Well, the PC biz has not been great to gaming for a long time, if ever. Most PC's don't come with quality GFX cards, so PC games have to be least common denominator, which is basically to port from the XBox360/PS3.
From what I can tell the average selling price of PC's has dropped in the last 10 years from $1,000 to $500 or less. At a $400-500 laptop, you just don't get good GFX, so PC gaming kind of sucks.
Steam helped a ton on the software side, but if the average gamer is going to have to swap out a graphics card to be able to play Skyrim well on their PC, they'll probably just buy an Xbox instead.
The PC market needs some kind of "standard" box configurations with sane pricing and non-crappy software installs. Like, a $500, $750, and $1,000 machines loaded with stock Windows 8, no crapware, good gfx, SSD's, etc.
If Valve did the same thing with their own version of Ubuntu running Steam, they could lower machine prices and also really reshape the PC gaming landscape over the next 10 years, esp. for indie developers who are already porting to Linux.
Valve could even do something awesome with Steam where if you buy a "Steam box" it comes with your Steam account and games preloaded and ready to go when you start it up, sort of like what Amazon does when you buy a Kindle.
If Valve goes down that road and tries to truly innovate, there is some real potential.
Actually, PC gaming is one of the biggest overlooked markets in the industry. If you account for all available sources of revenue then the market is incredibly large; it's just that some people who tally numbers only count boxes sold over the counter.
Almost every computer sold today with AMD or Intel CPUs have a decent video card built in. It's true they won't run the latest and greatest in high quality graphical games but I bet they'll run 90% or more of the games available on Steam just fine and most of the rest with reduced settings that will match the quality of the consoles. Granted, there are exceptions to this.
Most games that are ports of console games are done cheaply because of lack of focus or budget, not because of hardware. There are several franchises out there that make a ton of cash if made for and marketed to the PC market correctly. Most publishers don't bother with PC gaming any more because they no longer understand the market. What consoles are today is what PC gaming was five to ten years ago and they still get that, it's easy. PC gaming today is different and the expectations are different. Companies like Valve that understand the difference are the people making money. When the expectations of the console market catch up with PCs (possibly the next generation) then the current publishers better adapt quick or they'll suffer.
Most of the larger computer makers have been marketing "game" PCs for years but there have no standard configurations because different customers want different things. I, for one, feel that's to the consumer's advantage but it does require a knowledgeable salesman that help make decisions.
Your thought of an Ubuntu box with Steam is interesting but I can't see it happening any time soon, they need many, many more games to run on Linux for it to happen. It would be interesting if they did though.
If Valve went this direction it would help fix the biggest problem PC gaming has ever had, Microsoft.
And it's not true of either company in general, either. AMD's lower-end APU chips do have integrated graphics, but their higher-end CPUs do not. Similarly, Intel's Sandy Bridge-E (LGA2011) chips do not have integrated graphics either.
Which makes total sense. AMD would rather you buy a more expensive discrete GPU if you purchased a higher end CPU. But that's just good marketing since the people buying those high end CPUs probably don't have much of an issue with buying a video card as well. Intel doesn't care if you buy a discrete card since they don't chase that market but it does care to have the marketing bullet point.
Intel's lower end chips may not have a GPU built in but I would imagine that's intended for a market where it doesn't matter.
But I'm still willing to bet that almost all computers sold today have a decent video card in them. I can see my statement as it was is a bit much since I was implying that all AMD and Intel CPUs have GPUs built-in, which obviously they do not. But I'm sticking by my thought that almost all computers sold today would have a decent video card in them. All of them may not be able to play the latest and greatest games but they can go a long way with the rest.
To me, in today's market, if the computer doesn't have a decent video card then it was built for a specific function in mind and gaming is more than likely irrelevant.
Well, he did say today; Sandy Bridge has been on the market for 18 months and Ivy Bridge ups the performance ante even further. AMD's APUs are better still in terms of integrated graphics performance.
He's right in that Intel had horrible stuff, but you're also right in that I mean if you purchased something off the shelf right now then chances are it'll do decent enough for most gaming requirements. It just may not be pretty. But I also think this is somewhat true for the last two years or so, especially if you consider AMD and Nvidia solutions with their integrated video chipsets.
Actually, he's rather correct. You may be speaking of systems that come with a discrete video card from AMD or Nvidia. We're speaking of integrated video cards that are part of the system. AMD and Intel integrates into their CPUs while Nvidia integrates into their motherboards. If you wanted/needed a integrated card then you went with AMD or Nvidia solutions because they used older discrete card technology, Intel's were just horrible.
Intel's integrated GPUs have always been lackluster when it came to 3D games. Their original intent was a cheap solution for laptops and very cheap computers. Game developers have been pushing them for years to make a decent integrated card that could support DX9 decently to be considered a low-end standard. It wasn't until for the past year or two that they got something decent out there.
EDIT: when I say Intel wanted a cheap solution I'm meaning something that provided for decent 2D and video performance that wouldn't kill the laptop battery in five minutes. For desktops they were intended for cheap office computers running Word and Excel. Hardware acceleration for 3D never seemed to be of much concern because it wasn't intended for gaming.
Well, it certainly is the first and most critical hurdle, aside from "Does your processor support SSE2". You can argue quality of experience all day long, but if your hardware is tragically lacking, you aren't getting anywhere.
> If Valve did the same thing with their own version of Ubuntu running Steam, they could lower machine prices and also really reshape the PC gaming landscape over the next 10 years, esp. for indie developers who are already porting to Linux.
At that point, why not just release their own console?
Nowadays, what's the difference between a standardized PC running a custom/customized OS and your hypothetical console?
Now, if Valve actually moved backwards to a day when consoles were simple devices that didn't require OS updates, installation of the games, game updates, and a whole slew of other crap from the PC industry that makes it easier for vendors and harder for users, then they'd have a real 'console' that wasn't a PC.
I'd be very surprised if they released something that didn't do updates of some description. Even consoles these days do frequent updates, in fact I'd guess the only reason that earlier consoles didn't do this was because fast internet access was not ubiquitous at that point.
The main difference between a console & PC is largely marketing and also the default UI which is presented to users "out of the box".
What would be nice is a standardised box with a simple UI, good graphics hardware (and solid driver support) and a lowish price tag. That standard experience could be basically the "Steam box" but with an option for advanced users to unlock the underlying Linux System and install regular Linux software.
This would allow games to be developed directly on the console itself, if this was combined with providing tools such as model editors , game engines etc for free or at low cost it could really lower the bar for Indie devs to produce some fairly high end games.
Also if the console proved popular you would have "stealth installed" a Linux desktop in millions of homes worldwide.
I can't imagine the next-gen consoles selling that well in the future either. Most people would want them for the media access, but there are and will be much better and cheaper options for that.
From what I can tell the average selling price of PC's has dropped in the last 10 years from $1,000 to $500 or less. At a $400-500 laptop, you just don't get good GFX, so PC gaming kind of sucks.
Steam helped a ton on the software side, but if the average gamer is going to have to swap out a graphics card to be able to play Skyrim well on their PC, they'll probably just buy an Xbox instead.
The PC market needs some kind of "standard" box configurations with sane pricing and non-crappy software installs. Like, a $500, $750, and $1,000 machines loaded with stock Windows 8, no crapware, good gfx, SSD's, etc.
If Valve did the same thing with their own version of Ubuntu running Steam, they could lower machine prices and also really reshape the PC gaming landscape over the next 10 years, esp. for indie developers who are already porting to Linux.
Valve could even do something awesome with Steam where if you buy a "Steam box" it comes with your Steam account and games preloaded and ready to go when you start it up, sort of like what Amazon does when you buy a Kindle.
If Valve goes down that road and tries to truly innovate, there is some real potential.