Steam Controller impressions from someone who doesn’t like controllers

Every negative article on the Steam Controller has been from experienced gaming journos, all of whom tend to profess to having used traditional controllers for over a decade. These are people who love Xbox or Playstation controllers and have a ton of muscle memory invested in them. It’s not surprising that they’re finding it difficult to adapt to something very different. Crucially, I think they’ve forgotten the initial learning curve they had with the Playstation and Xbox controllers, because it was decades ago. (more…)

Steam streaming beta thoughts

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I wrote a post a few months back theorising a little about SteamOS and how it’s bad news for Microsoft – if Valve get a number of plates all spinning in unison. A big part of SteamOS’ initial appeal will come from Steam’s new streaming ability, which is now in beta and works across Mac, Windows, Linux and SteamOS itself. I’ve been fiddling with it on a couple of Windows machines and it’s quite the remarkable thing. (more…)

SteamOS and the fall of Microsoft

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For a while now I’ve been tempted to write a fictional blog post purporting to have been written in 2050-or-thereabouts, essentially along the lines of “Hey, anybody remember Microsoft?” The company that for most of my lifetime has just been there has, in the last 5 years, suddenly become rather wobbly – despite still seeming quite healthy in financial terms.

The announcement of Valve’s SteamOS and associated gubbins added a whole new element to Microsoft’s woes. Now, a lot of this is working on the assumption that SteamOS, the Steam Controller and Steam Machines will be actually good. If they’re not, then the debate is a bit moot.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the key market areas where Microsoft have historically ruled.

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