demonhorde665 :
@stevejnb
what you are not understanding is the fact that the steam box will be designed as a way to entice developers back to PC development. more developers = better entertainment potential. further more the steam box is a PC not a pc like device. it will do EVERYTHING a PC does or can do.
Oh no, I get that a Steambox is literally just a PC that comes pre-loaded with SteamOS and not Windows. Thing is, while it's possible to load Windows onto it, let's be real - a vast, vast majority of the people who dual boot machines are not going to buy some branded machine for their primary rigs any more than many people are buying $5000 Alienware machines and dual booting them with Linux. The people who do crap like that tend to build their own machines because they are enthusiasts and don't need or want someone to build them a machine at a markup. Valve knows this, which is why SteamOS is meant to appeal to the dual-booting-rig-making-PC-enthusiasts, and the Steamboxes are meant to appeal to the plug-and-play-buy-and-forget-console-gamers. It's not so much what the Steambox is capable of so much as who it's intended for and who will likely be interested in it that I'm making reference to. I mean, heck, you could put Linux on a PS3 last gen, but very few people took that option seriously. Steamboxes are an attempt to break into the living room, not onto the computer desk. SteamOS is more for the computer desk effort.
As for the whole "entice developers back to the PC"... Are you sure about that? Last time I checked, most of the developers listed that were interested in it were ones who were already developing on the PC. And think about it from a developer perspective... If you build a game for Steambox first rather than Windows, you immediately cut out a vast, vast, VAST majority of gamers your games could potentially reach. To me, this screams that developing games for Windows, which has hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, of potential gamers on it, seems a lot more likely to draw a developer in than a few paltry hundred thousand - or if they're lucky a few million - SteamOS users. What's more, you can develop a game under Steam's roof for Windows, but it seems unlikely you can develop a game for SteamOS that isn't on Steam - which immediately closes that door for developers who don't want to be under the watch of some major DRM company.
I'm curious to hear your case, but you've got a bit of talking to do to convince me that this SteamOS/Steambox thing is anything more than Valve's attempt to get total control of a gaming platform rather than some idealistic attempt to make things more wonderful for devs or gamers.
Could you further explain, Demon, how the Steambox is going to significantly entice developers to develop for the PC again? As far as I can tell, the biggest thrust in that direction this gen is the PS4 and XBOX One going x86 and using PC hardware.