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I don't think they had the slightest chance of Valve partering with them
by _zamorano_ 6y ago
I don't think they had the slightest chance of Valve partering with them
- Clewza313 6y agoWhy not? Valve is not in the hardware business.
- _zamorano_ 6y agoA successfull private company, with the best video game catalog, already king in PC gaming... I don't see much for them to gain and plenty to lose if they let google build a big customer base.
- asddubs 6y agoyeah, valve has its own ecosystem it wants to lock people into
- bastawhiz 6y agoValve has the games and tried to build their own console and failed. Google has now effectively built their own console and doesn't have the games.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoValve only came up with Steam Boxes (and it's whole Linux push for that matter) as a defensive response to the Windows Store and the, at the time very real-seeming, possibility that Windows would become an entirely walled-garden they'd be beholden to. They put much effort into Steam Boxes, they were just a PC with Valve's Ubuntu derivative distro. Fortunately for Linux users though they did continue to put a lot of effort into making Linux gaming actually viable, thus insuring that they'll always have an out if Microsoft goes stupid.
- kenhwang 6y agoValve has the Stream Link and VIVE. Steam Link is pretty much Stadia using your computer instead of the cloud. They're very much in the hardware business.
- hobofan 6y agoWith Steam Link requiring you to own a beefy computer it's not really a competitor to what Stadia offers (and I don't know anybody who was able to get good performance out of Steam Link). VIVE is by HTC supporting SteamVR, but Valve has their own first-pary VR headset + controllers with the Index.
- Jochim 6y agoI was able to get latency down to 10-20ms using steam link over ethernet, it works great for pretty much everything. It might give you problems if you're playing at a very high level in csgo/fighting games, but for most people it's pretty solid.
- Jochim 6y agoValve have their own VR headset, the Valve Index. Steam Link was previously a hardware dongle but has been replaced by android/smart TV apps with the same name. I'm surprised Nvidia didn't attempt to partner with them rather than developing GeForce Now as a separate product, they could have taken advantage of Valve's developer relationship/client/store front and handled the actual running of the hardware, which Valve seems much less interested in. Stadia on the other hand is just a demonstration of the level of hubris Google is capable of engaging in. They thought they could launch a brand new store with the twist that people would need to pay a subscription to continue playing the games they had bought and without the option of using your own hardware should you end up purchasing a capable machine.
- easton 6y agoThey are partnered, it's just not exclusive. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/cloudgaming https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/cloudgaming
- chrisseaton 6y agoWhat's in it for Valve?
- clavalle 6y agoAccess to people that don't want to buy a gaming PC. Or can't, these days, considering how strangled the GPU market is.
- chrisseaton 6y agoIf Valve wanted to do that why wouldn't they build it themselves instead? They have the server expertise.
- sidibe 6y agoIf you want to make a cloud gaming service that isn't expensive and a good experience, you need it to be huge scale because more locations is essential for less latency, and you need a varied workload instead of just people playing games to amortize the costs of the servers. I don't know what other stuff Nvidia or Valve does that would keep these machines productively busy during the work day, but the big cloud companies probably have all kinds of things to justify over-provisioning machines so it seems like they have a limitless supply at peak gaming times while being cost-effective I think Amazon, Google, and Microsoft will dominate cloud gaming eventually.
- FridgeSeal 6y agoValve’s customer base is almost entirely semi-serious to hardcore gamers: then people with the most to lose and the least incentive to adopt stadia. Partnering with Google on stadia would generate a sizeable backlash.
- mdoms 6y agoYes they are? Their latest flagship game literally only works on their hardware.
- oivey 6y agoAre you talking about Half Life: Alyx? It works on basically any VR headset as far as I know. I think they just need to be SteamVR compatible which basically everything is.
- mdoms 6y agoMaybe, as soon as I heard it was VR only I stopped paying attention. But the point still stands - Valve is very much a hardware business, has been for years.
- Jochim 6y agoI wouldn't characterise them as a hardware business, their main focus is on software and they happen to be willing to produce hardware when they feel they need to.
- filoleg 6y agoJust to confirm, you are correct, it works on almost any mass-market headset (probably on all headsets period, but I cannot verify that myself). So far, I can confirm for a fact it works on HTC Vive, Valve Index, Oculus Rift S, and Oculus Quest 1/2 (in wired mode connected to PC, just like the other headsets, or using VR Desktop for wireless; I tried both and stuck to playing it with wireless).
- akhilcacharya 6y agoI've played Alyx three times on two different VR headsets by two manufacturers and this is definitely not true.
- throwaway3699 6y agoUhh, Valve definitely IS in the hardware business. They make streaming boxes, controllers, VR headsets/base stations and BCI tech.