Valve gets it. I very much want to support them and vote with my wallet. Unfortunately the Steam machine isn't a good fit for me. I will buy the frame in a heartbeat though. HMD with a FOSS OS? That's in its own class.
Valve gets it. I very much want to support them and vote with my wallet. Unfortunately the Steam machine isn't a good fit for me. I will buy the frame in a heartbeat though. HMD with a FOSS OS? That's in its own class.
Even though I balked at the Steam Deck prices on the recent inventory restock, as they were up ~30% presumably due to the same hardware shortages, I got one anyway. Prices won't drop anytime soon and if any for-profit organization has earned my loyalty, its Valve.
When I used it I was somewhat incredulous that I could simply exit Steam mode have an actual Linux desktop environment, where I could literally do what I wanted. It was my computer, a proper general purpose computing machine, and it was (willingly* in my control. No sneaky root needed.
Color AR is a thing Frame doesn't support so sadly it's behind the times and I can't go back
genuinely what do you use AR for? I see alot of people saying this same thing. I don't have any VR/AR experience as the frame will be my first VR headset
Not op, but I use it for seeing the joystick + throttle and the "real" instruments in flight simulator.
Virtual boxing with friends (Thrill of the Fight 2). AR allows me to see my room instead of some virtual ring so there's less risk of hitting walls or furniture
It has cameras so you should still be able to see everything, just not in color because the cameras are monochrome.
Sure, and I'd really like a true black display. I accept that any mass market device coming from a niche will have compromises in the interest of reaching a broader market. The high end is already served by pimax and bigscreen.
If I may ask, what devices would you consider to be "with the times"? If there's some dope AR headset that I don't know about, I'd love to learn more.
The Apple Vision Pro. I really wish Valve would release a $3500 Steam Frame with all the bells and whistles. Of course, with the price of RAM it might be $7000 so maybe I'll just have to wait until hopefully the market cools down a bit and baseline hardware advances some more.
Notably with the Steam Frame you're stuck with the high end snapdragon and 16GB of RAM even if you'll use it with a computer, but they didn't want to splurge five or ten dollars on color cameras. Weird priorities.
The whole front part with the lenses and processors is removable, and there's an expansion connector on the face piece for future accessories, so it's certainly possible that colour cameras could be released later, and be an add-on for the Frame without needing to buy a new device.
wasn't it strongly implied that things like that would be enabled via the expansion port and aftermarket products? I would not be surprised to see color AR within a year of launch
One can still be a billionaire and not use shady tactics.
unfortunately, not that straightforward in valve's case.
they created a nasty gambling system with their loot boxes that exists outside controlled casino environments and which impacts young adults a lot.
The systems in Counter Strike are some of the least abusive in all of gaming.
Open up Roblox and see the sheer amount of loot boxes via Robux with Pay 2 Win items, battle passes, daily rewards, etc.
Counter Strike meanwhile has item skins which don't impact the game. They aren't more OP, in fact, most of the time they give you a disadvantage.
Counter Strike is an 18+ game. Kids shouldn't be on this anyways.
Being the lesser of two evils doesn't make it right. It's also possible to not have loot boxes at all.
The "lesser" of 2 evils here isnt practicing evil?
Loot boxes are, by any and all definitions, evil. It’s gambling. Worse even, it’s gambling with real money over digital ephemera.
Loot boxes are not a fun mechanic. Loot boxes are not designed to entertain you or give you good value for your money. Loot boxes only exist to make you gamble with your money over something that could easily be sold as a single purchase item, or better yet, be rewarded in-game. Simple as that. It’s a gambling scheme. Always has been. Always will be.
To clarify, the loot boxes in Roblox are game specific. The platform itself just has the catalog where you buy stuff directly
But still, Roblox should do a better job regulating the games on its platform
The problem with visual only loot boxes is that people will pay for rare skins and so everyone still gambles on that stuff. I don’t know if they solved that, used to be you’d buy the keys to unlock them and hope to profit from selling a skin. Adults should also be protected against dark patterns like this.
For at least a short while. I'm not sure it's a stable configuration.
And yet Steam Controller somehow only works with Steam...
There is a linux driver that allows playing without steam. Are you on Windows?
If you are stuck to Windows there are some 3rd party efforts like https://github.com/ddeverill/SteamlessController
The last generation of steam controller still had a mode you could start it in where it would register as xinput device. Seems that's gone on the new generation.
Would you rather have it degrade to the functionality of an Xbox 360 controller without Steam? That's the best they could do without all games including support for the controller (latest SDL3 has it).
> Would you rather have it degrade to the functionality of an Xbox 360 controller without Steam?
Yes? What's wrong with that? Then it's at least usable.
Usable sure, but then why did you get a Steam Controller if not to make use of the additional inputs?
Not really. Can't really map a touchpad as an analog stick. Can't map a gyro as a joystick. Can't take XBox rumble and map it to the Steam Controllers haptic feedback.
Can you hack it together in theory, get something working but making sacrifices left and right? Sure. But why would Valve want to do that? Use experience would be incredibly bad.
But give it time. There will be a standalone driver for Windows eventually, either from Valve or from the community.
It's possible already. Using an open source app called PadForge. I've setup a profile that works without steam and emulates xbox360 pad. I've used it without problems in Forza Horizon 6 which is an UWP / PC Game Pass game, also in various emulators.
https://padforge.org