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Comment by ninetyninenine | Hacker News Reader

Steam needs IP. Something as iconic as Kratos or Mario. That's how you go toe to toe with consoles.

It doesn't need IP, it is already THE marketplace for PC gaming. People will get a box like this to play the library they already own, or get great deals on new games.

> it is already THE marketplace for PC gaming

Yeah, but console gamers don't necessarily know or care about that. If you want to cut into the console market, you kind of have to meet console gamers halfway

Not if you are playing the long game. You get console gamers by buying consoles. Steam now has the concept of parental controls and kid accounts. That's the story of why my kid has never played a console. And I have grabbed a lot of her friends as well. In 5 or 6 years when these kids are teens, they will stay with steam and play whatever works on that platform over picking up whatever Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft drop.

PC gaming had been dying because it was losing kids with the rise of tablets and phones. This is a decent solution even if it will not pay off immediately.

But only halfway. You don't need to have exactly the same market as an existing console. It's not as if the existing consoles have exactly the same market as each other either.

And Valve is already a lot more than halfway from what I can tell.

There is something vaguely amusing to me about complaining that Valve of Half-Life, Counter Strike, Portal, Team Fortress and Dota fame doesn’t have IP and giving as an alternative what I view as a minor IP, God of War.

Apparently, people have forgotten that what launched Steam is it being required to play game of the decade Half-Life 2.

I think I’m old.

They might make Half-Life 3 PC exclusive.

Those ips are dying. They aren’t maintained. The steam platform doesn’t have any exclusives. While it doesn’t need exclusives it certainly doesn’t hurt in a competitive fight. An IP that rivals Pokémon, Mario and Zelda exclusive to steam.

CS 2 is dying IP? Really? https://store.steampowered.com/charts/mostplayed

Gordon Freeman and Glados should be able to handle that.

Probably not, unless they learn to count to three, those series seem to be over.

Valve seems to be more of a platform company these days (a very good one, though).

Remember Valve released HL: Alyx to promote their first VR headset.

It is not unreasonable to get a pair of titles to promote these two new products.

A man can dream, but a new HL for the Steam Machine and a new Portal for the Frame would be great.

It would also be the biggest sales pitch in the universe

"Buy a Steam Machine and get Half Life 3 for free" "Buy a Steam Frame and get Portal 3 for free"

Tech and software support should be absolutely perfect though..

What IP does Sony or MS have these days that would sell consoles? They fumbled Halo completely and Sony exclusives are now all on PC. Nintendo does have their Zelda and Mario that they have taken care of well for decades but Steam has.. every PC and console game with an emulator

I think most people would take the biggest library of past, current and future games, cheaper games and free online over those. Not to mention valve of all devs has enough legendary IPs. Kratos and many others have been on steam for years.

I know a lot more about Team Fortress, Portal and Half-Life than I know about Kratos. Valve already have their "meme IP".

I bought a bunch of games for console over the years that I can't play any more.

I have about a dozen games on the switch. In another console generation, nintendo will make all my existing switch games unplayable again. I feel like you don't really buy console games. You rent them for one console generation.

I mean, I can't tell whats worse - that Nintendo has the gall to try and sell me the same game for switch that I already bought retail on the Wii several years ago. Or that I can't play a lot of my old Wii games at all any more.

But every year I end up picking up more and more games on steam. So many games. I have hundreds, and so do most of my friends. And all of those games keep running on every PC I own.

That's the value proposition of a steam box. It ships with hundreds of games that I already own and already enjoy. Fancy playing bioshock again? Sure. Factorio? Yeah hit me. Dota? Cyberpunk? Terraria? Stardew Valley? Lets go.

How do the console makers compete with that?

Switch 2 plays all* switch 1 games.

Xbox series plays all xbox one and even a bunch of xbox 360 games

Ps5 plays all* ps4 games

Every console has moved to essentially off the shelf soc so backwards compatiblity comes as a side effect

Once burned, twice shy. It’s going to take a few more generations to see how long they actually maintain that compatibility for going forward.

I suspect consoles will move to arm chips at some point. When they do, will Sony and Nintendo bother making a Rosetta type layer for backwards compatibility to play the games they’re selling now? I doubt it. We’ll see.

It wouldn't be the first time.

Steam/Valve is the IP already. It's the default goto for gamers.

Well, they have IP, IP2, IP2 Episode 2, etc etc.

Maybe some day they'll have IP3!

Does it?

I mean, it already has a library of games vaster than all other consoles taken together.

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