More than likely, I'm not the only person whose first reaction to the Steam Deck was something along the lines of "didn't Valve already try this?" Valve's hardware products have really run the spectrum from the VR gold standard Valve Index to the less impressive console-like Steam Machine. Sure enough, Valve say that "Steam Deck feels like the culmination of a lot of that earlier work." They say that Proton has been the route to help them solve the "chicken and egg" problem that the Steam Machine fell victim to.
]]>Valve’s next hardware adventure could be a portable PC dubbed the “SteamPal”. A recent update to the Steam Client beta, including mentions of "SteamPal Games", a "quick access menu" and a "power menu", was spotted by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik. There's a lot more speculation, but the rumours have been rumbling away for a while now.
]]>Steam Machines went nowhere, Valve have basically said (I'm paraphrasing a touch), but nah, don't sweat it, they are still committed to improving gaming on Linux. After shuffling Steam Machines deeper into the labyrinth of Steam's website menus, and the ensuing cybersquawking over Valve having done a thing, they've reflected a little on their PC branding partnership and the Linux-based SteamOS beneath it.
"Given that this change has sparked a lot of interest, we thought it'd make sense to address some of the points we've seen people take away from it," Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais said. Internet, eh?
]]>Oh, hello. Valve are running a Steam sale to celebrate the launch of Steam Machines, offering substantial discounts on games that work on SteamOS including 50% off Alien: Isolation, 40% off Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and 33% off Ark: Survival Evolved, and much more.
]]>Sitting down with Valve's Eric Johnson this morning, one thing seemed to become increasingly clear. Valve, a studio that has arguably been pretty quiet of late (not least with the failure to ship Steam Machines in 2014), is coming to life again. With a slew of announcements at this year's GDC, the HTC-tech-incorporating VR Vive, a proper announcement of Source 2, in-home streaming tech in Link, available builds of Steam OS, and a final build for their much anticipated controller, you could almost forget that none of them is a game. While Graham was being pulled into a virtual world, I had a play with the controller on games running on a couple of Steam Machines, on some rather enormous televisions.
So the first thing you want to know: is the controller any good?
]]>Calm your consoles. Give your Blu-ray/DVD/VHS (???) a soothing pat. Tell your ottoman it can stop whimpering in the closest. Your living room is safe - for now. Valve's takeover plans have been pushed back to next year, as steady Steam Machine testing progress has revealed just how far the little Linux box/controller that could still has left to go. The controller won't be out until 2015 at the earliest, meaning that it's now entered the hallowed chronological halls of Valve Time.
]]>I find it interesting how Valve both is and isn't investing a lot of time and precious, precious GabeNcoins into its Steam Machine initiative. On one hand, this is the PC juggernaut's plan to bull-rush through the living room's console-lined walls and play jump rope with the entrails of enemies within, but on the other Valve is hedging its bets as cautiously as possible. It's letting countless hardware manufacturers take the risk on building and distributing these things, and it's hoping audiences will give them some clue as to what they should do after that. It's not a terrible strategy by any means. It's just a very Valve-centric one. Hardware manufacturers like Alienware, then, are worried, even as they place utmost faith in Valve's time-proven ability to prime penniless pumps until money cascades out like a Biblical flood.
]]>Remember when Alienware said you won't be able to upgrade or customize its Steam Machine just a few days ago? Yeah, well it didn't really mean that. Not entirely, anyway. Dell's mighty squad of moon men have explained that you'll technically be able to worm around in its pristine innards - for instance, by cracking its shell with a large mallet - but don't expect to have an easy time of it.
]]>Steam Machines might be Valve's answer to consoles, but that doesn't mean they play by the same rules as Sony and Microsoft's increasingly indistinguishable boxes. Linux is an open platform and Steam is constantly evolving. I do not think it's unreasonable, then, to expect elements of PC gaming to creep into Steam Machine hardware as well. Just, uh, maybe don't get your hopes up for Alienware to kick off that trend. The intergalactic planetary PC supplier has decided that upgrading its Steam Machines won't be a modular process. If you want shiny new CPUs, graphics cards, or even memory, you'll have to pick up a whole new box. While SteamOS can change conveniently and for free, hardware, as ever, comes at a price. And that's a problem - one that hardware manufacturers should consider remedying if they want us to be at all interested in their first round of Steam Machines.
]]>Steam, monopolizing all the news? What are you talking about? STEAM IS THE NEWS. The two have become one, a pulsating mutant announcement machine - or announcemutant for short. The latest and greatest? Word from Steam Dev Days is that Valve's revealed the first big overhaul of its (somewhat finicky) beta controller. Say goodbye to that touch screen that never actually saw the light of day. Its variable button approach was interesting, but perhaps not in the best interest of backward compatibility. So it's out. Don't expect any biometrics either. At least, not initially.
]]>Valve is a strange company. The mega-dev has always paddled against the inundating current of conventional wisdom, but it gets especially odd when it defies its own internal logic. Oh yeah, also infuriating. As we've observed on multiple occasions, the house that Newell built is often extremely open, responsive, and communicative... except when it's really, really not. Half-Life 3, a recent bout of (still-unexplained) layoffs, Diretide, etc. These lapses don't make Valve a Bad Guy or anything, but they do strain the developer's relationship with its 65-million-strong audience. It's an odd dichotomy that's more relevant than ever with the evolution of Steam Machines and SteamOS apparently in the community's hands. So I decided to ask Valve a simple question: What gives?
]]>Yes, that's right: You. That is who this article is for. Absolutely, positively nobody else. And by that, I of course mean Yousef Johnson, the world's most average PC gaming enthusiast. He spends much of his leisure time playing on his own custom-built PC, largely by way of Steam. According to Valve, You (and perhaps by extension, also you) are who the initial line of Steam Machines is aimed at. And yet, so far it's difficult to find many reasons to care. There's the living room appeal, sure, but what's to stop You from simply installing SteamOS on his own machine, buying a Steam controller, and doing a bit of quick (not to mention free) legwork? I asked Valve to justify its massive yet arguably over-cautious endeavor both now and in the long run. Here's how the PC juggernaut replied.
]]>And poof, just like that, there were a hundred-billion Steam Machines. Or, well, maybe not quite that many, but a lot - ranging in price from reasonable to WHAT HOW YOU HAVE TO BE JOKING. But while Valve's CES catwalk was littered with sparkling boxes from every manufacturer under the sun, one was missing: Valve's own. It was powering demos off in the background, but it received no spotlight during our brief peek inside Gabe Newell's magical toy factory. Why, you ask? Well, because Valve has no plans to ever release it. At least, for the time being. Many figured a standard Valve system spec would give PC gaming a lower barrier to entry, but that's not how the digital juggernaut sees its role in all of this.
]]>Valve's robot owl Steam controller has been the talk of the town since the town learned to talk, but talk is cheap. While attending Valve's recent CES Steam Machine event, I realized I had light and a camera, so it was time for action. Go below to watch me comment on (and gripe about) a beta Steam controller's many, er, eccentric ins and outs while playing games like Metro: Last Light and Starbound. Valve's onto something, I think, but there's still a worrisome amount of work to be done before primetime.
]]>The Consumer Electronics Show is happening in Las Vegas right now, which is a lot like E3 but full of televisions and Michael Bay instead of videogames. There is at least one thing there of interest to us, though: Valve have been revealing the first concrete details of their Steam Machine partners, including the 14 manufacturers currently making them and the specs and prices of some of those boxes.
Nathan is at the event and we'll have interviews and impressions to share with you soon, but let's round-up the news so far.
]]>Last week, Valve sent out the first 300 prototypes of their Steam Machines. That's exciting, but unless you were one of the few randomly chosen, you can't get involved. They also released the first version of their SteamOS for everyone to download, which is exciting but you should not get involved. Even Valve don't think so.
]]>You there! Yes, you, with the hair, the shirt, and the microscopically minuscule pimple behind your left nostril that nobody - not even you - knows about. You could well be mere days away from receiving your very own Steam Machine. If you live in the US and signed up for Valve's first round of testing, I would advise that you check your inbox now, lest you miss the opportunity to excitedly huddle around your fireplace, waiting for ol' Saint Newell to slide down the chimney and pull your precious bounty from the safety of his beard of impossible wonders.
]]>Valve's already shown off a prototype of its mythical Steam Box, but what about all these third-party machines we keep hearing about? The hope is that they'll offer price and versatility options where Valve can't cut it on its own, so they could end up just as key in the FutureWar For The Living Room as GabeN's boxy baby. Valve claims that numerous manufacturers are backing it up, but for now only iBuyPower has un-holstered its gleaming dust magnet of a secret weapon. Meet Gordon (or Freeman, depending on your preference for systems that look like glow-in-the-dark sandwiches). He will apparently be able to run all of your games in 1080p at 60 FPS.
]]>Lookit! A box! Isn't that just the most exciting thing? The Internet is, of course, in a tizzy over Valve's big reveal of a Steam Machine prototype, and - yep - it sure looks like one of them newfangled VCRs that can play those dang dern gametapes we never stop talking about. The bigger news, however, is that you need not worry about being required to own one - or even running SteamOS, for that matter. Nope, not even for Half-Life 3. Valve, happily, is philosophically opposed to the idea of platform exclusives.
]]>And so the announcements are complete. And with no last-minute surprises, Valve have announced their peripheral for the Steam Machine that will carry SteamOS, in an attempt to bring PC gaming into the living room. It is, they say, a new kind of controller, one designed to be able to trick older games into thinking they're being played with a keyboard and mouse. It looks pretty damned smart, at first glance.
]]>
