SteamBox aka Steamy Gabecube aka SteamOS - The Bear and Badger

[Deleted User]

That is pretty much what I thought it was going to be.
At least a green/amber/red system.

hunk

Aye, they need a performence index score thing.
If steamOS results in cheaper hw that'd be a definite win for consumers.

AJ

Not necessarily, that cheaper hardware would come with a reduction in choice.

Or something. I think. I've drunk too much to still be posting, if I'm honest.

hunk

http://www.polygon.com/2016/6/13/11920384/xbox-one-windows-10-cross-buy

And the predicted xbox/win10 merger goes on...

[Deleted User]

And that Scorpio is just a high end PC. I wonder where this could possibly be heading?

hunk

Heh, windows10 is going to get real crowded real soon. Xbox live vs Steam is going to be very interesting indeed. Only one service can be the windows standard bearer, no?

beano

SpaceGazelle wrote:

And that Scorpio is just a high end PC. I wonder where this could possibly be heading?

Last ever console generation isn't it

hunk

Nah, they just changed the rules.
Bc/fc changes everything!

beano

No it doesn't at all- they're fucking bricking and arse twinging now (releasing another console) it'll be modular PCs with multiboots- heavily licensed always online OSes come gen 9.

hunk

The iPhone like hw upgrade model can be profitable. If ms plays its cards right and the fans bite....
Aye, the modular pc is the other preferable option.

LazyGunn

beano wrote:

No it doesn't at all- they're fucking bricking and arse twinging now (releasing another console) it'll be modular PCs with multiboots- heavily licensed always online OSes come gen 9.

Genuine question - are VMs preposterous?

Blue Swirl

beano wrote:

No it doesn't at all- they're fucking bricking and arse twinging now (releasing another console) it'll be modular PCs with multiboots- heavily licensed always online OSes come gen 9.

hunk wrote:

The iPhone like hw upgrade model can be profitable. If ms plays its cards right and the fans bite.... Aye, the modular pc is the other preferable option.

This is why I'm thinking of a Steambox as my next 'console'. If the current Xbox One and PS4 announcements from E3 are the way things are going (with an iPhone-style 12 to 18 month rolling hardware cycle with a sliding window of compatibility*) then fuck it, I may as well do the same thing with a PC/console hybrid that at least I get to decide which parts to upgrade and when. And if it all goes down the tubes, at least I can stick another OS on it and I have a desktop. If MS/Sony decide to turn everything off for the XPlay41, then you've got a large paperweight.

Having said all that, I am a massive hypocrite because I'm quite taken with the Xbox One S.

*I know both Sony and Microsoft have said that, at the moment, all versions of their flagship consoles are compatible with all the games and accessories, but I'd be very surprised if it stays that way. Odds on there'll be a point when titles will be released that require Xbox One Point Four and above, or something. Just as all iPhones run iOS, but there'll be the occasional app that says "nah, mate, you need the latest or last but one iPhone to use this software".

LazyGunn

Oh and cloud computing too I suppose

RamSteelwood

if they end up in a 12-18 month rolling windows of hw upgrades then i think it will fuck everyone off, i can't see it being that often.
if they do it say every 4 years though, and it has full backwards compatibility, and they manage to control the devs so that owners of the previous model don't get fucked over, then it may not be that bad.
even if they only insist devs support the 'previous' version, you're still looking at an 8 year life cycle for each box, which is decent for a console, especially if all your old games will work on the new box still.
the biggest problem then would be just educating and calming the owners so that they didn't feel put out by the new box or forced to upgrade each time.

if they get it right i think this could be good for MS, i reckon they've out-(steam)boxed valve*. if it beds in and is successful, then it wouldn't surprise me if the next step was MS releasing 'windows xbone version' so the OEM and 'nerds' can make their own spec xboxes down the line, and MS can step back from the cost of making hardware.

*in terms of hardware and overall solution. where i can't see MS competing, and the biggest thing that would me back, is on pricing. i can't see them reducing prices and subscriptions to match steam.

Blue Swirl

RamSteelwood wrote:

if they end up in a 12-18 month rolling windows of hw upgrades then i think it will fuck everyone off, i can't see it being that often. if they do it say every 4 years though, and it has full backwards compatibility, and they manage to control the devs so that owners of the previous model don't get fucked over, then it may not be that bad.

This seems optimistic. Four years between models with full backwards compatibility, but the owners of the old models don't get left behind? It'd be amazing but I don't see that happening.

I mean, we already know that people will upgrade really frequently if given the chance - how many people out there have to have the latest iPhone? And a top-spec iPhone has a much higher RRP than a console. (Yes, I know there's contracts and such, but you see what I mean.)

AJ

People being left behind are guaranteed to be in the minority - most consoles are online, so devs will be able to see stats for the number of owners of each revision and they're going to want to maximise profit by being able to sell to as many people as possible.

hunk

Plus, ms is buying exclusives left, right and centre to bolster the xbox/win10 live store. Makes for an interesting contrast with Valve refusing to do Steam exclusives. Because.......principles.

Also, I'm guessing each xbox iteration will get about 8 years of support. Which is decent enough.

beano

LazyGunn wrote:

beano wrote:

No it doesn't at all- they're fucking bricking and arse twinging now (releasing another console) it'll be modular PCs with multiboots- heavily licensed always online OSes come gen 9.

Genuine question - are VMs preposterous?

Depends- VMs in the sense of making sandboxes or isolated / virtual environments in which programs are executed- not really. VMs for various OSes in the sense that you can readily change between them depends on your hypervisor- I wouldn't recommend Hyper-V as the hypervisor, and I wouldn't recommend VirtualBox either- so yes really.

This and that said- looking at a PS4 dev box, which is a PC with windows 7 on it and looking at an XB1 dev box, which is any PC with windows 8.1 on it. I don't think Consoles can keep up with hardware changes, upgradable consoles are essentially PCs. After these new ones come out I can't see Xboxes or Playstations as anything but software like Steam. I mean, it's always been the software that keeps these firms in the black. So on the whole I don't even think a VM is needed, outside of operating a virtual environment.

hunk wrote:

The iPhone like hw upgrade model can be profitable. If ms plays its cards right and the fans bite.... Aye, the modular pc is the other preferable option.

Consoles are not hackable portable multipurpose devices, so I can't get on board with this comparison. Also people were sold a dream that their phone would make cool and/or useful, above all cool. Consoles can't do these things, they can just about play Blurays and Compact Discs. Games make people cool, and having played one makes you useful, depending which games ofc. and people can get games anywhere, hey look, a phone.

hunk

Whaddya mean consoles don't make me look cool?!! Console innards=pc thus might be hackable...

beano

They only make you look cool to your mates when they come round your house and they've mostly all got a console anyway, the chances are they've even got the games you have, in fact they've probably got either more games than you or a more well curated but smaller collection. Outside of the hovel where your console lives, which is mostly dominated by your family in any day you stand to have maybe 45 minutes of being cool on average each day (that's even if you get a chance to play) where you'll be alone anyway. Essentially all the cool is neutralised, which is cool, but these digital worlds leave little variety in one person's experience to the next ones'. This is why Chal flames everyone and every game before he's even played it, he's cooler than us all. Gotta go, got a vibe from my phone, baby

AJ

beano wrote:

Consoles are not hackable portable multipurpose devices, so I can't get on board with this comparison. [...] they can just about play Blurays and Compact Discs

Eh? Before I got a TV which, by chance, has Android built in, I did the entirety my viewing through a console. Last I looked, there were loads of hacks out there to do various things with consoles.

LazyGunn

Console hacking is a massive faff compared to having complete access to endless tools you can grab from the net to do pretty much anything to anything on your pc. Consoles as they stand are dead.

Beano what do you have to say about cloud computing and client hardware just being whatever they have as a terminal?

beano

I say it's a shit idea for the time being, Gunn. There'd have to be a massive change to the pipelines of studios, even at triple A producers in fact more so there, in addition to a massive uptake in end users buying a boss transport mechanism to facilitate it, as well as facing the fact that without a connection, there are no games.

Even if datacentres went for the latest FPGA hardware utilising software defined networks coupled with high spec GPU rendering the cost is too prohibitive for most (indie or otherwise) to take on, and a subscription model wouldn't be profitable or sustainable without it costing huge sums all round.

We're more likely to have consumable heterogeneous parallel processors in every home before we have decent cloud led gaming environment.

beano

LazyGunn wrote:

Console hacking is a massive faff

aye, that really

Blue Swirl

AJ wrote:

People being left behind are guaranteed to be in the minority - most consoles are online, so devs will be able to see stats for the number of owners of each revision and they're going to want to maximise profit by being able to sell to as many people as possible.

Indeed. Plus if we're going for a four year life cycle, by the time we get to Machine 3, the original Machine 1 will be eight years old - perfect compatibility between those two machines would be very wishful thinking.

If all we want is a four year life cycle with backwards compatibility with the last machine, that's basically right back to what we had before, give or take a life cycle year. If MS and Sony are really going down the iPhone rolling hardware route, then the longest we'll see between hardware refreshes is 2 years. Any longer and we're back to a 'normal' console life cycle and will be a waste of technology to keep it compatible with the old versions.

IMHO, of course.

LazyGunn

beano wrote:

I say it's a shit idea for the time being, Gunn. There'd have to be a massive change to the pipelines of studios, even at triple A producers in fact more so there, in addition to a massive uptake in end users buying a boss transport mechanism to facilitate it, as well as facing the fact that without a connection, there are no games.

Even if datacentres went for the latest FPGA hardware utilising software defined networks coupled with high spec GPU rendering the cost is too prohibitive for most (indie or otherwise) to take on, and a subscription model wouldn't be profitable or sustainable without it costing huge sums all round.

We're more likely to have consumable heterogeneous parallel processors in every home before we have decent cloud led gaming environment.

Cheers for the info I've just been curious about where it stands atm

beano

I'm purely speculative and cynical

hunk

While I love Steam 4 windows and steamOS Valve's approach does have one downside to ms Xbox. SteamOS, despite the BP frontend is still inherently modular pc gaming with all the bonus caveats; driver issues, buggy games, random crashes etc. due to devs not being able to optimise to a certain hw config. Yes, consoles have their fair share of problems but the fixed hw configurations help stability no end. Not to menton ms can potentially make a fuckton of moneyz with the xbox brand using the iphone upgrade model.

Yes, ms still want win10 pc gaming back but they can't attack Steam head on. So instead they're slowly going to build their xbox/win10 ecosystem starting with buying up exclusives. In the meantime xbox will rightfully remain their main focus.

dynamiteReady

Blue Swirl wrote:

AJ wrote:

People being left behind are guaranteed to be in the minority - most consoles are online, so devs will be able to see stats for the number of owners of each revision and they're going to want to maximise profit by being able to sell to as many people as possible.

Indeed. Plus if we're going for a four year life cycle, by the time we get to Machine 3, the original Machine 1 will be eight years old - perfect compatibility between those two machines would be very wishful thinking. If all we want is a four year life cycle with backwards compatibility with the last machine, that's basically right back to what we had before, give or take a life cycle year. If MS and Sony are really going down the iPhone rolling hardware route, then the longest we'll see between hardware refreshes is 2 years. Any longer and we're back to a 'normal' console life cycle and will be a waste of technology to keep it compatible with the old versions. IMHO, of course.

4K exclusives are being written/produced, as we discuss this, surely.

AJ

I very much doubt that. It'd be a very odd game that necessitates that level of fidelity and there certainly isn't going to be the userbase for it to be worth them doing that yet.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories