Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by w1ntermute on Monday December 03, 2012 @05:14PM
(#4868224)
There's an excellent post on The Verge forums called "Forget the PS4 and the Xbox 720, build your own Steambox on the cheap"[0]. It will be very exciting to see if a significant number of gamers (many of whom are already familiar with building their own PCs) take the initiative to go down this road.
A nice auxiliary advantage of building a Steambox is that you can use it as a full-featured HTPC as well, since it runs a desktop OS.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by rpm4321 on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @08:44AM
(#4870840)
Well, obviously all PCs are Steamboxes, technically speaking. However, if it's a streamlined box that plugs right into a television and boots right to steam, I could maybe see them putting up a stink, even if the branding was sufficiently ambiguous.
The MistBox ;)
I don't know, though. To be honest, I'm kind of shocked no one has tried this yet. It seems like such an obvious winner, even if there is a slight chance you would go to court with Valve.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by Nursie on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @09:01AM
(#4870908)
I was thinking the other way around - that they might be perfectly encouraging of selling such a device, just that using 'Steam' (their TM) in the name or advertising without permission might get you in trouble.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by sliverstorm on Monday December 03, 2012 @05:26PM
(#4868291)
I did literally just this last week, with an ITX motherboard, a 65W APU (Trinity), and a case to match. I'm quite pleased with the results, and with Big Picture mode (given it *was still Beta)
Is this something I should be submitting to HN directly?
Also, let me know if there's any particular pieces of information you want expanded/shared. I haven't yet had an opportunity for photos or video of use this evening.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by bbee on Monday December 03, 2012 @06:21PM
(#4868557)
I'd be interested in hearing about that too. I just ordered parts to build my parents a computer, I'm using it as an excuse to try out a Trinity APU. If I like it I'll look into building an ITX size for myself.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by sliverstorm on Monday December 03, 2012 @05:12PM
(#4868206)
Yes, it's particularly troublesome with Big Picture- isn't the idea that I'm going to have this connected to my TV, i.e. without a keyboard?
I can live with being unable to run games on two computers at the same time, but I wish I could stay logged in on two computers. Or at least, I don't know, pass a token.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by tarice on Monday December 03, 2012 @07:07PM
(#4868727)
Watching this, I'm reminded of the OUYA. Isn't this exactly what they were trying to accomplish?
In fact, it seems to me that Valve's Big Picture, combined with the ability to "make your own Steambox", completely trumps the OUYA.
Why would a game developer want to create a new port of their game to a completely new system when they could just optionally add controller support and publish to Steam?
Valve's got the player-base and game library, and now they're in the living room. Is OUYA's niche gone?
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by jonursenbach on Monday December 03, 2012 @07:28PM
(#4868804)
Why would a game developer want to create a new port of their game to a completely new system when they could just optionally add controller support and publish to Steam?
Because that's exactly the same thing as the OUYA for Android developers. All they need to do is add OUYA support to their existing application and publish it on their store.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by adam-a on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @05:39AM
(#4870280)
Ouya has a much lower barrier to entry than Steam, which is none. Anyone can publish a game to the Ouya market (at least that's my understanding) but for an indie developer, getting a game on steam can be quite difficult. See the recently launched Greenlight website and how many games are on that, trying to get published on Steam[0]. I think the ease of publishing will attract a lot of developers, in the same way that iOS/Android grabbed smaller developers that couldn't get on the old consoles.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by Raphael on Monday December 03, 2012 @09:53PM
(#4869284)
In some ways, this is an advantage for selling games through Steam. If someone can't afford a decent computer, how likely are they to pay for games? And they will probably expect lower prices, especially if the assets are smaller and simpler.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by AshleysBrain on Monday December 03, 2012 @06:46PM
(#4868651)
I'm a HTML5 game dev so not really positioned to comment on the main story, but I did try out the Big Picture browser:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; Valve Steam Tenfoot/2095; ) AppleWebKit/535.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.989.0 Safari/535.11
So, Chrome 18. What is it with Chrome 18 given Chrome for Android is also stuck on that version? Maybe coincidence and slow release cycles... (Also, Tenfoot? Hmm)
I also tried playing a HTML5 game with it, which could be awesome with gamepad support. It seemed to freeze the browser and kept playing sounds in a loop, even after I had exited Steam... had to reboot to get rid of it. Guess it needs some work.
While they now support newer versions of Chromium (http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/wiki/BranchesAndBu...) it is likely that Valve either didn't have the time to test everything against a new Chromium revision, or didn't want to take the risk. Every Chromium commit historically has a very high risk of breaking embedding use cases (I used to try and track Chromium for my own embedding purposes before finally giving up because it broke constantly).
As far as Chrome on Android goes, I have no idea. In Google's case you would expect they would have the resources to keep up with changes to their own codebases.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by Already__Taken on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @06:36AM
(#4870410)
That would be easy the hard part is solving the responsive image problem. How can we know what quality image to send to a device?
The problems are shifting from display/device types to network types. Great you've got a 1080p phone but we can't shove down our retina quality images on 3g. Nor would you want use to use your battery life for that.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by mwill on Monday December 03, 2012 @10:16PM
(#4869356)
To add to the ten foot comments, since big picture hit the steam beta, there's been files and directories floating around in the steam install folder called tenfoot, so it is indeed just the internal name for big picture.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by rdl on Monday December 03, 2012 @09:32PM
(#4869215)
I'm slightly confused how to use this. I have a gaming PC and a 1080p projector. I was always planning to just run an HDMI cable from the 4th output of my 2 cards into the AVR, and then get a second wireless keyboard or something to use when gaming at the couch, rather than a dedicated HTPC for gaming (I use an old macbook pro for ht, along with ps3/xbox360/appletv/googletv)
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by tomkit on Monday December 03, 2012 @08:51PM
(#4869090)
I haven't tried AppleTV's Airplay, but I think it just mirrors your desktop correct? So theoretically you could just run Steam's Big Picture Mode off of a Mac and use AirPlay to stream it to your TV?
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by ConstantineXVI on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @04:02PM
(#4873245)
OnLive's protocol seems to be far more willing to sacrifice frames and quality to keep everything in sync; where AirPlay will (in my experience) hold up the stream until every last frame gets through, sync be damned. Also, AirPlay doesn't modify apps or input at all to compensate for the lag to the TV.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by venus on Monday December 03, 2012 @10:02PM
(#4869314)
I'm looking forward to trying this out with my Mac Mini, which I use as an XBMC machine plugged into the TV. Hopefully the built-in HD4000 integrated graphics will suffice for Portal.
I need a controller. Which is the best one to get?
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by Bockit on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @12:00AM
(#4869624)
Not sure about portal, but I've used a PS3 controller with software that emulates xbox 360 controllers. It was fairly difficult to get set up and then running every time but once it was running it was rock solid. Played my way through Lara Croft: Guardians of the light with it.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by Ironlink on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @03:49AM
(#4870064)
I found that my Logitech RumblePad 2 worked great out of the box, and even better (almost flawless, the 360 controller has one extra button) after going through the button mappings in big picture settings.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by sliverstorm on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @04:17PM
(#4873316)
Which is fine by me, it's one of the better gamepads I've used in a while and its widespread adoption makes for good prices and speaks well for future use.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by Shish2k on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @06:22AM
(#4870365)
I'd think it's fairly obvious that that's their step after next :P
(the immediate next step being "make the linux games catalog decently large", so they don't need to bloat their $300 console with an extra $150 of MS licensing)
On a tangent -- does anyone know how developing games for linux compares to developing games for consoles? I've heard windows devs complain about linux ("Braid will never be available on linux because ALSA is shit and fundamentally can't handle it", etc etc), but it seems that the valve console'd be more competing against the PS4 / xbox720 / etc, and I wonder if those devkits are better or worse...
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by bitdiffusion on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @06:50AM
(#4870452)
This is just a re-imagining of the Steam interface to be optimised for large screens - I think the post above yours is referring to the rumoured "Steambox" that Valve themselves are supposedly working on.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by Already__Taken on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @06:40AM
(#4870426)
Having the 360 controller compatibility is part of any games for windows live certification, plus most games have xbox support anyway it's as close to a de-facto standard controller you can get.
I'm not saying that has anything to do with steam but if I were a game dev and could only be bothered to support 1 controller that's the one I would spend the time supporting.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by w1ntermute on Monday December 03, 2012 @05:10PM
(#4868193)
The Linux client is still in private beta, but you can easily circumvent it by just downloading the .deb and installing/running it on Linux anyway. FWIW, I wasn't invited to the beta right away, but about a week after I started running it anyway, I was invited.
The only issue you might run into is that it'll sometimes say your account is not authorized to use the Linux beta, but there are directions online on how to get around this by adding some flags and launching it from the CLI.
I'm not sure why I bothered though, since my Linux ultrabook can barely run any games anyway.
Re:Steam releases Big Picture mode
by ekianjo on Monday December 03, 2012 @08:33PM
(#4869051)
I did install the .deb, but when launching the client I get a message that I am not invited to the beta yet and that I cannot use this - then closes. Any work-around ?
A nice auxiliary advantage of building a Steambox is that you can use it as a full-featured HTPC as well, since it runs a desktop OS.
0: http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/30/3706718/forget-the-ps4-an...
It seems like somebody like Alienware, or even just somebody on Kickstarter, could put together something impressive at a XBox720/PS4 pricepoint.
Otherwise I can't see an impediment. Maybe Valve could even have a 'designed for Steam' certification program or something.
The MistBox ;)
I don't know, though. To be honest, I'm kind of shocked no one has tried this yet. It seems like such an obvious winner, even if there is a slight chance you would go to court with Valve.
I think it's a great idea!
Now that's a Steambox.
Otherwise, Tumblr or a gist powered by http://gist.io.
http://gist.io/4199804
Is this something I should be submitting to HN directly?
Also, let me know if there's any particular pieces of information you want expanded/shared. I haven't yet had an opportunity for photos or video of use this evening.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4872751
Hopefully those who were interested have already had a chance to read it, by now.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4872751
Now the PC part is getting even easier to use. Great.
I can live with being unable to run games on two computers at the same time, but I wish I could stay logged in on two computers. Or at least, I don't know, pass a token.
In fact, it seems to me that Valve's Big Picture, combined with the ability to "make your own Steambox", completely trumps the OUYA.
Why would a game developer want to create a new port of their game to a completely new system when they could just optionally add controller support and publish to Steam?
Valve's got the player-base and game library, and now they're in the living room. Is OUYA's niche gone?
Because that's exactly the same thing as the OUYA for Android developers. All they need to do is add OUYA support to their existing application and publish it on their store.
[0] http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/browse/?browsefilter=m...
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; Valve Steam Tenfoot/2095; ) AppleWebKit/535.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.989.0 Safari/535.11
So, Chrome 18. What is it with Chrome 18 given Chrome for Android is also stuck on that version? Maybe coincidence and slow release cycles... (Also, Tenfoot? Hmm)
I also tried playing a HTML5 game with it, which could be awesome with gamepad support. It seemed to freeze the browser and kept playing sounds in a loop, even after I had exited Steam... had to reboot to get rid of it. Guess it needs some work.
http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/source/detail?r=60...
While they now support newer versions of Chromium (http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/wiki/BranchesAndBu...) it is likely that Valve either didn't have the time to test everything against a new Chromium revision, or didn't want to take the risk. Every Chromium commit historically has a very high risk of breaking embedding use cases (I used to try and track Chromium for my own embedding purposes before finally giving up because it broke constantly).
As far as Chrome on Android goes, I have no idea. In Google's case you would expect they would have the resources to keep up with changes to their own codebases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface
Imagine a responsive web design that goes from 10-foot all the way down to mobile; now that would be impressive!
The problems are shifting from display/device types to network types. Great you've got a 1080p phone but we can't shove down our retina quality images on 3g. Nor would you want use to use your battery life for that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface
Just a clever reference to the UI paradigm.
But I can see something more awesome, what if Steam would sell hardware? Like a new steambox every year like Apple does with the iPhone.
They have an incredible catalog of games, a new steam box would just be more powerful but would still be able to play all the old games.
I need a controller. Which is the best one to get?
Source: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/bigpicture/discussions/1/88...
I think it was this: http://motioninjoy.com/download
(the immediate next step being "make the linux games catalog decently large", so they don't need to bloat their $300 console with an extra $150 of MS licensing)
On a tangent -- does anyone know how developing games for linux compares to developing games for consoles? I've heard windows devs complain about linux ("Braid will never be available on linux because ALSA is shit and fundamentally can't handle it", etc etc), but it seems that the valve console'd be more competing against the PS4 / xbox720 / etc, and I wonder if those devkits are better or worse...
I don't buy it, tons of games with sound effects have been successfully ported to linux with no problems. Probably the devs are just being lazy :-)
So they may add more stuff in the future.
I'm not saying that has anything to do with steam but if I were a game dev and could only be bothered to support 1 controller that's the one I would spend the time supporting.
The only issue you might run into is that it'll sometimes say your account is not authorized to use the Linux beta, but there are directions online on how to get around this by adding some flags and launching it from the CLI.
I'm not sure why I bothered though, since my Linux ultrabook can barely run any games anyway.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/11/reddit-users-bypass-valve...
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/