Gabe Newell: Steam Box's Biggest Threat Isn't Consoles, It's Apple 191
silentbrad sends word of a recent lecture given by Valve's Gabe Newell to a college class. He had some interesting remarks about the future of games in the living room: "The threat right now is that Apple has gained a huge amount of market share, and has a relatively obvious pathway towards entering the living room with their platform," Newell said. "I think that there's a scenario where we see sort of a dumbed down living room platform emerging — I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there, and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room? ... We're happy to do it if nobody else will do it, mainly because everybody else will pile on, and people will have a lot of choices, but they'll have those characteristics. They'll say, 'Well, I could buy a console, which assumes I'll re-buy all my content, have a completely different video system, and, oh, I have a completely different group of friends, apparently. Or I can just extend everything I love about the PC and the internet into the living room.' ... I think the biggest challenge is that Apple moves on the living room before the PC industry sort of gets its act together." There's another hour-long lecture from Newell posted on YouTube talking about productivity, economics, and the future of corporations. Speaking of Steam, reader skade88 points out an article at Linux.com about the current state of the Steam for Linux beta.
Their godawful logo (Score:0, Insightful)
Steam's biggest hindrance is their godawful logo. That guy, with the water valve stuck in the back of his head? Fuck, that's disgusting. Every time I see it, I cringe. It's revolting. Now, even hearing the word 'steam' in the context of games makes me shudder.
Fire the psychopaths who made that design and come up with something less stomach-churning, like a pile of rotting guts.
Re:Apple console? (Score:5, Insightful)
An Apple gaming device would be an elegant, pure white box with only a light, it would never crash, but only Apple-approved games would run on it
So basically like every other game console.
Re:Apple Pippin 2! (Score:2, Insightful)
that's because the gaming market isn't basement dwellers playing the latest shooter or hack and slash game. it has moved way beyond that now. angry birds and other casual games hook people that would never play "real games" and they make more profits than most "real games"
and yet the nerds who cream their pants over far cry 20 still think they are the center of the world
Classic Confusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Adding Apple tech to anything makes it that much dumber.
Simpler is not dumber.
Usually to simplify you in fact have to make something more complex - but it's complexity the user does not see.
Re:Overrated "Apple TV" (Score:3, Insightful)
They're not worried about the current iteration of the Apple TV. They're worried about what it foreshadows. The rumors indicate that Apple has been working backroom deals in order to get content providers lined up for something new that's coming later.
For my part, I like Apple, but I don't want them anywhere near my gaming. iOS games work for a quick fix, but Apple has shown over and over again that they do not "get" gaming at all.
Do you mean to say Apple only got gaming for 97% of the population? I think that's pretty much all they want, they couldn't care less about the rest.
Re:Classic Confusion (Score:2, Insightful)
Usually to simplify you in fact have to make something more complex - but it's complexity the user does not see.
And you just keep telling yourself that that is, in fact, what Apple does. Like the "simplified" trackpads that Apple innovated and everybody else has adopted that are beautiful because they have no buttons but suck really, really badly for drag-drop or select-single-pixel operations. I pretty much *have* to carry around a USB mouse to get any real work done on my MacBook Pro.
--Jeremy
Re:How could you "dumb down" the living room? (Score:1, Insightful)
Just look at the iPad, tablets certainly weren't new or innovative but it was Apple marketing that made them the "must have" device.
Ironically Samsung's marketing budget dwarfs Apple's marketing budget. It's about 10 times as much.
http://www.asymco.com/2012/11/29/the-cost-of-selling-galaxies/ [asymco.com]
And yet Apple is more successful than Samsung.
The truth is Apple is successful because, uniquely in the tech business, they value design above everything.
âoeMost people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. Thatâ(TM)s not what we think design is. Itâ(TM)s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.â
-- Steve Jobs.