I’d snap one up and resell on eBay in a heart beat myself if this thing goes for anything close to what a PS5 sells for. Let’s say $1200 in parts, I buy for $700, I resell for $900, reseller scoops up a few hundred at a time off ebay, sells in bulk to small businesses for $1100… Everyone wins… Valve fucking loses. Now, let’s say a million people do the same thing because it is free money.
This is how this works and why they can’t subsidise this thing like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have. (Also why Xbox doesn’t run actual windows for that matter.)
No business will pay more than a couple hundred for a PC.
This definitely isn’t true. Every company I’ve worked for has provided fairly expensive laptops. Really curious where you got the idea that businesses are universally so cheap they’d end up spending more long term because they bought absolute trash computers.
Way to take the comment out of context and build a strawman. I was reiterating something I said in more detail in a higher up comment. Companies do buy expensive laptops. I said so. Mind you, the steam machine is, emphatically, not a laptop.
I don’t know what point you’re making. Just because it’s not a laptop doesn’t mean many companies out there have some $200 limit on computers.
I mean thats gonna be the joke. If steam machine really does take off, developers will come, just like they’re starting to cater to the deck. It’ll set a standard for what people want to play on and what they need to make sure their game works on. This is beyond anti cheat and DRM but it’ll be interesting to see how the momentum picks up.
I’d bet that Microsoft is already thinking about getting gamepass working on it (for better or worse)
Depends how much the thing costs.
Oh yeah I don’t mean to imply that it’s a guaranteed success, you’re right.
The hype is real though.
The hype is earnest
If it does not work on Linux I simply won’t buy it.
Yes, the same. It being the machine of course
Machine, software, peripheral, whatever.
I don’t think I need it, but I’m super glad it’s going to exist.
If it came with a native DVD reader and my PS4 suddenly died, I’d have some choices to make, however.
I’m 1000% certain you could attach a Blu-Ray drive via USB without internet telemetry, unlike Sony’s policies ;)
Edit: fixed rogue “care of” character, will contact GrapheneOS team lol
The idea did occur to me a minute after I’d commented. After my PS4 gives up, I’ll have choices to make.
The DRM measures of blurays make a hassle to play any legitimately purchased movie, especially 4k ones, a big hassle on any operating system. Not as plug and play like with DVDs…
I don’t want to rip them before watching them or search hours in obscure forums for a leaked description key…
This would be more useful for game ripping - did that for a lot of my PS3 games due to the large filesizes.
I wonder if it could support an external DVD/BD drive via its USB ports. I assume yes, but that would be an extra purchase for you.
My Steam Deck feels about on par with PS4 in terms of power, and they say Steam Machine will be more like a PS5, so it sounds like it would be an upgrade over your PS4. Just more expensive, especially if you’re buying a disc drive.
I think that this thing coming out will only be beneficial to PC gamers, especially Linux users. This will encourage further development and standardization.
Kinda yeah. Like I said I’m happy it’ll exist, it’s just that I don’t like to spend money on upgrades for the sake of upgrades.
The thing is this is a legitimate problem for the overall success of this. And the success of Linux as a general gaming OS. If people can’t play their staples like CoD or fortnite or anything else with this problem, then that’ll be enough to decide not to get this. Most people here probably don’t care, but we’re not the majority. And a lot of us probably aren’t in the market for this anyway.
This is the general sentiment I’ve been hearing, though surprisingly a lot of people belive that these games will eventually reach steam machine anyway because it seems stupid to them that it never happens.
I didn’t expect it, but a lot of Xbox players I know are considering saving up for the steam machine because it replaces their need for a console + PC for games, and they are aware that Xbox has been pretty open to putting their games on PC anyway. Some even considered Nintendo emulation which is defnitley something I didn’t expect to see from Xbox only players.
Halo Infinite and MCC run just fine on Linux. If they were comfortable letting their core IP on steam, it would be easy and probably beneficial for MSFT to do the same for CoD.
I think the main holdout will be Epic Games, simply because they want to be a competitor to steam and they seem to hate the idea of giving valve any leverage in the gaming industry.
The best part of Linux is shitty games don’t work on it.
It’s always the fucking suits.
But then they only manage to make dissident movements bigger.
COD is going to beg to be let onto the Steam marketplace.
And it’s gonna be great.
