As Valve confirms the Steam Box, Microsoft's Phil Harrison issues a warning

Valve isn't directly competing with consoles. You have to understand that.

what do you mean? i would think they are competing with consoles....they want to sell the "console" they make dont they?

anyways i am getting more and more interested about this system...wonder if half life gonna be a exclusive to this.....

I don't even think Valve is trying to compete. I don't look at the Steam Box as direct competition with gaming consoles. I look at the Steam Box as an alternative to PC gaming without a PC, for the people who aren't tech savvy and want to enjoy PC games. There's alot of bonuses to having a Steam Box, you get great deals on great games, some that are only exclusive to a PC, you get to play online for free, you get a choice between playing with a controller or mouse+Keyboard (in theory), your games that you buy on your computer can be played on your Steam Box anywhere or at home on your PC. So if you have a pc + steam box, you don't need to use your PC, duh.

It's more of a convenience type thing to me. I couldn't see myself with one unless it got a price drop ($300 is too much when I got a computer capable of playing most games I wanna play). But I can only see this box being a huge plus for Valve because the people who buy it are all gonna be buying !! from the Steam Store. That's more revenue for them.

I do ponder how they're gonna distribute it. I doubt you're gonna see this thing at Walmarts. Might see it at Best Buy, probably have to order it online like the Nexus 7 or something.

what do you mean? i would think they are competing with consoles....they want to sell the "console" they make dont they?

anyways i am getting more and more interested about this system...wonder if half life gonna be a exclusive to this.....

that wasnt a huge risk.digital is much cheaper and easier to dsitribute,and really was tha next logical step in game distribution

what do you mean? i would think they are competing with consoles....they want to sell the "console" they make dont they?

anyways i am getting more and more interested about this system...wonder if half life gonna be a exclusive to this.....

People fail to forget that XBL (2002) was out before Steam (2003). And for PC users (when it boils down to it DL the game to their HDD anyway) steam made more sense than console gamers doing that in some cases. I think steam is great for PC users, but I'm a big console guy cuz I don't have the funds to continually future proof my laptop/desktop to play the latest and greatest.

I think steam is gonna do some decent initial numbers, but it depends on when the real next gen systems drop and what they have in store. If hard graphical pushes and increased download services aren't brought hard, then Steam and Ouya (to a smaller extent) will have a foothold to grasp.

I think steam is great for PC users, but I'm a big console guy cuz I don't have the funds to continually future proof my laptop/desktop to play the latest and greatest.

[pic] I'm TIRED of people giving this lame excuse as to why they won't game on the PC. Let me break this down to you and everyone else

Hard drive & RAM = Cheap and you don't need to worry about upgrading them pretty much ever. 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz/1866Mhz RAM and you'll be set for a long time.

CPU - There are people still using old[..] AMD Phenom and Intels and they're still able to run all the new games with no problem. What does this mean? It means you don't have to go buying the newest CPU that comes out every other month or year.

GPU - Same thing with the CPU. People are using cards that are now about to be 2 generations old (ie 560 & 6970) and others a bit older, and guess what, they're still able to run all the games nowadays with no problem.

I sold my 6950 (then got a 6990) to someone about 3 years ago, dude is still using it with no problems. I had a 6990 till last month and got a 680. That 6990 would have lasted me a few more years since the card is a beast. ONLY reason why I got the 680 was because I wanted to try out Nvidia.

After reading that I'm sure you'll see my point. You don't need to "continously future proof" your PC to the latest hardware when your current hardware is running everything just fine and dandy. Unfortunately there are A LOT of people that don't understand this which is why they stay away from it.

I got you homie. [pic]

[pic] I'm TIRED of people giving this lame excuse as to why they won't game on the PC. Let me break this down to you and everyone else

Hard drive & RAM = Cheap and you don't need to worry about upgrading them pretty much ever. 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz/1866Mhz RAM and you'll be set for a long time.

CPU - There are people still using old[..] AMD Phenom and Intels and they're still able to run all the new games with no problem. What does this mean? It means you don't have to go buying the newest CPU that comes out every other month or year.

GPU - Same thing with the CPU. People are using cards that are now about to be 2 generations old (ie 560 & 6970) and others a bit older, and guess what, they're still able to run all the games nowadays with no problem.

I sold my 6950 (then got a 6990) to someone about 3 years ago, dude is still using it with no problems. I had a 6990 till last month and got a 680. That 6990 would have lasted me a few more years since the card is a beast. ONLY reason why I got the 680 was because I wanted to try out Nvidia.

After reading that I'm sure you'll see my point. You don't need to "continously future proof" your PC to the latest hardware when your current hardware is running everything just fine and dandy. Unfortunately there are A LOT of people that don't understand this which is why they stay away from it.