zip accident wrote:I think it will take at least 10 years to fully eliminate Sony, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Nintendo.
Sony is a consumer electronics company. The PlayStation may die off, but they've got a hundred other strings to their bow.
Nintendo is a toy company. They started by producing playing cards back in 1889. They are 136 years old, and only started making video games 48 years ago - so only a third of their existence has been as a video game company.
Microsoft has pivoted to being a cloud services company, and their whole mantra is that EVERYTHING is an X-box. It's no longer a physical product, it's a cloud gaming service that they want accessible from all devices. That's their "vision" and, in the sense you're talking about, they've already "eliminated" themselves, as they're just not playing that game anymore.
Google is an online ad company. They still have near-monopoly dominance in that space and the other shit they do, honestly, has always just been a "funnel" to ultimately get more eyeballs on online ads. Chrome and Android are free and open source (well, Chromium is open source - but, in practice, as a Linux user, I use Chromium, not Chrome, but it makes no fucking practical difference. Chromium at home, Chrome at work but there's not an inch of noticeable difference between them, honestly). But the trick is that Android comes with a full suite of Google services installed, including their "Play Store".
What I'm getting at here is that I'm not sure I even understand what you mean by "fully eliminated". Like, do you just mean "not in the gaming space anymore" or do you really mean complete bankruptcy? Even then, like "Atari" and "Commodore" and others, the brand won't die, even when the original companies are dead and buried.
So I'm just not sure I understand what you're even talking about. I mean, businesses themselves might be very guilty of perpetuating this "horse race" concept of business - a commercial arms race - as making us believe that actually helps them foster "brand loyalty" and such, but that's not really actually how things have exactly worked in real life.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
Okay, actually playing Guild Wars 2 was pretty disappointing. No matter what setting I chose in game, it stuttered a lot and was certainly not a playable experience.
I'll have to do some further testing with other games.
Mat wrote:Okay, actually playing Guild Wars 2 was pretty disappointing. No matter what setting I chose in game, it stuttered a lot and was certainly not a playable experience.
I'll have to do some further testing with other games.
A quick Google suggests it needs some messing, or maybe an older version. A bit out of date:
Guild Wars 2 (GW2) on Crossover (for Mac) often requires tweaking settings like using DXVK with MSync or D3DMetal, disabling esync, and adjusting performance to get good frame rates, especially in demanding areas like WvW, with recent Crossover versions offering significant performance boosts on Apple Silicon via the Game Porting Toolkit. Key adjustments often involve setting d3d11 to Native/Builtin in Wine config for better performance with tools like arcdps, enabling MSync, and optimizing in-game graphics for better views and frame rates (max FOV, minimum collision).
zip accident wrote:While Steam seems to be fine now, what will it be like in 50 years? If it's the only garden, can we be certain that adverts won't be inserted and walls erected at some point.
50 years? I predict 5.
KlaxonCow wrote:
zip accident wrote:I think it will take at least 10 years to fully eliminate Sony, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Nintendo.
Sony is a consumer electronics company. The PlayStation may die off, but they've got a hundred other strings to their bow.
Nintendo is a toy company. They started by producing playing cards back in 1889. They are 136 years old, and only started making video games 48 years ago - so only a third of their existence has been as a video game company.
Microsoft has pivoted to being a cloud services company, and their whole mantra is that EVERYTHING is an X-box. It's no longer a physical product, it's a cloud gaming service that they want accessible from all devices. That's their "vision" and, in the sense you're talking about, they've already "eliminated" themselves, as they're just not playing that game anymore.
Google is an online ad company. They still have near-monopoly dominance in that space and the other shit they do, honestly, has always just been a "funnel" to ultimately get more eyeballs on online ads. Chrome and Android are free and open source (well, Chromium is open source - but, in practice, as a Linux user, I use Chromium, not Chrome, but it makes no fucking practical difference. Chromium at home, Chrome at work but there's not an inch of noticeable difference between them, honestly). But the trick is that Android comes with a full suite of Google services installed, including their "Play Store".
What I'm getting at here is that I'm not sure I even understand what you mean by "fully eliminated". Like, do you just mean "not in the gaming space anymore" or do you really mean complete bankruptcy? Even then, like "Atari" and "Commodore" and others, the brand won't die, even when the original companies are dead and buried.
So I'm just not sure I understand what you're even talking about. I mean, businesses themselves might be very guilty of perpetuating this "horse race" concept of business - a commercial arms race - as making us believe that actually helps them foster "brand loyalty" and such, but that's not really actually how things have exactly worked in real life.
I was reacting to LSK's remark. Personally I think 50 years is pushing it.
I was saying 10 years is the absolute minimum. If Valve were cryptically monopolistic capitalists with the intention of taking over the gaming world entirely and everything went exactly their way, 10 years might be possible, if Valve did everything exactly right, and the rest did everything exactly wrong. Not that I think Valve are even trying, they're almost certainly not, and if they were, everything wouldn't go their way.
"My way is the way of not fighting":- the book of Enter the Dragon.
I wasn't going to push it because a lot of people have unwavering faith in Valve. But since you are all talking about it still...
Steam has a large customer base, many of them have hundred and even thousands of games each. That's a lot of value to capitalise on. While Valve might be privately owned and not particularly predatory at the moment, that will change one day.
I doubt they would be entering the hardware market unless they felt they need to: to grow their market, hold on to their existing market, or crowd out competition.
If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy.
Valve's remained a private company all this time for a reason. I don't think Gabe would ever let go of that, at least while he's alive.
Indeed, there's really no need to do so. Valve employees are already ridiculously rich, as it's not as big a company as you might imagine, despite being a heavy-hitter alongside the biggest of Big Tech, yet receiving ~30% of most PC game sales.
You go public because you can make a shitload of money, selling all those shares and then using all that investment to grow massively... but then you implicitly lose control, as anyone can buy those shares - they're public property and not yours anymore - and the appointed directors are obliged - by law - to maximise shareholder interests (and while it's not phrased as "make the most possible money you can for shareholders", that's what it always amounts to - including, you know, lots of grabbing short-term profits, rather than long-term investment and survival. Legitimately so, in that some shareholders come and go, like daily underwear, so their personal interests is just "make the most money right now, because I'm going to sell up and move on, once I've raided this company for all its worth to me" and, as mentioned, corporate directors are obliged, by law, to serve shareholder interests).
Like, if I were in Gabe's place, then I'd be bloody-minded to do exactly the same thing. Yeah, sure, I could "go public" and make billions or whatever - but in Gabe's place, you're already a multi-billionaire, so what do you care? Once you've hit a billion, then two billion, ten billion, etc. really has no material interest on you. The only feasible way to spend such gargantuan amounts of money is to invest it in businesses or just literally piss it away for no good reason (and, yes, it's arguable that the two things I just said are really the same thing).
Because I'd also personally value the control, the ability to actually invest in the long-term survival of the company - to keep a lot of people employed, doing what they love, for the rest of their lives, hopefully, including myself.
Because, from day one, I've never been interested in high scores. "Points" are an abstract concept - a dimensionless metric - and I don't care to put my name in any high score tables. From the 8-bit days, I've always been vastly more interested in getting to the next level. To see a new map, with new graphics and a new "final boss".
Like, actual fucking progress. Getting somewhere new. Spend those "skill points" and try to be the better man. Create new levels - make the game better for everyone, because this shit ain't zero sum. And it's actually a truly, truly terrible idea to play the game as "zero sum", because it just inevitably makes you an arsehole that harms people.
And, like, why? A "high score". it's meaningless. "Points" literally are metric-less and mean nothing whatsoever, no matter how many of them you've got. Zero times any number at all still amounts to zero.
I'd be just as bloody-minded. And, indeed, part of the whole point of doing it would be to prove - empirically - that it's the better and healthier route to take. Not "maximise profit" but "maximise long-term survival" - keep people employed, do the most good you can. Actually give people a decent wage and "jobs for life", and a decent work / life balance. Because making their lives worse, just so I can trade it for meaningless "points" is a dumb trade, that ultimately benefits no-one.
Because greed is a mental health problem and broken psychology. The reason we all get a job or start a business is because we want to survive and then thrive - better house, better car, to live in a better world because we all get a reward from that, etc. - and if you have to harm people, harm the planet, disembowel good companies for cash, etc. then you've betrayed that original goal. You're making the world a worse place, not a better place - for the sake of a big number that's already vastly too big to begin with that it makes no useful difference to anyone at all if that number is just slightly bigger again.
The number one product was DOOM, not Windows. And, unlike everyone else, Gabe understood what that actually meant - you can get much richer and have more fun giving other people joy. Which is win / win for everyone. But being in "the Times Rich List" at #17, because you're the biggest cunt that raises rents and slave drives people into the ground? What's the point in that? What's the tangible benefit of that?
I've used the term "enlightened self-interest" before, and this is what that ultimately means. Realising that helping others helps you. That helping people feels good, so you get a big emotional reward out of it. That if we create a better world then we can all live better lives - and leave absolutely no-one behind. My family, my friends, my neighbours would all live in that better world too, as well as me.
If you actually read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations", this is actually what he really said: "a rising tide can raise all ships". That's how capitalism can be a force for good, if you just invest some of your profits in just making everything slightly better. Then the whole world is more prosperous - including you, so you make some more money that you can invest some more profit in improving things one more time. Rinse and repeat to create paradise.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
Deckard wrote:Delayed I see - not really a surprise !
Yes and no.
Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed. But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change. We will keep you updated as much as we can as we finalize those plans as soon as possible.
They originally said early 2026, so that's stretching it a little, but they could argue it's not a delay!
In reality, not a huge delay, but I think if you don't press buy in the first few minutes of preorders, then I'd expect quite a wait. (But that was true of the Deck, too).
Of course, the price could well be bad thanks to the RAM war, so maybe it will take 10 minutes to sell out...
I do wonder if this will make an appearance this year? Not a great time to launch any product ATM - in particular a new one.
Still interested in picking up one however also may just let my PS5/Series X age out. Enough gaming for me there. Currently using the Mac Mini as effectively a Steam Machine although doesn't run everything smoothly and its not near a couch!
A light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.
Steam/Xbox/PSN User Name: CypherQ Switch - 8177-9514-5116
Valve insist the new Steam hardware will be released in the first half of 2026.
But, well, that in itself is a hesitation, as it was originally advertised as "coming early 2026". So it's already slipped from that - which most people would read "early 2026" as meaning "in Q1" - to "first half of 2026", which means Q1 and Q2.
Frankly, though, Valve should delay it until the effects of the AI RAM-pocalypse are at least dwindling, if not over. Because the success and failure of these is very much price-sensitive.
And it's better to annoy people with an understandable and justifiable delay, than go ahead regardless and have it fail because the Steam Machine's closer to $1K than to $500, with all the price hikes.
Particularly because this is not a console and Valve are not going to subsidise it, so it was always going to be priced like a comparable PC, albeit competitively from the economies of scale.
(The fact it's not a console is exactly why they can't - because it is, under the hood, a Linux PC then if they subsidise the hardware, there's the threat of businesses buying them by the crate-load to get a load of "cheap PCs" and they simply never buy a game off Steam to offset that subsidy ever. If it were a console then it'd be locked to the games store - and the price of games can subsidise the hardware - but, as it's an open Linux PC box, then it's not locked, so there's no guarantee that the folks buying these "cheap mini PCs" ever buy any games on Steam to pay for that subsidy at any point, as they don't have to.)
Better "late 2026" at a reasonable price than to drop it to meet "early 2026" but it's priced too high. Because, like, it has to be priced reasonably - or you might as well build your own PC and install Bazzite on it. It has to be that impulse I-trusted-Valve purchase for folks who want a "living room" console vibe, or you might as well just buy a PC. Any PC can install and run Linux, with "Steam for Linux" on it (which has all the Proton goodness already).
They should delay. The pricing matters more than the date to a successful launch.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
If you drop the Steam Controller, then it makes a Wilhelm Scream sound.
(It's not a percentage chance, as Linus erroneously surmises, by the way. It just has a cool down.)
A totally pointless feature, of course. But you know they're going to sell more Steam Controllers, simply because it does this and people like stupid memes.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
