Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed Zeitron,
Speaker 2: and i'd like to announce that, much like in video
Speaker 2: revealed in a recent leaked memo, we are also nothing
Speaker 2: like Enron. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Steve Burke
Speaker 2: from Gamers Nexus, who's going to talk to you about
Speaker 2: I know it's a thematic shift from the show about
Speaker 2: something that actually exists, and we're talking about announcement from
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago from Valve about the Steam Frame
Speaker 2: headset and the Steam Machine console. Steve, thank you for
Speaker 2: joining me, Thank you.
Speaker 1: For having me a quick question. What was that Enron thing?
Speaker 1: I think, yes, oh.
Speaker 2: This is this is important. So Nvidio had an internal
Speaker 2: memo that they put out and they said it's and
Speaker 2: the headline from Barons was I'm just going to pull
Speaker 2: this up right now because it's one of my favorite
Speaker 2: I've ever read. And video says it's not Enron in
Speaker 2: private memo refusing accounting questions. Ah, good stuff, that's Good's
Speaker 2: that's what we want to hear. And they were like,
Speaker 2: we're nothing like Enron because we don't use SPVs to
Speaker 2: inflate revenue. It's also good it's all real, Steve, It's.
Speaker 1: All very real. I'm starting to I'm starting to have
Speaker 1: my doubts that the AI stuff has built on anything real.
Speaker 1: Although I didn't hear about the two data centers that
Speaker 1: are currently sitting empty because the grid can't support them
Speaker 1: until twenty twenty eighth, which ones because it was in
Speaker 1: that northern California.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, I love this. This is we live in
Speaker 2: the future. But genuinely, talk to me about the Steam Machine.
Speaker 2: What is this thing? It's like a games console, like,
Speaker 2: walk me through it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean this stuff's actually it was a
Speaker 1: really nice break from everything else because, like you said,
Speaker 1: it's real. They're actually doing stuff. It's consumer facing, so
Speaker 1: that's nice. There's some pretty some of these things have
Speaker 1: cool innovations in them. So the Steam Machine is a
Speaker 1: small basically small form factor PC, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: positioned almost like a console at least in terms of
Speaker 1: sizing the intent to be used with a TV or
Speaker 1: in a living room, although it could be used ask top.
Speaker 1: But instead of being a more closed down console, it
Speaker 1: has the openness of a PC in terms of you
Speaker 1: have access to bios and things like that. Some modularity
Speaker 1: of components, and it's running on Linux, it's running on
Speaker 1: Steam oass And so right now we've had some hands
Speaker 1: on time, we had interviews with the engineers, we have
Speaker 1: the specs, haven't tested it yet, you know, can't make
Speaker 1: any value judgments or anything at the time because they
Speaker 1: haven't even given us a price. But it does there's
Speaker 1: some cool things. I think that regardless of how their
Speaker 1: launch goes with the Steam Machine, it is in the
Speaker 1: very least very promising for Linux, which helps to maybe
Speaker 1: get people unstuck from Microsoft.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so what makes this thing unique though? Is
Speaker 2: it just like a because Steam for those listening who
Speaker 2: don't know, Steam is a it is not really a monopoly,
Speaker 2: but it's like the best way to download games and
Speaker 2: keep track of them, I would say, But it does
Speaker 2: also involve paying one company. Yeah, but is that really?
Speaker 2: Is it just a big PC? Is because you've you've
Speaker 2: at least messed with it a little.
Speaker 1: Bit, Yeah, I mean it's it is still I I
Speaker 1: think it still qualifies as sort of just a computer.
Speaker 1: But really what they're doing is I guess in the
Speaker 1: same way that some handheld devices are technically computers. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of the modern handheld gaming we'll call
Speaker 1: them consoles are actually just handheld PCs some of them, right,
Speaker 1: A lot of them have windows on them even, And
Speaker 1: so it's that concept except applied to a cube. That
Speaker 1: I mean, people have been jokingly I don't know who
Speaker 1: coined this, and I wish I did, but people have
Speaker 1: been jo jokingly referring to the Steam Machine as the
Speaker 1: Gabe Cube, as in Gabe knowell the CEO valve. That's
Speaker 1: really good. Yeah, I saw that. I was like, God,
Speaker 1: damn it, I wish I thought of that first.
Speaker 2: That's a bang of well so is it?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: Is it the is it like a kind of consumer friendly? U? Why?
Speaker 2: Like have you how much have you had? How much
Speaker 2: of a chance we had to play with it?
Speaker 1: H we had in total, I think it was about
Speaker 1: five or maybe six hours with valve and so in
Speaker 1: that time we were able to speak with engineers and you know,
Speaker 1: mess around with it. So, yeah, it's a steam O
Speaker 1: ass which is on the Steam Deck. So the Steam
Speaker 1: Deck is a gaming handheld device that. Uh, these have
Speaker 1: existed for a long time, but the deck was kind
Speaker 1: of the first one in recent years to really breathe
Speaker 1: life into the gaming handheld market. Outside of Nintendo. And
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily because everyone bought the deck, but it's
Speaker 1: because all the other manufacturers saw like, oh this is real,
Speaker 1: Like Steam is a serious venue, you know, to move
Speaker 1: games and people will buy stuff, and so Asus and
Speaker 1: Lenovo and all the other competitors jumped in. So the
Speaker 1: Steam Machine is building on that because the Steam Deck
Speaker 1: uses Steam os, which is an arch Linux based distribution,
Speaker 1: and it has a lot of optimizations that solve long
Speaker 1: running problems with Linux and gaming in general. So that
Speaker 1: would include, for example, translation layers and things like this.
Speaker 1: So they build on that and then yeah, as far
Speaker 1: as the user experience goes, it is a basically a
Speaker 1: sort of big picture mode or desktop mode, you know,
Speaker 1: operating system, but it's computer. It's just you kind of
Speaker 1: navigate it more like a console. I guess, did you
Speaker 1: play it a tool only a little bit? Yeah, we
Speaker 1: tested the new Steam controller. What yet?
Speaker 2: Talk to me about how does that feel in your hand?
Speaker 2: Because I'm I have peculiarly hands myself, and that thing
Speaker 2: looks straight. It's got like two little touch screens at
Speaker 2: the bat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is large, it's so the two it's basically
Speaker 1: a uh you know, yeah, touch touch pads track pads.
Speaker 1: So it's got two track pads and they function like
Speaker 1: like a laptop track pad, except there's haptics and things
Speaker 1: like that. There's a gyro and.
Speaker 2: Like buzzes kind of like kind of like you get
Speaker 2: on the switch as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you'll get like the haptic feedback like you'd get,
Speaker 1: you know, a phone, and yeah, so controllers to me,
Speaker 1: it's interesting and it's cool that they're trying it again.
Speaker 1: They last tried a controller something around a decade ago,
Speaker 1: and it went.
Speaker 2: With the Steam the Steam the thing that could mirror
Speaker 2: your Steam PC, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had the Steam Link the controller, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think there was like one more thing in
Speaker 1: that sort of round of hard where I don't really
Speaker 1: remember it, maybe the Steam boxes. But yeah, so the
Speaker 1: original Steam controller, I guess went so well that they
Speaker 1: had to stump them on fire sale for five dollars each. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they have memory hold it by releasing a new
Speaker 1: Steam controller with the same name.
Speaker 2: But how did it feel? Was it? How does it
Speaker 2: feel in comparison to like a first generation Xbox controller?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the first Xbox was It's probably I think the
Speaker 1: Xbox controllers are probably regarded as one of the sort
Speaker 1: of most you know, user friendly layout. It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to say too much. The stuff that I tested
Speaker 1: with it and the limited time we had with it
Speaker 1: was related to some of the more unique inputs. So
Speaker 1: I will say it is a little larger, but.
Speaker 2: Larger than the original Xbox controller or like loger than
Speaker 2: like an Xbox three six.
Speaker 1: Day, larger than larger than a more modern Yeah, Xbox controller,
Speaker 1: I would have to put it next to the original.
Speaker 2: But that's an idea for the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the some of the interesting inputs, I guess.
Speaker 1: So there's a grip sense where when you if it's enabled,
Speaker 1: when you let your fingers off of the grip, so
Speaker 1: you're still holding it, but you're not like tapping your
Speaker 1: fingertips to the actual grip of the controller. It'll detect
Speaker 1: that and it can use that to stop input. So
Speaker 1: you can rotate. You know, it's got a gyro you
Speaker 1: can rotate to turn in the game if you want,
Speaker 1: and then you can basically lift your fingers off if
Speaker 1: you want to stop or kind of stutter step the
Speaker 1: rotation as you move. And so it's got it's got
Speaker 1: some like clever execution of input. It feels like it
Speaker 1: takes some inspiration maybe from things like the switch and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Yeah, and and this is important. Not
Speaker 1: a single time, literally, not even once, did at any
Speaker 1: point anybody from Valve say AI in that.
Speaker 2: Order of letters magnific, thank god, not once.
Speaker 1: Not once?
Speaker 2: How delightful. Oh god, it's just building a real thing.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about this? So I was talking
Speaker 2: to Mike kase Kagawa, friend of the show, about this,
Speaker 2: and he kind of put the thought my head, this
Speaker 2: could be a quite dangerous like this could be quite
Speaker 2: dangerous to Xbox, especially because Microsoft is kind of just
Speaker 2: sitting there and letting that fester at times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is probably the absolute best time
Speaker 1: for anybody new to try and get into like console
Speaker 1: or console equivalent type devices, and in particular, I mean,
Speaker 1: Valve is a deadly combination with it. But Xbox is
Speaker 1: kind of at the lowest of its lows. You know,
Speaker 1: they just they they can't seem to stop fucking everything up,
Speaker 1: and their best new thing they have is just a
Speaker 1: rebranded ACE who's rog ally handheld, and like that's doing
Speaker 1: well for asues, but by Microsoft numbers historically, it's not impressive.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I think Microsoft right now it's they're
Speaker 1: in a compromise position. Their sales are awful. I don't
Speaker 1: have the numbers off hand, but they're they're easy to find,
Speaker 1: and uh, they're just not even close to what PlayStation's
Speaker 1: been doing. They're losing control of the market, and it
Speaker 1: just looks like they're kind of going the route of
Speaker 1: Sega right now, where cea, yeah, Sega abandoned consoles freder
Speaker 1: who doesn't know, and they went full on game publisher
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I mean I agree. I think the
Speaker 1: Steam or Valve is in a position right now where
Speaker 1: this is before a new console launched cycle from the
Speaker 1: the incumbent, and it's when Microsoft's had its weakest with Xbox.
Speaker 1: So it's really good timing for them.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know what you're saying. Microsoft can't innovate
Speaker 2: any further because they're reading this note twenty fourth of
Speaker 2: November and I read this, Xbox prices could go even higher.
Speaker 2: Grand short, yes, they seem to be doing it. It
Speaker 2: is really funny to just follow the Steam machine with
Speaker 2: that as well, just being just being like, hey, guess what,
Speaker 2: it was more expensive and it sucks more. Do you
Speaker 2: like it, please God.
Speaker 1: But and the Xbox has been out for like a
Speaker 1: long ast time now, I don't remember when, it might
Speaker 1: be like five years already or something. The prices are
Speaker 1: supposed to come down, and I know, like some of
Speaker 1: these are whatever marketfacturers they can't exactly control. Although even
Speaker 1: though Microsoft does kind of have a big part in
Speaker 1: the AI thing that's making the prices go up, but
Speaker 1: we'll forget about that. Yeah, there's stuff they can't control,
Speaker 1: but even still, like consumers aren't could have want to
Speaker 1: pay more for a thing that is now ancient.
Speaker 2: It just kind of it feels like they've been spinning
Speaker 2: their wheels for the longest time because it felt like
Speaker 2: they were sort of moving away from Xbox by leaning
Speaker 2: on Game Pass. Then it turned out giving everyone access
Speaker 2: to as many games as possible for thirty dollars was
Speaker 2: not a good decision. So now that they want to
Speaker 2: do something, it just it does. I hadn't thought the
Speaker 2: Saga comparison, but it really does feel like that, like
Speaker 2: Microsoft won't die, but.
Speaker 1: Jesus, I mean, they're fortunate, I guess to have their
Speaker 1: spying division with Windows, so yeah, they'll be fine. I
Speaker 1: guess at.
Speaker 2: Their ad revenue they get from installs of Windows on
Speaker 2: laptops that take ten minutes to turn on exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, that'll keep them in business. Maybe better
Speaker 1: than what Sega had when it left hardware. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: they're they're at a bad spot for Xbox. I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure what the plan is over there, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like they're sure either.
Speaker 2: So I had a specific Steam Machine question, So what's
Speaker 2: it doing GPU wise? Like, is it doing? Is it
Speaker 2: doing like one of the amd ones with both the
Speaker 2: GPU and CPO in the same diet, Like what what
Speaker 2: is the situation there?
Speaker 1: It is? So for the Silicon, the short answer to
Speaker 1: that question is it's an rDNA three GPU with twenty
Speaker 1: eight CUS and I'll kind of loop back to that.
Speaker 1: But the Silicon in general, the CPU and the GPU
Speaker 1: are the only uh non modular, sort of normal components
Speaker 1: that you might swap in a computer, so meaning you
Speaker 1: can't change the CPU or the GPUs. This is a
Speaker 1: big split from a normal computer. They're using BGA parts
Speaker 1: ballgrid array, so they're soldered to the board and that
Speaker 1: makes it more like a laptop. In fact, they are
Speaker 1: basically laptop parts. They're semi custom laptop CPU and GPU
Speaker 1: that are discreete and the Yeah, the GPU so rDNA
Speaker 1: three twenty eight cus. That makes it a little bit
Speaker 1: smaller than an R seventy six hundred as an example,
Speaker 1: off the top of my head, I think that's thirty
Speaker 1: two CUS. And the CPU is a zen four part
Speaker 1: it's six cores, twelve threads. Their maximum advertised boost is
Speaker 1: four point eight gigahertz and they claim a thirty watt
Speaker 1: TDP and so for reference, I mean some of the.
Speaker 2: Other how is that compared to like a gaming handheld exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, gaming handheld, it's yeah, it's higher power than a
Speaker 1: gaming handheld for sure, So it is it is better
Speaker 1: than that. You have the benefit of not worrying about
Speaker 1: a battery and not worrying about skin temperature on the
Speaker 1: device because not holding it, and so for those reasons,
Speaker 1: they can run more power. So I think they're in
Speaker 1: total somewhere around one hundred and ten watts for the
Speaker 1: GPU and then a thirty watt claim for the CPU.
Speaker 1: So you know, with with other miscellaneous devices and with
Speaker 1: inefficiencies and whatever, you maybe call it two hundred watts,
Speaker 1: and I think the power supplies three hundred watts and
Speaker 1: so compared to a handheld, I mean that at peak
Speaker 1: power consumption, which you're not normally at, this is significantly
Speaker 1: more power and will perform I mean, significantly better. It's
Speaker 1: a big difference.
Speaker 2: Kind of it almost feels inevitable as well, because the
Speaker 2: fall of Microsoft. Sure, it's that they don't give a
Speaker 2: shit and don't see me trying in any way imaginable,
Speaker 2: but it's also at some point we were going to
Speaker 2: meet we're going to reach peak console. Surely at some
Speaker 2: point there's just how much more can we do with this?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think, and you can. This gets into like
Speaker 1: a broader interesting topic I've been thinking about lately too,
Speaker 1: but which is for gaming in general. You know, you
Speaker 1: do hit a point where it's like, okay, the graphics
Speaker 1: are sufficient, and actually, now the kind of meta is,
Speaker 1: you know, more people are playing indie games that don't
Speaker 1: push the graphics to insane levels, and people are kind
Speaker 1: of rediscovering that, oh wait, I play video games to
Speaker 1: have fun and it doesn't need to be whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's that? I don't know, That's not why I play.
Speaker 2: I play games to get upset.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, well I have a game for you. I
Speaker 1: need an investor right now. Actually it's AI company simulator.
Speaker 2: And that sounds more fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great. Uh yeah, No, I mean
Speaker 1: it's I think the the then with the on the
Speaker 1: gaming side.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: I think the Steam Machine on a technicality, like it's
Speaker 1: it's more powerful than a lot of hardware people have.
Speaker 1: I guess if you look at the Steam Survey, in reality,
Speaker 1: it's a low end modern computer. And I think they're
Speaker 1: probably going to be partly leaning on things like FSR
Speaker 1: upscaling to try and bridge the gap, the performance gap.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things they didn't say that
Speaker 1: I can remember when we were talking to them, but
Speaker 1: they did say on the spec sheet was that the
Speaker 1: Steam Machine supports four k sixty FPS with FSR, and.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good. And FSR is the one where they
Speaker 2: use AI but actual actual AI, real stuff.
Speaker 1: Actual machine learning, yeah, like actually does something. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so like I wasn't too happy about that when I
Speaker 1: saw that on the spec sheet because like saying, factually,
Speaker 1: it's probably accurate because it says with FSR there, but
Speaker 1: that's it has to always be there. They can't just
Speaker 1: say four k sixty because there's a big difference, and
Speaker 1: this hardware cannot do four K sixty without some kind
Speaker 1: of crutch, which FSR would be. But a point being,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a low end computer. They say it's
Speaker 1: gonna be priced like a an entry level gaming PC.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that could mean literally could colost seven million, Like what.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, it's a big range. I mean it's you know,
Speaker 1: in the old days like twenty, I don't know, twelve
Speaker 1: to sixteen. Maybe you could build a super low NPC
Speaker 1: for four hundred and fifty bucks. More realistically probably five
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty. That's kind of gone now, so so
Speaker 1: I think they'll have some pricing. The biggest concern is,
Speaker 1: for sure price, but at a hardware level. Really, I
Speaker 1: think the big story is the Linux side and then
Speaker 1: what you're saying the Microsoft side, where it's like, is
Speaker 1: this just kind of twisting the death agger on Xbox?
Speaker 2: I hope so, because Microsoft sucks, and the thing is
Speaker 2: PC gaming is cool, like it's the one, like it's
Speaker 2: one of the great things about it in that there's
Speaker 2: such a great indie gaming gaming industry, and I feel
Speaker 2: like Steam is though imperfect, is a great way to
Speaker 2: get into that in a way that I don't feel
Speaker 2: like the big consoles are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just indie games are kind of like the
Speaker 1: lifeblood of it now. I feel like there's so much
Speaker 1: character in them, and they're very accessible in terms of
Speaker 1: often priced but also not being overbearing on systems, you know, requirements.
Speaker 2: My favorite game of this year was Dead Zone Rogue.
Speaker 2: If you have played that, I have not, but it's
Speaker 2: a roguelike. It feels like the and I realized there
Speaker 2: are numerous other sufferers who listen to this may not
Speaker 2: understand what I mean. It feels like when Destiny was
Speaker 2: fun in the single player. It has that kind of
Speaker 2: very clicky, very It's just very satisfying game. Indie game,
Speaker 2: never heard of the developers, don't know if they've ever
Speaker 2: made anything before. Fantastic game. I haven't enjoyed any Triple
Speaker 2: A that much. I unless you consider Hades two, which
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that counts.
Speaker 1: I feel like that doesn't really count, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's yeah, I feel like that. That to me still
Speaker 1: feels like sort of the smaller yeah side of things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, there's a big market there, and I think
Speaker 1: I do think that big picture for some of these companies.
Speaker 1: I was about to say gaming companies, referring to you know,
Speaker 1: Nvidio and tel AMD, but that's not really what they
Speaker 1: are anymore. But look at these companies. I'm happy to
Speaker 1: see some of the success of indie games, and I'm
Speaker 1: happy to see things like a Steam machine in terms
Speaker 1: of hardware being capable of playing most of the games
Speaker 1: people play. Because specifically, you know, on the cynical side,
Speaker 1: if you sell GPUs for playing games and the graphics
Speaker 1: have kind of peaked for a while and it might
Speaker 1: take a few more years to really reach another major
Speaker 1: peak where uh, it's it's invalidating older hardware to a
Speaker 1: point where people feel forced to buy something new to
Speaker 1: keep the flow of money going for the companies. In
Speaker 1: that situation, you know, cynically, it would feel like you
Speaker 1: would need to invent a problem to solve so that
Speaker 1: people will buy your next GPU to play games, unless
Speaker 1: you can generate sort of escape velocity from the gaming
Speaker 1: side and get into some other business, which right now
Speaker 1: appears to be AI data center. You know, they don't
Speaker 1: need to invent problems to solve for gaming, because they're
Speaker 1: doing that for.
Speaker 2: Sort of invented one for the economy, right, but it's
Speaker 2: it's actually this is I feel like you've sliwd. This
Speaker 2: is just a question I had got to ask. You
Speaker 2: can't replace anything inside the Stay machine, it looks like.
Speaker 1: So you can do the RAM the which is yeah,
Speaker 1: the RAM is a so dim so it's laptop memory sticks.
Speaker 1: And then you can also do the SSD it sports
Speaker 1: up to I'm not too twenty two to eighty, which
Speaker 1: is the sort of standard larger form factor. Those would
Speaker 1: be the main ones I guess too.
Speaker 2: That can you hot drives for Are you going to
Speaker 2: be solid state though? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, solid state? And then it is very accessible. I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's easy to remove the cover and the
Speaker 1: heat sink if you wanted to, you could pull, you'd
Speaker 1: swap it. The fan is easy to swap and replace.
Speaker 1: The power supply has a blade connector, so it's sort
Speaker 1: of similar to server form factor styles where they don't
Speaker 1: use cables but they use just a connector. And so
Speaker 1: all of these things from a repair ability standpoint would
Speaker 1: in the very least be easy to repair and swap.
Speaker 1: Valve has a pretty good track record of making those
Speaker 1: parts available for the Steam Deck, so hopefully they'll do
Speaker 1: this good too?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jesus, I'm not used to companies not just immediately
Speaker 2: being evil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's still time, there's oh yeah there it.
Speaker 2: Could end up being twelve hundred dollars. Like that's that's
Speaker 2: where I could see them fucking this one up for me, right,
Speaker 2: talking of successful industries that everyone loves the steam Frame, Yeah,
Speaker 2: what is going? What is this meant to? Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it meant to be a vision pro situation? Is
Speaker 2: it meant to be like the like? Like what was
Speaker 2: the Valve Index? Like? What is it?
Speaker 1: Steam Frame is pretty interesting? So the steam Frame is
Speaker 1: a new VR headset from Valve. They launched the HTC
Speaker 1: Vibe with obviously HTC a long time ago, now, uh,
Speaker 1: and then later the Index and and then there was
Speaker 1: Oculous Rifts that later turned into the Metaquest. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of the VR industry. It's really just these are
Speaker 1: the big milestones. There's been a lot of other devices
Speaker 1: in between, but Valves jumping back into it with what
Speaker 1: they're calling the steam Frame. The steam Frame is pretty
Speaker 1: interesting in that it both has standalone functionality with basically
Speaker 1: an integrated we'll call it a compute unit that mounts
Speaker 1: to your face with the goggles. And then it's also
Speaker 1: got streaming capability where it streams content from an actual
Speaker 1: gaming computer. And so Valve is here leveraging the fact
Speaker 1: that it has an unbelievably large library of games, probably
Speaker 1: the largest ever to have existed, and the fact that
Speaker 1: most of its players probably have a decent gaming computer,
Speaker 1: and so they can render the game content on their
Speaker 1: computer and then stream it to the headset. Basically you're
Speaker 1: casting a video to the headset. Uh, so you're not
Speaker 1: rendering locally, and then that allows you to be tetherless
Speaker 1: and wireless from the computer, which solves a lot of
Speaker 1: the problems this kind of r has had historically. But
Speaker 1: the new yes, yeah, so, but the new problem if
Speaker 1: you're doing this is anytime they're streaming, there's latency, right yeah,
Speaker 1: And so the concern just becomes if I'm streaming this
Speaker 1: from my computer instead of playing it with a wire
Speaker 1: plugged into the back of my headset. Uh am, I
Speaker 1: going to notice that in actions and game and the
Speaker 1: cool part I think that maybe this technology could apply
Speaker 1: elsewhere in some capacity. Uh but is what they're calling
Speaker 1: foviated streaming. And so yeah, so there's already a thing
Speaker 1: called boviated rendering, But basically the concept is UH to
Speaker 1: preserve bandwidth and maximize sort of how much data you
Speaker 1: can get across without causing major latency issues, you know,
Speaker 1: to keep the frame rate high and everything else. What
Speaker 1: they're doing is they are targeting specific areas where the
Speaker 1: eyes are tracked to be looking and then rendering those
Speaker 1: assigning basically the maximum amount of bits those areas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and everything else gets a reduced bit rate in the
Speaker 1: streaming uses less bandwidth and so it technically renders out
Speaker 1: a lower quality. But in the quick testing we did,
Speaker 1: you know, I only had a little bit of a
Speaker 1: hands on with it, but I couldn't tell. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I was when I was looking wherever I was
Speaker 1: looking in the headset, it looked full quality. And then
Speaker 1: if I tried to, you know, quickly dart my eyes
Speaker 1: over somewhere else, like I'm not fast enough. I don't
Speaker 1: know that any human is fast enough really to move
Speaker 1: your eyes quick enough to beat when it detects your
Speaker 1: change of focus and then reassigns those bits to the
Speaker 1: new area to maximize that area's resolution. So I think
Speaker 1: the response time is some like eight to twelve milliseconds.
Speaker 2: But it's a it is both like a vision Pro
Speaker 2: and av Our headset.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah in the sense. Yeah, you can technically do
Speaker 1: like call it productivity tasks and things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I'm I'm a vision Pro truther. I
Speaker 2: actually think that. I think it's a fun idea. I
Speaker 2: wish there were more fun ideas like it. But I
Speaker 2: also recognize I'm peculiar for that one. And also I
Speaker 2: don't think Apple game enough of a shit. It's just
Speaker 2: it is nice to see Belve doing something. I think
Speaker 2: I realized also talking to you about this, how depressing
Speaker 2: it is to just be like, yay, someone did something else.
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's how it felt. It was like,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, I mean the VR side doesn't get a
Speaker 1: lot of love compared to when it started.
Speaker 2: It, but it does V all games as well, though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's primarily a VR gaming headset. And then
Speaker 1: they are saying, look, if you want to replace your
Speaker 1: monitor with this, you can do that.
Speaker 2: That sounds expensive though, and of course they have yet
Speaker 2: to say how much this will cost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they said less than an index, but they didn't
Speaker 1: say how much and so and index. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: few skews. I think the common aside is yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's they range like six hundred. I want to
Speaker 1: say the highest of twelve hundred or something, but it's
Speaker 1: not going to be six hundred. It'll it'll be a
Speaker 1: thousand plus.
Speaker 2: But we don't really have an idea of when these
Speaker 2: things are coming out, do we just next year?
Speaker 1: Next year? The frame, specifically the Steam frame the VR solution,
Speaker 1: they said early twenty twenty six, which, in my experience
Speaker 1: early to a lot of these come it just means
Speaker 1: first half.
Speaker 2: So yes, yeah, you excited.
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm auldly excited about both of them. It feels
Speaker 2: like we're finally getting something in PC gaming again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm excited because for that same reason,
Speaker 1: it's nice where it's like, okay, it's just hardware, and
Speaker 1: there doesn't appear to be a lot of bullshit. So
Speaker 1: you know, if we test it and it's not the
Speaker 1: best solution for the value, then fine, that's a really
Speaker 1: easy review. You know, maybe you say it's good but
Speaker 1: it costs too much, But that is a lot better
Speaker 1: than saying, like when I'm kind of having to lately
Speaker 1: think about which is okay, when Nvidia launches their next GPU,
Speaker 1: how do I handle the conclusion where, you know, what
Speaker 1: do you get to the end. You're like, other than
Speaker 1: the fact that they're partnering with palent here, which has
Speaker 1: openly admitted to developing technology that is used on occasion
Speaker 1: to kill p people, the GPU is pretty good. You're like,
Speaker 1: how do you cross that bridge? Right? Like against this
Speaker 1: really serious stuff.
Speaker 2: It's a problem across the whole tech industry. So I
Speaker 2: think Google's working with border patrol. Yeah, Like, it's just
Speaker 2: and I always had the theory that people were like, Wow,
Speaker 2: I can't believe the tech companies are suddenly doing this.
Speaker 2: I'm like, they've been fucking waiting. Oh they've been looking
Speaker 2: at like this is They're like, oh, goodie, finally the
Speaker 2: chance to make all that revenue from the evils.
Speaker 1: Or they've already been doing it and now it's just
Speaker 1: more on the open or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's and I'm guessing that this is becoming
Speaker 2: increasingly a challenge with like even with like a m
Speaker 2: D who is increasingly though I realized the evils are
Speaker 2: slightly different there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean AMD is is not quite as boisterous,
Speaker 1: I guess as Nvidia in that way, but they still
Speaker 1: a lot of the same concerns, and so yeah, with
Speaker 1: Valve it's been I think that's why why the reception
Speaker 1: has been so good on this, because there's no there's
Speaker 1: no hardware launch yet, it's just announcements, but the sentiment's
Speaker 1: pretty high, and I do think that's because people just
Speaker 1: feel so kind of beaten down where it's just every
Speaker 1: ram prices are skyrocketing over one hundred percent in several cases.
Speaker 1: I think we saw one stick one kit that was
Speaker 1: like one hundred and eighty five percent higher than it
Speaker 1: was three weeks ago. Yeah, that's going to affect GPUs.
Speaker 1: That'll write when the prices were coming down on those,
Speaker 1: and these will affect the Steam Machine. But I think
Speaker 1: just like the the sort of hey, it's just hardware
Speaker 1: that plays video games, and I guess if you want
Speaker 1: to use it for other stuff you can too. Like
Speaker 1: that sadly is pretty exciting right now. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited about it. I think the Steam Frame, I'm
Speaker 1: actually really interested in the original VR testing we did.
Speaker 1: We did some really cool be our benchmarks a long
Speaker 1: time ago, and it just kind of did it a
Speaker 1: couple of times. Never did it again. I thought it
Speaker 1: was a cool idea, but the setup for VR was
Speaker 1: just way too burn in some At that time, I
Speaker 1: was still running the company out of my childhood bedroom
Speaker 1: and so room scale VR was like you need to
Speaker 1: spend like three hours cleaning your house.
Speaker 2: Get the room was a little bit fungible.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean it was like, but now it
Speaker 1: seems like all of that has matured a lot, and
Speaker 1: as someone who has not felt any desire whatsoever to
Speaker 1: play any VR games for the last like ten years,
Speaker 1: I actually do really want to try the Steam Frame
Speaker 1: and I think it'll be pretty fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so weird, it's like we even I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say Microsoft was ever known as like a deeply quality company,
Speaker 2: but there was at least at some point a level
Speaker 2: of prestige to it. There was like, oh, Microsoft would
Speaker 2: never just make a big pile of shit, They'd never
Speaker 2: wheel out of I mean, they might do that in
Speaker 2: their software, but it felt like they were at least
Speaker 2: there was the brief period where we could humor ourselves
Speaker 2: being like, oh that I like my xbox eymore fucking customer,
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I mean, I think the hardware
Speaker 1: for a while, it was like, it seems pretty serious.
Speaker 2: You know, their laptops were pretty well respected. I like
Speaker 2: the wind they had the weird I think it's Panaspane
Speaker 2: who's over at Amazon now, but they had like a
Speaker 2: weird thing where they were respectable for laptops. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: now I don't know, it's all just it's all eating itself.
Speaker 2: It feels like.
Speaker 1: It felt like it felt like after after the zoon
Speaker 1: they realized they needed to change something in hardware and
Speaker 1: it went okay after that. And just to put it
Speaker 1: out there, I still have my original Zoom. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm a was a creative nomad guy myself.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Creative got really screwed during that
Speaker 1: whole period. I mean it was yeah, just in the
Speaker 1: sense that it was like Creative was kinda they were
Speaker 1: sort of their first or very early, and they did
Speaker 1: a lot of innovation and they just got squashed by Apple,
Speaker 1: like Apple did kind of the Apple thing where it
Speaker 1: just it's this jug or not.
Speaker 2: And they just dropped their weight on them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there was even a lawsuit, I want
Speaker 1: to say Creative one. It was maybe like a couple
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars or something. I don't know, and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's Uh. It was one of those win or
Speaker 1: lose you still lose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, No, no one's winning by the end of
Speaker 2: this other than Apple. Oh boy. Well, on that happy note, Steve,
Speaker 2: what where can people find you? And what are some
Speaker 2: recent things they should go and look at?
Speaker 1: One hundred million dollars was two thousand and six. By
Speaker 1: the way, Apple will pay Creative one hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: for a paid up license to use Creative's awarded patent
Speaker 1: im P three players. Anyway, what was your question?
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it's just where can people find you? And
Speaker 2: what are some interesting things you've been covering recently?
Speaker 1: The most interesting yeah, recently is so we have a
Speaker 1: story coming up where I previously mentioned to you I
Speaker 1: would be going to the UK for something and you
Speaker 1: immediately said, I'm sorry, Yeah, that's the appropriate and so
Speaker 1: we went over to London. We've got a really interesting
Speaker 1: thing we're finalizing now where I'm still trying to sort
Speaker 1: through who's right, who's wrong all that stuff. But like
Speaker 1: long story short, there is a guy who bought Sega, Nintendo,
Speaker 1: Microsoft and other game development kits and development cartridges from
Speaker 1: a scrap yard, We visited the scrapyard, we visited the guy,
Speaker 1: and he was arrested by the police, and SAGA was
Speaker 1: connected to it. They had a private investigator look into
Speaker 1: the guy and basically all the you know, the companies
Speaker 1: involved in the chain, as far as we tell, freaked
Speaker 1: out when they found out their game development kits and
Speaker 1: cartridges made it into the hands of a person even
Speaker 1: though they had thrown them out. And we're basically trying
Speaker 1: to sort through where did stuff fall through the cracks
Speaker 1: and is this an over extension of a corporation into
Speaker 1: someone's home to work with the police on a raid
Speaker 1: over game development cartridges, you know?
Speaker 2: Or is there any old games? Right?
Speaker 1: Primarily I think there's maybe like some switch stuff in there,
Speaker 1: which is I think probably what set the alarm bells.
Speaker 2: Off fucking Nintendo. Yeah, anyway, but well that so that
Speaker 2: will go up, I'm guessing in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2: So yeah, of course we'll link to gamers nextus. But yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you for joining us, Steve. It's always a pleasure
Speaker 2: having you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And you've been listening to Better Offline. You can find
Speaker 2: me at better offline dot com. Who knows when this
Speaker 2: one goes out in the next couple of weeks, he says,
Speaker 2: knowing that you'll have no concept of the timescale I'm
Speaker 2: talking about. But thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3: Everyone, Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor
Speaker 3: and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matttersowski.
Speaker 3: You can check out more of his music and audio
Speaker 3: projects at Mattasowski dot com, M A T T O
Speaker 3: S O W s ki dot com. You can email
Speaker 3: me at easy at Better Offline dot com or visit
Speaker 3: Better Offline dot com to find more podcast links and
Speaker 3: of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go
Speaker 3: to chat dot Where's Youreed dot at to visit the discord,
Speaker 3: and go to our slash Better.
Speaker 2: Offline to check out our reddit.
Speaker 1: Thanks. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media.
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