With the speed at which news comes out in the gaming industry we sometimes miss important or news worthy things. Some of these things we want to talk about in a way that is both easy for you guys and allows us to get all the facts together as some of these stories develop quickly. Sometimes we also just cover topics that we find interesting and want to discuss.
Valve turns on a streaming website, Steam.tv then turns it off
As reported by PC Gamer and seen by many on the internet, Valve “launched” a streaming website and then quickly un-launched it. Valve is busy testing and updating the Steam Broadcasting suite of features ahead of their Dota 2 International event that takes place August 20th-25th. We hope to see what Valve has to bring to the game streaming market but I wonder if it’s too little too late.
Source: www.roadtovr.com
Wiggin’s thoughts on the subject: I’m slightly excited for this new streaming site. I’d like to see a proper competition to Twitch. I understand that YouTube does an okay job at being competition for Twitch and has a better video player; it doesn’t really grab me like Twitch does. Now on the flip side Twitch’s chat is pretty much unusable with larger streamers as it’s filled with memes and spam. I hope that Valve puts effort into and creates a feature complete and functional platform that could give Twitch a run for its money. The issue with Valve is they seem to release unfinished projects that leave you wanting more. I really hope that they complete this and it’s something that can grow. We will have to wait until the 20th to see what Valve has been working on.
Steam may get compatibility tools to play Windows games on Linux
According to PCGamer, dataminers recently found in Steam, references to a “compatibility tool” that may allow Windows games to work on Linux using Wine. Other references include being a store listed feature, could work better with some games than others along with a “test” so you could test a game that hasn’t been officially tested with this tool and possible crashing and breaking of save games if they do attempt this. Keep in mind, this is all text references, not an official examination of a hidden, complete tool so this is far from being concrete or even real.
Source: www.unixmen.com
Ozzy’s thoughts: While I take this datamining with a grain of salt, if this turns out to be true (even if the tool working is hit miss with certain games) I will be totally on board. I’ve been annoyed with Microsoft and how Windows 10 works (so much so I’ve gone back to Windows 8) and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Since Windows has the gaming PC market, having a choice to run something else is most welcomed. The only reason I’m not begging, wishing, praying, for this to be real is simple: Windows 10. Some recent games seem to be artificially locked behind the requirement “Windows 10 Only.” So I can only imagine if this compatibility tool came true, Windows 10 games would just simply not work. “I need to connect to the Xbox App, I need to connect to the Microsoft Store,” etc. etc. Older games would be great but more and more games will be made needing Windows 10/DirectX 12 and all I can think of is this tool will be limited to older games. If this tool does indeed exist of course.
