The Problem with the Steambox

[Zoo]

I was playing some Halo with my friends the other day, when I realized the huge, gaping flaw with the Steam Machines: local multiplayer.

For whatever reason, PC games (even ones that have it in the console version) never have split screen.

Why?! It's not like it'd be that hard to put into the game.

[Connors]

People tend to want to do that with a television, but I could see it working perfectly fine on PC. It was implemented in Cro Mag Rally (I loved that game to pieces). It is a bit strange.

[Circuit]

I have fond memories of playing Goldeneye with my neighbors when I was a kid, so I understand where you're coming from.  But there are several reasons not to implement split-screen in PC games: It's uncomfortable, and doesn't allow players to surprise eachother; it doesn't work well on low-spec machines; allowing 2+ people to share 1 copy of a game is economically unwise.

[Zoo]

I also loved goldeneye.

And the Steam Machines are technically consoles, intended for one's living room, on a big screen TV. And my point is that many games that have split screen on console versions don't on Steam. Which is a potential problem for the Steambox, and for PC gaming in general. Local multiplayer is great, but it's awkward to carry a 50 pound desktop computer and a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to a friend's house. And gaming laptops are out of the question, because they're just too expensive.

[Zoo]

Also, it wouldn't be awkward if you could have different screens on different monitors. That'd be cool. The Xbox 360 actually can do that somehow, I think.

[Circuit]

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize that Steambox is a console.  In that case, I think splitscreen multiplayer is a reasonable thing to expect.  I have Steam on my PCs, and I assumed that the Steambox must be a gaming-oriented Windows PC (since it runs Windows games).  I'm really behind on this stuff, sorry.

[Connors]

Steambox is more like a PC with an operating system designed purely for downloading Steam games.

[Zoo]

And controller support. It's entirely Big Picture mode, if I'm not mistaken.

Valve already owns the PC market, so they're trying to get all gamers using Steam.