Steambox Rant

You say "Steambox, Steambox, Steambox" and I say to you "Games, Games, Games". Yes Games, where are they?. So Valves Steambox is going to be Linux based, specifically Ubuntu 12.04 or most likely some core version of Ubuntu with a custom GUI for the Steambox console.

So we have a Console from Valve called Steambox that's based on Linux. Now tell me, besides the 50 or so platformer and other 25 or 30 puzzle games; where is the real Beef?. I'm talking about AAA quality games. If Valve wants their console to succeed, it's going to take more than the Indie games currently being offered in Steam for Linux.

Hey Valve, I'm a die-hard Linux user but I hate to break the news to you; I'm not buying your $500 console just to play Games that look like some graphical return to 1991. Let's take Desura for instance whom was recently bought out by the makers of Second Life. Desura actually sells some AAA games for Linux, to name a few; Descent, Freespace and Fallout. Not to mention, pound for pound, Desura has more games than Steam for Linux. Some of them totally Free!.

The Specs being tossed around for the Steambox are overkill for the games currently offered in Steam for Linux; It doesn't take an Intel i7 to smoothly run Organ Trail. Not to mention Controller support for many of these games are less than stellar. Good luck getting those small Indie teams to rewrite their games to better add Controller support for Steambox.

I've got this funny feeling, Steambox is going to fall flat on it's face and take all the progress Linux has made in Gaming with it. Valve would totally need to make Half-Life 3 a Steambox exclusive at this point. The Linux community would revolt in mass against Valve if they happen to screw this up. Valve really needs to step up it's act to get Developers to port their games to Linux and get Video card drivers up to par and I'm not not seeing either right now. It's a complete mess to be quite frank.

There is one thing I can tell you for certain, I'll never go back to Windows knowing what all of us know now, that all those rumors about Backdoors and monopolistic behavior from Microsoft the NSA and Prism, are totally true. Using Windows at this point is like spitting on the graves of all those Men and Women that died for our Constitutional rights. I'd rather use Linux and have complete Freedom and lack of Games, than to use Windows and give up my Freedom in exchange for Slave Chains and stale AAA Games from Companies who sell you the same game every year with a new skin.