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Comment by pontifk8r | Hacker News Reader

Pretty sure that's not what happened. Gabe had a different view of how PCs would become a bigger part of entertainment (this is in the 90's, when watching video on PCs was heresy!), starting with PCs in the living room. He tried to sell management on his vision, but this being the old Microsoft, he lost an internal battle. He proved his entertainment vision in the best way possible -- Building Valve Software by telling great stories, making great games, building an ecosystem, and now branching into hardware.

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> making great games

I kinda wish they'd dabble back into this area. The Portal games are some of the most interesting, atmospheric, and well-humoured games I've ever played. And it seems that after Portal 2 they got so hooked into VR that all they've really made is a bunch of VR demos.

But whatever, the Steam Deck seems like it has the potential to really revolutionize a new space in PC gaming, so maybe it's better they stay focused on one thing at a time than half-assedly do a bunch of things like Microsoft or Google.

> (this is in the 90's, when watching video on PCs was heresy!),

Are you sure? After the multimedia PC, and later videoCD's and DivX it wasn't an heresy any more.

I've had a talk about that topic recently (in the context of a computer games, but whatever).

In the 1998 the cost of the DVD setup was quite pricey: about $500-800 (ie ~$1000 in current money). In the next years the price dropped quite significantly ($200 in 2001, $100 in 2002), but your run of the mill PC wasn't suited as a home theatre system (no HDMI yet, duh! Only S-Video on some systems) and most people didn't even had the PC in the house, for many the niche of a home entertainment system was filled by PlayStation 2 which costed only $300 (+$100-150 compared to a DVD player) in 2001 and it was hooked to the TV.

So the idea of actually watching the films on the PC wasn't quite popular... except for the quoted DivX ;-) 3.11 codec. Which came to existence in the 1999 and was used only for... un-official releases. By the 2001 there was tons and tons of films available in DivX, but by that time it was definitely not '90s.

So I would agree with GP - nobody watched videos on PCs in '90.

No, VideoCD and RealMedia doesn't count. It was more a self-inflicted BDSM session than enjoying the video.

> By the 2001 there was tons and tons of films available in DivX, but by that time it was definitely not '90s.

Yeah, well, early 00's were kinda like 90's. And, yes the PS2 was the cheapest DVD player ever. Still, I'd consider DivX the bridge between mid 90's multimedia PC concept and the modern MP4 and later MKV players.

I was always fond of TV tuner cards for the PC, sort of inverting the experience. Got my first one in 1999, thinking I'd attend an out-of-town university, and having one less picture tube around would save dorm space. (Ended up commuting to local school, effort was moot).

The appeal from that side wasn't "here's PC video on your 27" big-screen TV", it was "here's a 4-inch video window on your 17" monitor, so you can consume video content while doing other stuff."

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