Valve recently announced their brand new operating system SteamOS. I'm here to tell you what I think the true potential is for SteamOS. Why it is the biggest thing to happen to gaming in over a decade and why SteamOS will change everything we know about gaming.
I don't blog much, but I do when something truly fascinates me. I like to follow disruptive change in the technology industry and I feel we are nearing the cusp of a big one for gaming and Valve will be held as the arbiter of it if everything goes to plan, but it is certainly not Valve by its lonesome that will compete with the gaming giants. Disruptive change requires several agents to occur i will list them:
Stagnation: Stagnation is the natural effects of companies doing well and growing larger. As they grow large enough they become beholden to certain factors, such as meeting quotas and appeasing shareholders. Because of this giants such as EA, Microsoft, Sony, & (Nintendo is just weird) cant innovate. And I don't mean that the don't innovate. I mean they innovate in ways that lose focus of the underlying problem. Why create a game? Answer: to be immersed in another world.
Converging Technologies: Factor number two for disruptive change is many technologies converging at once. The traditional console makers don't realize it, but their new consoles are already outdated. To the PC gamers in the room, I don't just mean graphically. There is a wave of virtual reality sweeping the industry led by Oculus Rift and others. There is also a wave of indie development led by things like Kickstarter & Steam Greenlight. We have streaming technologies such as Nvidia GRID & Steam Big Picture. Finally there is the mobile industry which is producing performance improvements in low power device. Smarthphones are getting leaps and bounds more powerful every year, like PCs used to do in the 90's. These technologies need a home.
Catalyst: This is the third and final component of disruptive change and why Steam OS is in the heart of it.
To put this in perspective we need to think back to 2008 and the initial release of Android OS. Android was nothing. At the time few saw it as possibly competing with the big three. Symbian, RIM, and iOS. Or how it could be profitable.
And this is that same perspective today.
Symbian who? Yeah that's what the console market will look like soon. It is enevitable. So let's begin. The reason for the mobile comparison is not incidental, mobile itself will be the death of consoles. Hardware manufactures are producing record breaking mobile GPU's. The gap between consoles & mobile is closing and it's closing damned fast. A dedicated PC will hold out, but not a console with a GPU that is mid-tier and outdated at launch. Not with Nvidia doing stuff like this with their new generation of mobile GPU's
Yeah that's on a phone GPU. The fact of the matter is low-power is in. Because the power wall is making it harder (i.e. impossible) to develop faster chips the big movement is in low & ultra-low power. http://www.androidauthority.com/mobile-gaming-pc-console-220538/ This means a GTX Titan equivalent will be powered by a smartphone battery in 10 years time. Oh how long were these consoles meant to last? 10 years? Maybe they'll just get by.
I'm kidding. It wont take Titan graphics to compete with that hardware. And it won't be smartphones that kill them, smartphones are simply on an open platform (aka Android) and this is the main factor, because disruptive change loves open platforms.
Here is were the Oculus Rift an VR technologies come in. The VR community is exhibiting a rebirth like nothing I have seen in my 20+ years on this planet. People are loving the rift. It is a device that takes them to another world, it signifies "Gaming" & "Immersion". There are other devices joining the fray too. Devices like the STEM Motion control and the PrioVR. But none of this captures the thrill I felt throughout the development community. There is a wave of Indie Developers on the way and they are fascinated ("in love") with the Oculus. Also there is a huge outpouring from business & engineering community, commercial applications, Adult entertainment industry, etc. When one large company can not push a technology through a lot of small ones can. ANd this is what's happening. The masses are adapting VR, and soon this wave will sweep the country. Every single game developer I have read about or came across that has used the Oculus mentions one thing. "The future of gaming" or "This is the true next-gen". They say that because it's true. The level of immersion is independent of video quality or fps and it is like nothing ever felt before.
PC is an open platform for these items, but there one thing getting in the way. DirectX. This may seem strange but it's true. AMD announced a huge power grab with the release of AMD Mantle. Because AMD has won the hardware war on the new consoles, XBox One and PS4, it has put Nvidia in a bad position. Giving game developers hardware access means games will be developed from the ground up for AMD. To compete Nvidia needs their own hardware access or to change the console game up completely. That is where SteamOS comes on. Nvidia is going to be allying itself with Valve to fend off this huge attack. After all can't have AMD outpacing its stronger graphics cards on the PC front all because they have hardware access. Now this is speculation, and it is not important till a few years down the road, but it will seal consoles fate. I feel later down the road Nvidia will add hardware support and Valve will jump on it. And in doing so they protect themselves and they can compete with AMD. http://www.usgamer.net/articles/amds-mantle-and-why-valve-might-want-to-worry. Make no mistake this is about to be all out war on the console front Nvidia & Valve vs. AMD and Microsoft & Sony. The conventional consoles have the home field advantage, but SteamMachines are open and have their own features.
SteamOS vs. The World and why Steam will Win
It's the ultimate show down and here's how it stacks up:
- Steam has the largest game library. Larger than both consoles combined!
- Steam has indie developer support!
- Steam support ground breaking hardware such as Oculus Rift and whatever new invention is created.
- Valve Exclusives. Make not mistake there are some PC exclusives even console-fanboys will give their right arm to play we are talking about Left4Dead 3, Team Fortress 3, Portal 3, and the almighty Half-Life 3. If Valve drops these exclusive, with Oculus support it will shake the gaming world.
The big consoles really have nothing to compete with this except better optimized hardware. I guess the big exclusives are maybe Halo? I don't know. Their ecosystem is really to polluted. Nintendo strangely enough is the only one of the Big 3 that has exclusives on the level of Valve.
By making PC gaming accessible to the masses anyone will be able to enjoy the huge selection of consoles with new models each year, just like smartphones today. The XboxOne & OS4 can't compete. How could they? Because here comes the killer.
Prices
Game-over consoles. When the average Joe realizes they can get 3-4 games for the price of one they will be dropping their proprietary consoles with shitty games left and right. They innovation is on the PC, cool new interesting indie games for the old-school. Awesome graphics and new peripherals for the new school, and Steam Summer sales for anyone who can't see why to switch. Did I mention that you don't have to pay a subscription to pay online.
This assumes $40 games which we all know is not true during Steam Summer Sales. And here lies Valve's trump card. Valve is primarily a content provider. That's how they make most of their money, and this is their bid to enlarge their reach. Steam will make money no matter what, but in the off chance the average Joe finds out about the awesome benefits of PC Gaming,( I have only covered a few). Watch this for more:
There is no going back. And it will only get worse for consoles farther into the cycle, when Steam Machines are selling for just as much or less than a console produced by manufacturers that KNOW how to build hardware but can't create a console ecosystem, they can out compete Microsoft & Sony on price and offer better hardware because their console was launched 2 weeks ago rather than 2 years. Imagine if they all are packing Nvidia chips, maybe some would be AMD to offer console performance on the SteamBox, but there's no competition. Microsoft and Sony have no exclusives and their prices don't warrant having both like with the Wii. And Nintendo still has their amazing exclusives. The Kinect will lose to the Oculus. The fucking Developer kit is $300, the consumer version will be less and more powerful. I urge anyone to give one good counter this amazing collaboration between Valve, Nvidia, Indie Developers, & VR Gaming. There is none.
XBox One and PS4 will rush to add VR support once it becomes so cheap and Steam has it right out of the box on their games, but it will be too late. This isn't something you can retroactively fight. The market is too volatile, it requires an open and free platform to compete. It requires SteamOS.The only way to compete with a non-open platform is to pull a Nintendo or an iPhone. And neither of these consoles can do that. GG consoles. GG.
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