The first Steam Machines are set to launch in November, and they’re basically small but reasonably powerful desktop computers design for gaming. They will ship with Steam OS which is a Linux-based operating system developed by Valve, the company behind the popular Steam game platform.
But will there actually be any games available? Yes. At least a thousand of them.
As Phoronix notes, the number of Steam games that are available for SteamOS and other GNU/Linux operating systems has just passed the 1,000 mark.
That number will likely grow by the time SteamOS and the first Steam Machines are ready to ship later this year. Any game that can run on SteamOS can also run on just about any computer running Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, or other popular Linux-based operating systems. That means Linux gaming is no longer confined to Tux Racer and Battle for Wesnoth.
OK, OK… it’s been a while since the Linux gaming scene was that small… but now that Valve and Steam are entering the space there’s a lot more incentive for game developers to support the platform. And it looks like plenty of them are doing just that.
Of course quality is at least as important as quantity, so it’s good to know that some pretty well-received games (both new and old) are available on Steam for Linux including Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal and Portal 2, Borderlands 2, Don’t Starve, Half-Life, Trine, Counter-Strike, and torchlight.
This is good news.
I fear Windows 7 will get cut loose and leave my gaming rig in a lurch.
I’m doing it all through steam anyway so if this OS sports a browser too I’m set.
Great news!
glNext will be a huge boost to linux gaming also, thank to Steam and AMD Catalyst for the code base for it. Gaming is getting a lot more exciting. Xbox and PS4 are going to have to drastically drop game prices if they want to compete agains the new Big Dog or die off. It will be interesting with the new controller too. They claim you can play games that are not made for a controller with it and do it quite adequately. Tried to find videos of the controller in action but they are few and far between.
There’s a long way to go before MS and Sony feel the pressure to drop console game prices. Hundreds of cheap AAA games have been available on Steam for the PC for years already and it hasn’t made much difference.
So far Steam Machines don’t look to be any easier to configure and buy than PCs. Each manufacturer is coming out with all kinds of configurations — different processor speeds, different (some underpowered) graphics cards etc. — some of which are horribly overpriced.
The attraction of the consoles is that everyone gets the same hardware and they know that the games they buy have been thoroughly tested on their console setup. Until Valve comes up with a way to guarantee something similar with Steam Machines, it will be no different from the PC market.
Steam should create some kind of “Performance Level” badges which contains only one single number which tells how powerful the Steam Machine in question is.
The number would go up continually as faster and faster machines come out but it should be still fairly easy for the consumer to decide.
The ‘Windows Experience Index’ is actually pretty good for this. Just straight up copy that over for steamos/linux and, i think they have a pretty good plan.