And no, its not that they cannot count past three... and its not really their fault.
Think back to the last time you played Call of Duty with your friends. Not a FPS fan? Okay, how about any Madden or Lego game?
Got it? Good...
Where were your friends? I'm willing to be they were sitting next to you, or at least in the same room. You also were probably playing on a console too, wern't you? Okay, one more question. When was the last time you played a multiplayer game locally with a PC? (and I'm not talking a LAN party but 2-4 people on the same PC)
I think your starting to get the idea of where I'm going with this.
With the Steam Box and SteamOS coming out in a few months, I got really excited like everyone else. The possibility of accessing my library from my couch seemed awesome, now I can have my friends over and we can play.... er... Sperlunky? Looking through the list of games in my library, I was hitting multiplayer game after co-op, but they were all online. In the end, I had the aftermentioned Sperlunky, Magicka, and Civilization5. That was it. I could hack Borderlands 2, but that means I need another screen and a computer that can run the game, twice. And yeah, I could play my friends on their computers in a LAN or online, but I could do that in my bedroom, naked.
Looking for more games I stumbled across a list on reddit of all the games on Steam that have local multiplayer. Their are a few games that are good but overall it seems underwelming. Now, I'm not going to clam to be any marketing or sales expert, but a major part of the apel to consoles is the ability to gather your friends or family and enjoy it together.
Think back to the Wii for a moment, the Wii Sprots game was nothing but local co-op, and it felt boring and un-interesting in singleplayer. Playing with each other got you used to the contolers and the way they wanted you to play the games. It make transitioning into playing more incence, single player games like No More Heros and Ledgen Of Zelda: Twilight Princess easier and more fun overall.
For the Steam Box, it has a new controller that will take some getting used to, but your not bound to it. You can use your Keyboard+Mouse or some other controller that you use. So while you may not need to get used to the controls, thier are so many different game types for the PC then "wave the stick at the screen"
It's not even Valve's fualt. The PC is a Personal Computer after all, its not really ment to be a social platform like game consoles have become. Thats why most PC games are online multiplayer or just singleplayer, the system is meant for only one users.
With the next-gen consoles looking more and more like low-end gaming PCs and the SteamBox bringinig the high-end of the spectrum, we may see the two become more like each other as time goes on.
Anyway, I'm off to find the City of Gold in Sperlunky.
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