445
Valve says it isn't subsidizing the Steam Machine's $1050 price because of its "religious" refusal to "build a more closed system" (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
100 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 28 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Sony sold the PS3 at a pretty significant loss and had an "OtherOS" feature that allowed people to install Linux on it.

Between that and ots cell architecture, it turned out to be a super affordable way to build supercomputers. Sony eventually disabled the OtherOS feature to combat people buying them en masse and costing Sony their lunch, and they got a LOT of flack for it.

Valve is doing the opposite. They're keeping the openness, but charging enough money it's not financially viable to buy a bunch of Steam Machines to build cheap AI clusters.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 23 points 4 months ago

    Sony eventually disabled the OtherOS feature to combat people buying them en masse and costing Sony their lunch, and they got a LOT of flack for it.

    And also tried to get Youtube to reveal the identities of everyone who watched George Hotz's PS3 hacking video so they could attempt to individually sue them. Don't forget that part.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent