Are Valve and AMD about to ruin PC gaming?

Cyril Kowaliski: When the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were announced earlier this year, I saw it as a victory for the PC.

Soon, it seemed, bringing major blockbusters to the PC would be easier than ever. There would be three major gaming platforms—the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One, and the Windows PC—and each one would be only a slight twist on the same basic formula. Each one would feature an x86 processor, a DirectX 11 graphics chip, and its own, custom-tailored operating system. How could it get any simpler?

[Gozer]

I can see why the author is concerned. Its hard enough using a pc to game without Steambox and Mantle being in the picture. The guy is right, now that SteamOs and Mantle exist its going to fragment the pc market. Its going to stretch 3rd party devs thin trying to code for pc, mantle, consoles and SteamOs. We certainly might see a migration of pc gamers to consoles.

[Pandamobile]

"We certainly might see a migration of pc gamers to consoles."

Hell no. I know more people switching to PC gaming right now than vice versa. Everyone is playing League of Legends or DOTA2 or TF2 or Guildwars to an extent. I doubt people will abandon those things.

[Pandamobile]

(accidentally responded to my own comment, please ignore)

[Harpers_Ferry]

Well, to be fair to Gozer's comment, the change would be a result of negative effects to the PC market through these various sources, so it would be a ways off if it were to occur. Sort of a worst case scenario.

If nothing else, these issues could potentially cause a rift in the PC gaming market, which is certainly nothing any of us wants.

[MadLad]

I have seen a shift to PC gaming among my friends. We're all in our early to mid-twenties and it seems like it's just the shift people are making.
That's from personal experience, anyway.
That said, having a friend make the shift certainly would have an impact on others and make it more appealing to make such a shift as well.

[Studio-YaMi]

I'm not switching,though I am building a Beasty Rig with the help of ATi_Elite.

But PS4 is still gonna be my main console for it's great exclusive IPs.

For my multiplatform games,nothing can beat a duel GTX 780 in SLI.

Gonna be enjoying my 5 years of eye-candy glory on my new rig.

THANKS ATi_Elite !

[Funantic1]

This is the first time that I've ever thought about going to PC.

[BattleAxe]

I have become a PC gamer over the past few years. I still have my PS3 and PSP, and I'll probably get a PS Vita at some point, but the PC is where it's at as far as I'm concerned.

[Pandamobile]

Exactly. Everyone still has consoles, but most of my friends have slowly been moving towards PC as their main gaming platform.

[BattleAxe]

It just makes so much sense to go down the PC road. You can't beat the price for games on PC, you'll always have backwards compatibility, graphics are more detailed and you can choose to use whatever input devices you prefer whether it be an Xbox 360 controller, PS4 controller, Logitech controller or any number of mouse and keyboard configurations.

And more to the point of the article, I love what Valve is doing for PC gaming. Microsoft has had a monopoly on PC gaming with their Windows platform, and so I fail to see how giving developers and gamers more choice is a bad thing...

[SniperControl]

Much of my gaming is done on PC, exclusives to Sony and MS i play on console, simple as.

[ATi_Elite]

Things will not get complicated but only SIMPLER.

Make games for consoles. XB1 is DX11 so that's an easy port to PC. Actually make the game PC first then port down and everyone wins.

then be able to make games for SteamOS and have them run really great.

Most PC Gamers have multiple OS so it's NO BIG DEAL. I got 4 on one PC and 2 on my other one.

I like the idea of Mantle and SteamOS. looks like PC Gamers will have options to game without Windows and DirectX.

and if the Performance gains are a really big jump then PC gamers will surely have no problem switching or having both.

I see this as PC Gaming getting away from Microsoft's Death grip and also HOPEFULLY as a sign that Ray Tracing is closer due to Low Level GPU Api's like Mantle.

Gonna need all the juice possible to run Ray Traced games.

[WarThunder]

Yea!

Mantle will help developers, develop their games directly on the graphic card and much more optimization than before.

Windows Directx is crap.
OpenGL gives you direct access to all new graphics features on all platforms, while DirectX only provides occasional snapshots of them on their newest versions of Windows. The tesselation technology that Microsoft is heavily promoting for DirectX 11 has been an OpenGL extension for three years. It has even been possible for years before that, using fast instancing and vertex-texture-fetch. I don't know what new technologies will be exposed in the next couple years, I know they will be available first in OpenGL.

We need competition and freedom to drive down prices and drive up quality. A Microsoft monopoly on gaming would be very bad for both gamers and game developers.

In general MS monopoly is bad for gaming. Im really glad Valve and AMD are switching to linux with OpenGL and CL.

The guy who made the article doesn't know what his talking about.

Thanks to AMD we can built a $400-500 inexpensive PCs for good performance.

[RickHiggity]

It's still entirely up to the devs if they want to use any of these things. EAs Origin and Ubisofts Uplay should be evidence enough. Mantle is just a nice little tool for PC devs to use if they choose. If anything, people will just convert to an AMD card or vice versa. How in fuck would it make sense to switch to a console?

[Spinal]

Loool PC gamers will not be switching to console only gaming lool. Most PC gamers will also own a console anyway. I plan to get a PS4 but my PC is my main platform an the ps4 is for the sony exclusives.

It's true what Panda said I got a few friends that switched to PC gaming for football manager and have invested in steam sales now seeing loads of them with dishonored, bioshock infinite, dark souls. Battlefield 4 is grabbing many for the PC experience.

As for Steam machines they will go the route of Ouya. Mark those words.

[BenRage3]

Wow, you are really locking yourself into that position. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I do have a question for you.

What if the Steam machines are heavily promoted? Like as heavily promoted as the consoles (TV commercials, internet etc), in addition to them being sold at gamestop? If that were to happen I find it hard to believe it won't be more successful than Ouya only because it will have some things the Ouya does not like a huge library of amazing games.

I'm not making any predictions, but what are your thoughts on that hypothetical scenario?

[Spinal]

@Ben

It would also depend on the price of said Steam Machines, if they matched console prices or are cheaper than they would do better than the Ouya but they most definitely will not compete with the consoles which have Brand recognition.

Who outside of the hardcore gamers know Valve? or even know what Steam is? Ask a non gamer about Nintendo, Playstation or xbox and they'll tell you exactly what it is.

Brand recognition is important, when you think games you think those 3 and thats whats going to hinder steam machine sales.

To be fair Steam Machine has the potential to do better than Ouya cause who wanted Android games on a TV? lol seriously. Steam has a great library but most PC gamers wont buy a steam machine cause they would already have a PC to run those games. And most console gamers will already have the PS4/Xbone/Wii U so the chances of Steam machines selling well are slim to none.

But yes Steam machines will do better than Ouya but thats not saying much.

[SignifiedSix91]

Lol, the PC market has been fragmented with hundreds of GPU's.
No difference here.

[wheresmymonkey]

How? Steam OS is free. If you own a PC you can simply install it, i could see a lot of PC gamers moving to it or at least dual booting and i could see plenty of devs moving away from windows towards it because it lets them get a lot more out of then hardware.

IF anything its just going to continue to give PCs a huge edge over console gaming.

[steve30x]

Until the day that console game developers allow keyboard and mouse control I will keep doing most of my gaming on my PC.I find using a game controller in games as precise as shooting blind

[Alexious]

I agree about the first part, but that doesn't necessarily mean we'll see a migration to consoles.

[allgamespc2012]

i can see the concern, but i dont see PC gamers switching over to steambox when steam pc offers the same benefits.

i rather consoles take over than that bullshit people call part of gaming, aka, mobiles.

[shivvy24]

I honestly dont see the point on steam machines, just buy the same parts and build a pc ! I reckon valve should have made something like the vitaTV so just stream pc games to tv and have it bundled with that new controller

[Deadpoolio]

VitaTV isn't streaming vita games to a TV....At all.....It's a vita system without a screen that connects to your television...It's that EXACTLY not a streaming device not a OUYA like device...It's exactly a Vita that uses your Tv as the screen.....

[BattleAxe]

True, and the only things that it will stream are Netflix and maybe GaiKai if Sony releases it on the Vita.

[Agent-86]

I thought the VitaTV plays Vita games directly and is also a streaming device for apps like Netflix and Hulu Plus. I also believe that it'll stream PS3 games and, in the near future, PS4 games as well.

[Obamanationn]

Destroy to rebuild it ! down w/ DX/M$ up with Mantle/Linux

[BG11579]

The certain thing is that developpers will develop games to the plateforms that bring them most money.
Seing that most of multi plateform games actually are first released in console plateforms before PC is scary. But worse than that, is seing games being released into tablets/smartphones intead of consoles and PC is even more scarier.
I believe that valve and AMD's actions are correct. If PC gaming does not change or evolve from this stagnade position they, the futur of PC will not be bright.

[_LarZen_]

I do not think it will ruin PC gaming. Especially since it's still a PC one are playing on.

It will open up the world of PC gaming to a allot more people. Personally I would buy a new cabinet and move my hardware over to a living-room friendly cabinet and play games with Steam OS and their new controller where I could.

And a mouse & keyboard on games I would prefer that.

I use my PC only for gaming. I have other devices to comment and read sites like this.

[clouds5]

This article is pure doom talk, nothing else...

Atm it is quite cheap to build a good solid gaming PC. It just offers more than Consoles and alot of people start to realise that.

What Valve is doing should bring more people to PCs. I mean they are not just making another system, Steam machines are PCs. Valve just wants to have a backdoor should MS decide to shut down gaming support for windows or block steam or something like that.