"Valve Steam Box" - the future of the PC in the world of consoles? (great miracle in a small box)
Hi Habr! As many know, now the annual exhibition of new products and goodies from the world of IT and Engineering - CES 2013 (Consumer Electronics Show) is taking place from Las Vegas and everyone was looking forward to this year Valve will give a new round in the world of consoles with its product “Steam Box.
The rush around the Steam Box began a couple of days before January 8 (the beginning of CES), although this name was mentioned as early as March 2, 2012, and there were more articles every year. Valve has set itself a “small stand” at CES, a partner of Xi3 is also there and will be showing its new Piston device on Linux, and also beta Steam on Linux came out recently (read Habra article Steam for Linux is now in the open beta stage. ) And is not the first Month is the option "Big Picture", where Steam is deployed on the entire monitor screen.
')
So, the effect is made: interest is heated. And yet the Steam Box itself will not be seen from the words of CEO Valve, Gabe Newell, at least until the end of 2013 / beginning of 2014. But what can be expected from the Steam Box, why it will be the “console killer”. Who cares please under the cat.
The main idea behind the entire Steam system is downloading the game via the Internet directly to your computer. You do not have to wait in queues at the store to buy a hapless copy of the game if you forgot to pre-order. Due to Steam, small and large companies can easily “deliver” goods to all corners of the world. Humble Bundle is another great thing that works with companies and Steam for selling games. Well, about Steam Sale, I am silent - and you know that it is not necessary and you will never play it, but you still take it. While the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 still use the optical disc to provide larger games in size on consoles. Has anyone ever used a PS3 knows that the download when you first start easily comes to a minute. Who knows, maybe the Playstation 4 and the Xbox will be without a drive.
Steam already has a cloud infrastructure for saving your data (your games, save game files, achievements, card data) under a PC - and what should it be transferred to the console? You can start the game in the hall and then go to your room and continue on the computer from the same place - well, is it really tempting?
As I mentioned above, Steam was the first global platform that allowed small companies and games to flourish. The process of adding a game has become quite simple with the help of Steam Greenlight - now anyone with the knowledge of how to draw and write code has a chance to realize their idea and make money on it. Xbox Live and Playstation Network in this regard also succeeded in what can be seen on the example of two games that won several awards that year - Fez for the Xbox and Journey for PS3.
CEO Valve, Gabe Newell has confirmed that the Steam Box will take Linux OS as a basis, but the possibility of installing Windows will not be prohibited (and will not be difficult). Linux being an open system allows everyone to work to improve the product - you can do it for yourself, but you help a lot. It worked perfectly on Android - it turned out once, and it will turn out two. But this also has its own problem: it often takes more time and resources to support the program code, its debugging and trouble-free operation than its original writing. Together, you can build a house and break it.
In May 2011, Valve patented its type of controller with common connectors for different elements - a joystick, a ball, a touch pad, which can be used depending on the game. The idea is great and this is not the case with the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox. A similar idea is behind the Nintendo Wii Nunchuk , which can be attached to the Wii Remote, but it's not all that complicated. Perhaps there will be a small monitor like in Project Shield from Nvidia - this is a guess. The question remains - how quickly will I lose these rather small details from the controller. One thing is for sure enough - the controller will be with elements of biometrics that Gabe Newell has repeatedly repeated. For example, if your hands begin to sweat, your player on the screen also shows signs of fatigue and sweats, changes in the background and sound depending on your level of tension.
As previously mentioned, Xi3Corporation is one of many (number 20 was mentioned) companies that cooperate with Valve and Piston one of the prototypes - maybe the final one, maybe not. Energy consumption will be very low. They are the top model X7A, on the basis of which, most likely, the “Steam Box” will be created, it requires 40 watts. The system has a quad-core processor, up to 8 GB of RAM, and up to 1 TB of memory on an SSD connected via mSATAmax speeds of up to 12 GB / s (twice as fast as SATA III). The main advantage that the face compared to all the console consoles is that the “Steam Box” elements can be replaced like in desktop computers. This opens up a new market for iron manufacturers and prevents Valve from the problems that other console manufacturers have - the enormous cost of developing a completely new console in the middle of the life cycle of this existing console (Sony announced that it stops producing and supplying Play Station 2 only on January 7, 2013 first year - the first console was released in 2000).
Looking back at 2012, there were quite a few new games; We mainly saw sequels ( Diablo 3 , Prototype 2 , Borderlands 2 , Assassin Creed 3 , Halo 4 , Mass Effect 3 , Max Payne 3 , Far Cry 3 , Black Ops 2 ) but also a couple of new ideas ( Dishonored ). Most of these games are available on 3 main devices - Windows / Mac OS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 with the exception of Diablo 3 (PC / Mac), Halo 4 (Xbox 360). All of them have excellent graphics, but that's where the problem is - the PS3 and Xbox consoles haven't gone through a major update for 6 years - for hardware it's not small. And so all the forces that the authors put into drawing come to naught on consoles - 720p is no longer so much considering that your limit on the PC is your budget - you can upgrade monitors and graphics cards every month.
The idea of ​​supporting "Steam Box th" Miracast will appeal to everyone - everything goes into a wireless state.
And in the end, Gabe Newell sees the idea of ​​using one Steam Box to support eight monitors and eight controllers in different parts of an apartment or house at once. Is it real? We will see.
The rush around the Steam Box began a couple of days before January 8 (the beginning of CES), although this name was mentioned as early as March 2, 2012, and there were more articles every year. Valve has set itself a “small stand” at CES, a partner of Xi3 is also there and will be showing its new Piston device on Linux, and also beta Steam on Linux came out recently (read Habra article Steam for Linux is now in the open beta stage. ) And is not the first Month is the option "Big Picture", where Steam is deployed on the entire monitor screen.
')
So, the effect is made: interest is heated. And yet the Steam Box itself will not be seen from the words of CEO Valve, Gabe Newell, at least until the end of 2013 / beginning of 2014. But what can be expected from the Steam Box, why it will be the “console killer”. Who cares please under the cat.
Big Picture on Steam (Mac)
Or maybe without a disk?
The main idea behind the entire Steam system is downloading the game via the Internet directly to your computer. You do not have to wait in queues at the store to buy a hapless copy of the game if you forgot to pre-order. Due to Steam, small and large companies can easily “deliver” goods to all corners of the world. Humble Bundle is another great thing that works with companies and Steam for selling games. Well, about Steam Sale, I am silent - and you know that it is not necessary and you will never play it, but you still take it. While the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 still use the optical disc to provide larger games in size on consoles. Has anyone ever used a PS3 knows that the download when you first start easily comes to a minute. Who knows, maybe the Playstation 4 and the Xbox will be without a drive.
I will play here, I will play there
Steam already has a cloud infrastructure for saving your data (your games, save game files, achievements, card data) under a PC - and what should it be transferred to the console? You can start the game in the hall and then go to your room and continue on the computer from the same place - well, is it really tempting?
Indie games
As I mentioned above, Steam was the first global platform that allowed small companies and games to flourish. The process of adding a game has become quite simple with the help of Steam Greenlight - now anyone with the knowledge of how to draw and write code has a chance to realize their idea and make money on it. Xbox Live and Playstation Network in this regard also succeeded in what can be seen on the example of two games that won several awards that year - Fez for the Xbox and Journey for PS3.
Open Source - good or bad
CEO Valve, Gabe Newell has confirmed that the Steam Box will take Linux OS as a basis, but the possibility of installing Windows will not be prohibited (and will not be difficult). Linux being an open system allows everyone to work to improve the product - you can do it for yourself, but you help a lot. It worked perfectly on Android - it turned out once, and it will turn out two. But this also has its own problem: it often takes more time and resources to support the program code, its debugging and trouble-free operation than its original writing. Together, you can build a house and break it.
Own console, your controller
In May 2011, Valve patented its type of controller with common connectors for different elements - a joystick, a ball, a touch pad, which can be used depending on the game. The idea is great and this is not the case with the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox. A similar idea is behind the Nintendo Wii Nunchuk , which can be attached to the Wii Remote, but it's not all that complicated. Perhaps there will be a small monitor like in Project Shield from Nvidia - this is a guess. The question remains - how quickly will I lose these rather small details from the controller. One thing is for sure enough - the controller will be with elements of biometrics that Gabe Newell has repeatedly repeated. For example, if your hands begin to sweat, your player on the screen also shows signs of fatigue and sweats, changes in the background and sound depending on your level of tension.
And what's inside the box
As previously mentioned, Xi3Corporation is one of many (number 20 was mentioned) companies that cooperate with Valve and Piston one of the prototypes - maybe the final one, maybe not. Energy consumption will be very low. They are the top model X7A, on the basis of which, most likely, the “Steam Box” will be created, it requires 40 watts. The system has a quad-core processor, up to 8 GB of RAM, and up to 1 TB of memory on an SSD connected via mSATAmax speeds of up to 12 GB / s (twice as fast as SATA III). The main advantage that the face compared to all the console consoles is that the “Steam Box” elements can be replaced like in desktop computers. This opens up a new market for iron manufacturers and prevents Valve from the problems that other console manufacturers have - the enormous cost of developing a completely new console in the middle of the life cycle of this existing console (Sony announced that it stops producing and supplying Play Station 2 only on January 7, 2013 first year - the first console was released in 2000).
Looking back at 2012, there were quite a few new games; We mainly saw sequels ( Diablo 3 , Prototype 2 , Borderlands 2 , Assassin Creed 3 , Halo 4 , Mass Effect 3 , Max Payne 3 , Far Cry 3 , Black Ops 2 ) but also a couple of new ideas ( Dishonored ). Most of these games are available on 3 main devices - Windows / Mac OS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 with the exception of Diablo 3 (PC / Mac), Halo 4 (Xbox 360). All of them have excellent graphics, but that's where the problem is - the PS3 and Xbox consoles haven't gone through a major update for 6 years - for hardware it's not small. And so all the forces that the authors put into drawing come to naught on consoles - 720p is no longer so much considering that your limit on the PC is your budget - you can upgrade monitors and graphics cards every month.
The idea of ​​supporting "Steam Box th" Miracast will appeal to everyone - everything goes into a wireless state.
And what at the end
And in the end, Gabe Newell sees the idea of ​​using one Steam Box to support eight monitors and eight controllers in different parts of an apartment or house at once. Is it real? We will see.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/165445/
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