I don't see the big picture in valve's new Big Picture.

[Hypernetic]

I too was extremely disappointed when the big picture button didn't send a magical beam across my apartment to my TV's magical beam receiver and display steam on my TV. Sad day.

[victory]

Is it not $200 for Windows anymore? (actually I think I have heard that you can upgrade from 7 to 8 for cheaper, but I think to go from XP to 7 is gonna run close to $200, no?)

I have never paid retail price for Windows. OEM versions have been well under $100. And if you are a student or educator (dunno if there are other heavy discount groups?) and manage to navigate to an appropriate storefront, they give this stuff away. I think I paid about $10 for Win 7 Ultimate and another $10 for Office.

[Zephro]

Pretty sure Windows8 is going back up to ~$100 in the new year. The current price is for early takers I think, correct me if I'm wrong.

[deano2099]

Yeah when I was building a new PC about three years ago, and needed a totally new OS, Windows 8 cost me the best part of £100. Looking around there had been offers just before launch, and I think there were still offers on upgrades, especially for students, but if you'd lost your XP license at any point in the preceding decade you were stuck with a full-price disc.

[Jesus_Phish]

Yeah when I was building a new PC about three years ago, and needed a totally new OS, Windows 8 cost me the best part of £100. Looking around there had been offers just before launch, and I think there were still offers on upgrades, especially for students, but if you'd lost your XP license at any point in the preceding decade you were stuck with a full-price disc.

You bought windows 8 three years ago? Where is your time machine good man!

You can get discounts on OS, but you need to be in a group, usually belonging to education. I've been using the free version of windows 7 pro I got as a student about four or five years ago now ever since.

[trjp]

I assume you missed Valve's push to "Steam for Linux". And a little something called "Wine"

As it stands, Wine is rapidly becoming useful (it is probably already there, honestly). Combine that with a developer who is:
1. Competent
2. Well funded
3. Properly motivated
and we could have almost the entire back catalog functional in Linux within a year or two. That just leaves new releases, and if Valve's push works, the devs and publishers will handle the ports/linux versions of those.


[edit]
In case that was too hard to follow/unintuitive:

Wine allows for (some/many/most/a few) Windows games to be played in Linux. When it works, it is beautiful. When it doesn't, it is all the bad parts of Linux rolled into one.

If Valve were to dedicate resources to a Wine alternative (or just buy out whatever organization maintains it), they could resolve almost all usability issues.

So that means that Steam would have two kinds of Linux games: Linux games ported by the developers (many indie games, potentially new releases) and games that Valve have, with the permission of the developers/publishers, set up profiles for so that Wine/whatever can make it runnable. But as far as the user is concerned: They all install with a double-click.

While there would be a LOT of the latter to begin with, it is not a stretch to realize that publishers would start allocating resources to make a linux-friendly binary for new releases whenever feasible, especially if their preferred digital distribution platform (Steam) is pushing for it.
[/edit]

I've not missed anything - WINE is legally dubious and I seriously doubt Valve would want to take on the support issue of backing non-Linux games on WINE or even "supporting" WINE in any way.

There's no good reason to do it either - other than some nerdy "I don't like MS" bullshit - almost all the games on Steam were created for WINDOWS so just make a machine running WINDOWS(*) and your problem is solved.

I've been arguing with these "Linux is the next big thing" people for 20 years and I'm still waiting - and this is no different.

(*) GabeN could buy a million licences for W7 - for example :)

[gundato]

I've not missed anything - WINE is legally dubious and I seriously doubt Valve would want to take on the support issue of backing non-Linux games on WINE or even "supporting" WINE in any way.

There's no good reason to do it either - other than some nerdy "I don't like MS" bullshit - almost all the games on Steam were created for WINDOWS so just make a machine running WINDOWS(*) and your problem is solved.

I've been arguing with these "Linux is the next big thing" people for 20 years and I'm still waiting - and this is no different.

(*) GabeN could buy a million licences for W7 - for example :)

Well, my assumption is Valve will either buy out Wine or make their own version.

And here is the thing: As someone who grew up on Windows and was basically forced to learn Linux for work, Linux really IS almost there. The biggest usability problems have been solved by Ubuntu and Linux Mint to the point that it is actually EASIER to use than Windows in some cases (and comparable in all others).

Right now, Linux has two issues holding it back from being something I would use as a desktop OS (none of these affect people like my parents, for example, who have a linux machine because they are too stupid to avoid viruses): MS Office and Gaming. And if anyone has any chance at solving the Gaming problem, it is Valve.

And really, it is in their best interest to do so. It will further strengthen their grip on PC gaming (effectively doing what Games for Windows was intended to do) AND it will weaken MS's hold on PC gaming. ANd it will earn them LOTS of PR-brownie points.