Mobile Mavens

Did Valve's SteamOS just make the microconsole redundant?

Our Mobile Gaming Mavens discuss

Did Valve's SteamOS just make the microconsole redundant?

What impact will the unveiling of SteamOS – and its associated Steam Machines – have on the microconsole market?

In his latest Stateside column, 148Apps' Carter Dotson suggested that SteamOS has the potential to 'out microconsole the microconsoles', if it can be delivered in ready-made, cheap units for under the TV.

Carter stated that SteamOS "makes a similar promise to the ones microconsoles make: fresh content on a budget in a market that's grown bloated and stale."

So, we asked the Mavens:

Do you think SteamOS has the potential to derail mobile's hold over the microconsole market, and has it pulled the rug from underneath Apple TV's feet?

Will Luton Founder/CPO Village Studio Games Village Studio

I think Ouya is firmly established as a niche hobbyist machine - if that's what the makers want or not.

The access barrier is really low and the content is highly experimental. It's great for tinkerers and the hardcore indie fans. I see this lasting - that's the platform's tiny slice.

Steam Box is unlikely to threaten that too much. The content quality is much higher and safer, more traditionally core. Unless Valve's and marketing policies change, they're unlikely to bring casual players to the platform. The box is more a threat to the PS4 and Xbox One.

What we're yet to see is a true mass consumer box that stealths games in to the living room via the promise of TV, film and music content. I'm guessing this is what Apple are working on right now and will really be exciting.

Just like Facebook or iOS, people won't acquire the platform for games, but games will be there. Not just for self-identifying gamers, but for everyone.

Keith Andrew With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.

My initial take on this is that Valve – and, indeed, Sony with PS Vita TV - has got something very right here.

Though the appeal of the microconsole - a cheap, not massively powered machine that gamers can player scores of equally cheap games on - is high, I'm not sure those consumers want to play mobile games on it.

As smart TVs and Ouya seem to suggest, I think people are happy playing those on their phone.

Where Vita TV and SteamOS take the lead is that they''ll be serving up console/PC style games on the TV at a cheaper rate than PS4 and Xbox One. So, yes, while Microsoft and Sony is Valve's target, I think SteamOS has the potential to do what the microconsoles were shaping up to do, but in a much more effective manner.

Will Luton Founder/CPO Village Studio Games Village Studio

I agree that what Ouya is isn't what Ouya wants to be.

Dave Castelnuovo Owner Bolt Creative

I think people are jumping the gun by saying the SteamBox will be a micro-console. There is no indication from Valve that it is gunning for something in line with Vita TV or Ouya.

In fact, the only price point we know about is the Piston which costs $1,000. Hardly even a competitor for the next generation consoles that are about to come out.

It's so interesting how this continually happens in the press, where wishful thinking ends up misdirecting the public (and investors). The same thing happened with the iPhone 5C where the press and analysts had everyone convinced it would be $100 (unlocked) phone.

I'm not even sure that a $100 Steam Box would make sense. First of all, the architecture would have to radically change from the current system that steam developers target.

Currently the Steam library is compatible with decently spec'd x86 based desktop computers, while a steam micro console would have to be a low cost arm based system with the latest Tegra GPU.

The current Steam library would be useless - developers would have to submit new binaries and more likely than not optimise the hell out of them to get them to run on the cheaper system.

Valve would be in the same boat as Ouya except Valve has a much better relationship with developers so could probably get a better library of games much faster. Nonetheless, a Valve micro-console would still not give a console experience.

Also, the Steam market is completely different to the mass market that Sony is targeting with the Vita TV. The Steam market is basically the very core of the hardcore gamer.

Although these gamers would probably buy anything form Valve because it's a cool device and they like devices, in the long run these gamers want high end experiences and the best that the indie market has to offer.

A microconsole will still be able to support games that don't really stretch the PC to its limits, but the really cool stuff will be PC only. After all, isn't the whole appeal of PC gaming that you can get a super powerful video card and run games at a fidelity that the latest consoles can't match?

I personally think Valve will release a product that is a little more capable than a microconsole. It will be x86 based so it can leverage most of its library without a lot of hassle, but it will try and get the price down as much as possible.

Keith Andrew With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.

Dave - tech wise, I think the suggestion is it would stream Steam games from your PC, so wouldn't need powerful hardware.

Dave Castelnuovo Owner Bolt Creative

That does change things a bit but, still, has anyone had success running streamed games within their local network form their PC to their TV? Heard the shield wasn't able to quite get it lag free.

Still, just because it supports streaming still doesn't mean it will be a microconsole like Vita TV.

I'm sure that x86 support is Valve's first option. I'm not certain, but I don't think it will support ARM, which is what they will need for a micro-console version. Having two architectures will fragment it too much unless all Steam Machines are stream only which doesn't make sense.

Why would Valve put out a product that requires you to have a kick ass desktop PC?

Keith Andrew With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.

Dave - I think the idea is, there's potential for Steam to sell to its already sizeable PC audience with a microconsole offering. This isn't about expanding its userbase. Whether it will be realised or not, I don't know.

My general feeling is, while I don't think microconsoles will ever be "massive", this and PS Vita TV are a far better fit for what the consumer is after.

Mobile games are made for mobile, and most aren't going to translate well to a TV experience, even if you map the controls to a control pad. Most mobile games are designed for short stints, whereas when people play games on their TV, they've made a conscious decision to shut off everything else and play a game for an hour or so.

One of mobile's massive advantages is, it can be played while you're doing something else - such as watching the TV. Suddenly, that's lost with microconsoles.

The press gets very hyped about it, but I'm not at all convinced an Apple microconsole would give either Microsoft or Sony many headaches.

The kind of games Valve and Vita play host to, however, are a far better fit, and much more of a threat to the console model.

Dave Castelnuovo Owner Bolt Creative

My main point is that Valve has not released hardware specs, so we don't know that "this" is a microconsole.

I also think it's worthless to compare Vita TV or a theoretical Steam micro-onsole to the likes of Samsung TV or Ouya - both of which are products that will go absolutely nowhere. So, I guess I agree that Vita TV and a Steam microconsole are much better suited than completely useless products.

But I also think that Aall the above are not in danger of giving Microsoft or Sony headaches. Vita TV requires a PS4 to really be useful (otherwise you are just playing mobile Vita games on a TV), and a Steam microconsole would require an expensive PC in order to play even a single game.

Will Luton Founder/CPO Village Studio Games Village Studio

"Steam MC would require an expensive PC in order to play even a single game."

Sorry? What did I miss?

Also, just because Ouya doesn't have a mainstream appeal, doesn't mean it can't maintain a niche. There's lots of very innovative content there that could hold a small (sub 1 million) audience for a long time.

Dave Castelnuovo Owner Bolt Creative

Granted, that's just my theory, but no one knows what kind of hardware configuration a Steam machine will consist of.

The Steam Machine might be a microconsole for $100 where the main use would be to stream Steam games to the TV and play them in a fashion like PS Remote Play.

At this hardware level, it would be very hard for existing Steam developers to port their content to this type of device to run natively unless they were starting with something that was designed for mobile. The architecture of a $100 would have to be way different than a typical PC.

A lot less memory, most likely different kind of CPU. It would be very tough to port a game that is tuned for a PC to this hardware level. Developers could still decide to target this, but Valve would be starting from scratch in terms of a game library that could be run natively.

The Steam Machine might be a console equivalent for $400-$500 where they have hardware that is a little closer to a low cost PC configuration.

It would also stream games from your PC but could run a larger variety of steam games because the architecture would be similar. It would still not be able to run high end games natively but it would run a lot of Linux compatible games out of the box.

The Steam Machine might be a media PC configuration like the Piston for $1000. This is a dead horse.

You have to be pretty hard core to buy a media PC and why on earth would you buy a Steam OS media PC that only runs steam when you could buy a Windows Media PC that runs Steam as well as other media apps.

So my theory is that a Steam microconsole would be closer to the Ouya than people think in terms of native content - although Steam has a better name and would be able to get way more developer support than Ouya.

In order to get the real “Steam” experience, you will need an expensive PC in order to stream games to the microconsole, and from what I've gathered from the Nvidia Shield is that it required a special video card to do this.

Keith Andrew With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.

I'm not suggesting Valve has announced a microconsole. However, with SteamOS, there's the potential for someone - if not Valve - to launch a small, cheap box that streams games from people's existing Steam accounts to their TVs.

It wouldn't be massive – as I said, I don't think any microconsoles will be massive - but my point is, both it and the Vita games that will run on Vita TV are far more suited to TV style play than mobile games, which tend to be cut down into smaller nuggets of play.

That, surely, is an issue for mobile devs who have, until now, appeared swept away by the notion of taking their existing games to a fresh market.

With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.