Valve "Steam Box"

[Viper]

Oh, it was indeed a scam and they were heavily investigated for it. But after that all cleared up and they started to focus on just the Lapboard, they attracted some big names to like the founders of DirectX and the Xbox project from Microsoft. The Lapboard itself is supposedly pretty damn nice (though the mouse sucks but is replaceable with any mouse you like).

I think they should drop the actual hardware portion overall and simply sell the lapboard shell casing allowing gamers to use whatever KB/Mouse combination they want while getting the benefits of the lapboard.

[BahnNZ]

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...r-home-console

Two tech giants could launch joint assault on the living room, unconfirmed report claims
Apple sent its CEO to Valve’s Washington headquarters last week with a plan to forge a partnership to directly compete with existing home consoles, according to an unverified report.
It is unknown what Tim Cook had discussed with Valve managing director Gabe Newell last week, while the suggestion that both met has still not been confirmed.

:O

[Luis]

Apple and Valve? That would be pretty huge, since the PC industry wouldn't mind further expanding to Mac.

[BahnNZ]

Well, Apple are good at building x86 boxes, gonna be interesting.

[D3adcell]

Well, Apple are good at building x86 boxes, gonna be interesting.

Well there is that steam cross play thing with mac/pc games. However I would rather them not go with mac OS or build for that matter.

[BahnNZ]

Mac OS X good for a Steam box with no games.

I have Steam for Mac OS X and it works really well, better than the Windows version. Games just download and run, no constantly installing DirectX and C++ Runtimes. Buuut, hardly any games.

[Segitz]

Well... there's pretty little use for Windows DX Installation in a OGL only system^^

But... nope... nothing Apple will ever come my way. Never.

[Viper]

Guys, the whole 'hardware' thing is nothing more than Valve trying to get portable computers down to wearable size. It's a 10-15 year R&D project so don't expect anything from this for a very, very long time.

[BahnNZ]

Personally I think it's because Apple are so damn rich now they're going to personally fund development of the gravity and portal guns.

Might need a few testers for the Portal guns.

[Gribble-Grunger]

too many people after a slice of the same pie. it'll all end badly

it's time to have a life again

[Segitz]

I really don't think so... just look at the market of music or film... that has a MUCH bigger audience than gaming... and there are several reasons for that... one is mostly the segmented market. We've got 3 consoles and 3 major OS systems and 3 major mobile phone OS systems. None of which are natively compatible with each other (there's some spillover from Linux to Windows and vice versa, incl. a bit of Mac, and there was a common denominator with Java, but Apple and the telephone companies (MSPs, not phone makers) effectively killed it).

Usually, one gamer has one of each (i.e. a console, a pc and a phone). But none of the games run on any other system, even if it is technically capable of doing so.

Steam has started branching out to Macs and probably will continue to do so with Linux. And after a while it will be available on consoles and phones... if the manage to do it. Buy one game and play it everywhere. The REAL way.

Music and video have had a standard for a while now (well, music less so, but it's less complicated to play back music on any device). Its an inherent technical problem. With games, or rather software, it's simply MUCH more complicated.

[Viper]

Apparently no one from Apple met anyone at Valve. The rumor of Apple CEO meeting up at Valve was completely false.

[Luis]

I think it would make sense for Apple to collaborate with Valve and Steam on this hypothetical project, I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money on such product. Then again, Valve almost certainly would prefer it to be PC-based.

[Viper]

It IS PC based. As I mentioned before, this is nothing more than an 10-15 year R&D project to shrink down portable PC based computing to something you an carry or wear.

[Smokey]

i think they are all pretty well gonna be PC based now

[Segitz]

Even Macs are "PC based"... as in x86, now. All major desktop systems are x86.

And, given that several mid profile indie devs are loving their Linux sales, it's just a question of time when Steam comes to Linux and thus games will be ported, too (or rather more games than before). Chicken->Egg solved, more or less. Before Steam, Mac was just as dry as Linux was, concerning games and now it "flourishes" because Macs have higher than average sales and Steam is there, too.

But I also know that Steam is not the solution to all problems, either. I hope for the sake of Linux as a Desktop that it will become "more compatible" to each other in the next decade. That's quite the problem.

[BahnNZ]

Well the kids are buying their Mac games off the Mac App Store, not Steam. Steam on Mac is good because if you're a PC gamer with a big Steam collection you have an instant game collection on Mac. Woohooo!

[Segitz]

The "kids" shouldn't be buying Macs anyways^^ It's horrible how many people at my university own Apples... (mostly for writing, as the IT guys usually don't own one, except for the HCI guys, but those are strange anyways).

[Viper]

The "kids" shouldn't be buying Macs anyways^^ It's horrible how many people at my university own Apples... (mostly for writing, as the IT guys usually don't own one, except for the HCI guys, but those are strange anyways).

I'm starting school soon myself and the first thing I noticed was all the administrators had big ass Apple monitors. But as I was watching them work when I enrolled, I saw they were actually using Windows 7 on all of them. I couldn't even begin to understand all of that one.

[BahnNZ]

No need to be so hostile towards your new technology masters, Apple and Google. Bow down to them. (And Zog)