Comment Re:Makes a lot of sense (Score 1) 173
SteamOS via Linux has to provide some credible benefits to the user. Unless Valve develops something exclusive for SteamOS that you can't get on regular Windows Steam, then there is nothing that benefits the USER as opposed to Valve's benefit of not relying on Windows or buying Windows licenses for each SteamOS console.
The other potential benefit to Valve is higher game performance. Remember all those reports about framerates improving just by switching to Linux? You have to look at it from Valve's perspective. The PC game market is a small fraction of the console video game market. Here's what consoles offer:
-guaranteed compatibility
-low system maintenance
-general ease-of-use
-single-screen multiplayer for social/casual games ("couch use")
-simple software distribution and installation
Valve has already taken care of that last one, and figured a customized PC OS could take care of the others while adding the advantages of a PC platform, primarily:
-greater hardware capability
-upgradeable components
-software flexibility and user control
The key to "couch use" is a controller, and I'm sure Valve considers this essential to making non-console games work in a console-like environment, hence the delay while trying to get it right. Once enough games are ported and the controller is done, I think the machine has a valid shot at success. After all, we've been seeing consoles adopt more "PC functionality" over the last 10 years with web browsers, media players, Netflix-type video streaming, etc. Valve just figured they could succeed if they made a device that could run their games and removed the last few restrictions of consoles. The ability to stream from a Windows PC is just icing on the cake.