Destiny on Steam OS (Destiny)

by kapowaz, Tuesday, September 24, 2013, 08:21 (4076 days ago) @ JDQuackers

Why is Steam OS exciting for people into Mouse and Keyboards?

Because through SteamOS you can stream games from any Steam-equipped PC within your home network to your tiny "Steam Box" connected to your TV. Think of it like a local version of OnLive that enables you to play your PC games in your Living room while still keeping your big quacking gaming rig in it's own area instead of sitting next to your entertainment center/family area

This doesn't really answer the question, and it's at the heart of my guarded skepticism towards SteamOS. I don't need another piece of PC hardware to play PC games on a big TV in my living room; I already have the ideal setup for that in my study where my PC (well, Mac) lives, attached as it is directly to a keyboard and mouse. In the living room I'm going to be sat on the sofa, and immediately keyboard and mouse becomes a very poor way of interfacing with anything (we have the bluetooth Apple keyboard / trackpad for controlling the Mac mini hooked up to the TV as a media centre, but as good as those devices are, it's still far from ideal).

I need to see exactly what Valve has in mind for their reference hardware platform before I'll be convinced it's got legs. I'd also like to know exactly what they're planning for the inevitable hardware upgrade issue. Consoles work very well because you know that any game for a given console will perform as advertised provided you have that console (with issues related to things like having adequate disk space in the hard drive, a fast enough internet connection etc. as minor caveats). But if they're intending this to be an open platform, then inevitably there will be newer, faster hardware out 12 months out, and at that point how do they deal with the requirements issue for games? Microsoft already tried (and failed) to come up with a universal scoring mechanism for how fast your PC is; it's a really, really tricky thing given just how many factors there are in it.

Ultimately I think a big part of the reason consoles have been so successful historically is that the overwhelming majority of consumers have no interest in, or knowledge of the technical specs behind what they play their games on. They only care about the game actually working. If the SteamBox tries to encourage consumers to get involved in that part of the equation I suspect it will only have moderate — at best — success.