That is a pretty awesome deal!
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AWesome. Time to grab LFD2
I am building my brother a budget gaming rig and just gifted this bundle to him to get him into Steam. A phenom IIx4 955 with HD5770 and a 23" monitor for $700. It will run L4D flawlessly. Time for him to dump the pentium d and ti4200 lol!
Even cheaper stand alone.
Every time Valve releases something on the Mac they do it at an insane price point. Seriously, LFD2 is $6.79 and it's not even a year old. That's crazy talk.
Say what you want about the cost of Mac hardware, it's going to end up being a pretty cheap gaming platform. The Xbox 360 copy is still $30.
IMO Valve should work with Apple (something they'd never do because they are too arrogant) to create a Mac Mini that comes with Steam and every Mac game pre-installed. Maybe once Steve Jobs leaves the company things like this will happen.
I thought the point of having a Mac was to go to the airport or coffe shop and then pretend to be working on a project. If no one can see you using it, is it still a mac?
Thats less of a reflection of general gaming and more about the personal relationship of Valve and Microsoft.
When a major developer whose founders used to work for your company, come out and tell their zealots that your competitor from Asia is "THE" platform for their futureconsole gaming, then you known you've done ****-ed up big time.
I'm just saying that if Valve keeps up this kind of business model they may be able to completely disrupt console gaming. All they have to do is create a "box" (or just use someone else's) that runs Steam. I only suggested a Mini because it's small and cute.
They could just as well develop an x86 Windows box that runs nothing but Steam for $500, and the TCO would be WAY less than any console game, even with 3rd party titles.
I'm working on an L4D level for class right now, if anybody jumps in it should hopefully be playable by December or so (or I've failed or dropped the class :D). Pretty sure it will turn out kind of crappy since I barely have time to get anything done, but figured I'd mention it.
At that point it would really just be a new console. I guess in that regard, Valve is shaping up to create a platform and delivery service for next gen consoling though I doubt we'll ever see them develop hardware.
I would love to see them partner with one of the big 3, and have the Steam system as the primary means for playing and manging games and mp play. In fact, I think this is part of the reasoning behind Steam Cloud and its ability to be easily picked up by other tech and devs. Sony is even rolling it out on the PS3 with Portal 2.
I think Valve's goal is to just get presence on everything out there and become the preferred method of game management.
Valve/Steam should advertise more. I have had to explain the Steam thing too many times.
It could easily be done. I don't think it would have to be anymore than 300-400 dollars for a pretty badass machine if they could include a very light weight windows environment to run what they have. Make a controller, give it keyb/mouse support, and market the hell out of it. It would be great.