How can people possibly get this confused? It is in the name. Steam*OS*. But apparently some people still think that it's a streaming service because they somehow skipped down the official Steam article on the subject to selectively read a portion about its streaming abilities. Fear not, I'm here to provide some clarity.
First of all, SteamOS is an operating system. I know, it sounds more like a breakfast cereal than an operating system going by the name, but I assure you that it is an operating system.
"As we’ve been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we’ve come to the conclusion that the
environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself.
SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen"
--Steampowered.com
You see, it is an operating system built around steam with a Linux architecture. An operating system operates a system. Operating systems don't require operating systems to run them, thus it is foolish to think that another OS is require to run SteamOS. Yet lots of people think this is the case, which brings me to point two...
SteamOS can stream games from PC and MAC. But wait, wait! Don't let me lose you now! It plays games without a PC or MAC, too. It can play Linux games on its own AND stream games from PC/MAC.
"You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too"
--Steampowered.com
"Also" is a synonym for "Too" It means that both the first thing said and the thing just said both apply. Thus, the first thing, playing Linux games, and the second, streaming PC/MAC games, both are true!
Please take a 5 minute break from reading to process that difficult information before moving on.
Understand now that SteamOS is an OS that plays games both natively and through streaming? Good! Let's move on!
"But that has no advantages whatsoever!" you say, still not having read the article on Steampowered.com, probably still under the impression that SteamOS is only a streaming service. But it indeed has some interesting advantages. For one, that streaming capability that is a feature of SteamOS and not its only function. Instead of lugging your desktop around if you want to play games in another room, you can play them on the device running SteamOS.
With a less obtrusive OS, you can potentially get better performance out of your game than Windows running on the same hardware. And the fact that gamers are getting an OS that could potentially be a good alternative to being forced to play on Windows is great. Especially since it's free.
Sure, some people will still need Windows for specific software, but shockingly, that doesn't apply to everyone just because it applies to yourself. Possibly not even the majority, since most people use computers primarily for email and web browsing and even their non-windows phones do that these days.
You would think that everyone would understand these simple concepts, since it is all laid out on Steam's website in one easy to read page: http://store.steampowered.c...
But I'm not here to judge; just inform you, you illiterate little...!! *ahem*
WTMG's Leo Faria: "The Switch version of Sticky Business is less of a game, and more of a very clunky and shallow creative tool with not a lot to entice players for long. The progression system is silly, the gameplay loop lacks any kind of excitemente, and the controls and interface are embarassingly bad, never taking advantage of the Switch’s touchscreen, or even giving us the bare minimum of a completely cursor-based interface. There’s just no sense of accomplishment while playing it. It’s just downright frustrating. If you really want to play Sticky Business, and come up with your sticker empire of sorts (hey, I’m not judging), just stick to the PC version."
We were expecting problems with mod support, but there are a lot of other issues.
Not accidental, they want modders to stop modding their older games to force them to mod Shitfield.
Over 14 GBs and doesn't change much at all? What? Taking up that much drive space for a pathetic 'remastering' is shameful.
Par for Bethesda.
LOL people are actually expecting massive improvements or something? From Bethesda?? the same people who released Skyrim multiple times and the all look like shit? THAT Bethesda? are people for real?
The ps5 version doesn't change a ton but from my small playtime it's enough to make me want to replay it just to have it running at 60.
A side note to this my PS4 version no longer boots after it's "update" so I guess that's what it feels like to own a Bethesda game on PC
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
I just hope Valve knows what they're trying to shuffle their way into.
Steam is an amazing service as it is. But I wonder how many people would be inclined to actually use a full-on OS that's dedicated entirely to Steam-powered gaming. It's like a game-console PC, almost...A hybrid, perhaps?
Nonetheless - I'm really interested to see how this is going to play out.
I'll admit I was one of those people who thought the only thing this OS could do was stream games. My fault for just taking Engadget's word for it(their original article only mention streaming games) and then commenting rather than going to the Steam site itself in the first place. A mistake I will not make a second time.
If big name publishers, developers, AMD and Nvidia provide support, gaming on Linux could become a viable option.
Hope it fails.
i found this blog most amusing
It really is kind of the fault of Valve for the little confusion. I first thought it was a streaming service/device thingy, to be technical, on the first read through.
I think the part that is throwing people off is at first "OS" makes sense what it is. But then they go on to talk about it only by mentioning living room machine, and the talk about streaming games. This gives people the impression it would just stream to tv or have a medium running steamOS specifically for that purpose.
I just reread the site and the only mention they had for SteamOS was with living room machine. So no mention of PC their unless I missed it. Main point Valve needs to be more clear on this, but that will probably be helped by the upcoming announcements. When are the next two again?