This is the first console I've ever been interested in actually buying. I've always refused to buy devices that don't allow you to write and install your own software (I don't count hacks on them, so this is the first console that's actually open enough to meet my criteria. The nice thing is that this makes a pretty good off the shelf home theater PC even if I never actually use it for gaming.
I always laugh when I see 'PC' because I take it at is literal meaning - 'Personal Computer' - which always makes me wonder what about apple products, consoles, or even mobile phones makes them not either personal or computers. They all seem to be computers, they all seem pretty personal to me...
PC is a holdover from the popular IBM Personal Computer running Microsoft's PC DOS (later MS-DOS). IBM made PC a brand name in direct competition with Apple. When other companies started copying IBM, they made IBM PC Compatible devices and peripherals, generally with an x86 processor. By the 90's, "IBM PC Compatible" meant "an x86 processor running Windows", still in direct competition with Apple.
So even though Apple uses x86 processors and technically it is a personal computer, "PC" still refers to the old brand name that is synonymous with Wintel. Apple has personal computers, Microsoft has Personal Computers.
"PC is a holdover from the popular IBM Personal Computer running Microsoft's PC DOS ..."
Of course it is, and much of what is sold with that moniker today is really more of an entertainment appliance than "computer." When my daughter was 5 or 6 and being told to "dial 9-1-1 for emergencies" she asked me "Why do they call it dialing?"
So the interesting thing from the perspective of the Steam box is this is an entertainment console with a bunch of details about how the insides work. I'm sure that 95% of the people who buy it will have the exact same experience they would have had if they bought and Xbox One or PS4, and the other 5% will have a lot of fun making it do amazing things and not have to worry about getting sued or arrested for it [1].
Well, even Apple computers are IBM PC compatible nowadays, and today outside of a few exceptions it is difficult to make x86 computers that are not IBM PC compatible at the hardware level.
I have read a line (it might have been Steve Wozniak, or perhaps even Paul Graham, I forget) but it said that, when the idea of 'Personal Computer' was mentioned, it was audacious, like saying 'Personal Satellite' now.
When the term PC was coined, computers were fridge sized horrifically expensive things that ran in research institutions and very large companies. The idea of having your own was...crazy.
It is weird how the name has come to mean something based on the Wintel nexus, but that's marketing and differentiation for you.
To me it seems that the PC distinction comes more from the AT motherboard format used by IBM PC. It's the standard format that triggered the replaceable/upgradeable parts that made IBM PC popular, and really explain the PC naming for (non-apple) desktop computers.
I'm not sure what the distinction is. A Playstation 4 has AMD integrated CPU/GPUs, and runs BSD. An Xbox One also uses AMD CPU/GPUs, and runs a Hyper-V hypervisor which runs both the Xbox OS and Windows.
Those sound an awful lot like PCs to me. Sure, they have a bit of custom hardware design, but for the most part are basically just PCs; except that they're locked down and you can't write your own software for them without going through an intermediary (and if you try to, you may get sued or arrested for hacking).
If we talk "gaming" and PC and "traditional consoles", I fear the Ouya is a little underpowered. Doesn't it run on a chip that is normally found in smartphones? Some type pf snapdragon?
A lot of people are perfectly happy with the games that their phones and cheap tablets play, and the Ouya will be capable of handling everything they can. It will be less powerful than the higher end phones and tablets, but most game producers target the larger market so, aside from maybe turning some visual sparkle off on less powerful targets, almost everything should work well enough on the Ouya's design.
I see the Ouya mainly being appealing to gamers who are mostly interested in casual and retro titles, which it is no doubt more than capable of handling. The point is that they are not trying to be a traditional powerful console, they are trying to be what a large group of people (who have traditionally been interested but not interested enough to shell out for a traditional console and its expensive games) are wanting. The fact it also doubles up as a media centre machine, aims to work out of the box (the cheap devices imported from out east are sold as basic Android units with little care for polishing the software install so the user needs a little technical knowlege to get things like XMBC and its ilk to work), and is fairly cheap, makes it quite an attractive package unless you need/want more power (in which case there are better solutions for you out there already).
EDIT: I've just checked and the Ouya runs off the Tegra3 and has 1Gb RAM, so it has oumpf than I thought when writing the above. That is essentially the same chipset choice made for the G1 Nexus 7 so noticeably more powerful than any cheap tablets and phones. It won't match the high power shiny now consoles and play their graphically demanding titles of course, but again I don't think that is the aim and it should be be able to deal with some relatively demanding games (and they'll be very inexpensive compared to the AAA console/PC titles).
Android fits the bill for what he's described. It's doubtful that everything in a SteamBox is completely open source (including graphics drivers and firmware on various hardware), so even though Android isn't 100% open source, it's roughly on par with the openness of a common Linux desktop.
Android may be roughly on par with the openness of SteamOS. But you'd be hard pressed to argue that Android is roughly on par with the openness of the common Linux desktop.
Open source Linux core where installed software may or may not be open source, with an increasing reliance on closed-source cloud applications? Closed source graphics drivers, network firmware, etc? I don't have any statistics obviously, but I would be willing to wager at least 50% of Linux desktops have some closed source installed or some reliance on a cloud provider. Even if it's Flash for watching YouTube videos.
That's still not even close. How easy is it to side-load on Android? Browse the file system? Obtain root access? Recompile and update the kernel? Replace the window manager? Android may be a lot more open than iOS but it's not even close to a Linux desktop.
How easy is it to side-load on Android?: Very Easy out of the box. Just open the apk and the installer will install it.
Browse the file system? Very easy. There are many free and paid file managers. You can also use a terminal emulator.
Obtain root access? OEM unlock bootloader, throw su on the phone and you are set.
Recompile and update the kernel? I has never built my own kernel, but there are many custom kernels popping up all the time.
Replace the window manager? To change the desktop environment, most people just install a different "launcher". That changes how the desktop, windowing, and general interface operate. If you really wanted to have the full freedom of Linux, you can install something like Debian on an android device with a dual boot setup or run it on top of android through a VNC client.
A Nexus 4. As I said, my criteria are that I can run my own software on it without having to go through some intermediary, and I am able to replace the operating system if I would like.
I would prefer a fully free software stack, but I realize that that's not always possible, so I like to support the next best thing. Traditional consoles have always been so hacking unfriendly that I have refused to buy them.
Just so you know, a Nexus One was the first cell phone I ever bought; it was the first that I considered free enough (and capable enough; the Dream/G1 was just a little too clunky for me to consider it particularly useful).
