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Tag: Steam Machines

  • Microsoft Hasn’t Given Up On PC Gaming Just Yet

    In August of last year, it looked like Microsoft was finally getting serious about PC gaming again when it hired former Steam boss Jason Holtman. Those hoping for a PC gaming renaissance from Microsoft were met with disappoint last month when it was revealed that Holtman would be leaving Microsoft after only six months on the job. While his departure may make it seem that it’s going to be nothing but Xbox One from Microsoft here on out, Xbox’ Phil Spencer says that’s not the case.

    Edge Magazine reports that Spencer participated in a fireside chat at GDC 2014 last week where he revealed that Microsoft isn’t leaving PC gaming anytime soon. He points to the reveal of Direct X 12 as one of the many contributions it will be making to the PC gaming scene over the next year. That being said, he does say admit that Valve and its Steam service have been better PC gaming stewards than Microsoft:

    “They’ve been the backbone for PC gaming for the last decade when you think about the work that they’ve done,” Spencer said. “As the Windows company I appreciate what they’ve done. In a lot of ways they’ve focused more on PC gaming than we have, and for me that’s something inside the company that we’ll have a renewed focus on – Windows and PC gaming inside of Microsoft is definitely happening – you saw the DX12 demos here and you will see more from us over the summer.”

    While Microsoft has seemingly been content to let Valve rule the PC gaming roost over the last decade while it takes over the living room with Xbox, Valve is now gunning for the same room with its Steam Machines. You’d think Microsoft would be a little upset by Valve’s sudden entry into the console space, but Spencer sees it only as a good thing:

    “What they’re doing with Steam Machines makes sense for them,” Spencer said. “They’ve got a great storefront and 64 million accounts and consumers that buy a lot of content. It’s very smart for Valve to take the installed base of the customers they have and get them on the [living room] screen. Competition is a good thing, we learn a ton from what Sony and Nintendo do, and we learn a ton from what Valve does too.”

    So, is Microsoft suddenly going to start supporting the PC with the same gusto that Valve does? Probably not. It still needs to divert most of its resources to Xbox, but it can do better in the PC space. Getting rid of Games for Windows Live is a good start, but it needs to either build a better service in its place or move to Steam. It’s already publishing PC games on Steam sans Games for Windows Live and it very may well continue that strategy going forward. Valve has the best distribution platform on PC and Microsoft would be wise to work with them going forward.

    Image via MXE Videos/YouTube

  • Steam Machine Gets The Teardown Treatment From iFixIt

    Earlier this month, Valve sent out 300 Steam Machines to lucky beta testers across the U.S. While the chances of you getting one were incredibly slim, one of the iFixIt team members somehow managed to get his hands on one. Of course, that means they also tore it apart to see just how repairable Valve’s new console/PC hybrid is.

    It should be noted that Valve sent out a number of different Steam Machines to its 300 beta testers. Some were equipped with the very latest graphics technology and processors while others featured older GPUs from Nvidia’s GTX 600 line. In the case of iFixIt, they received one of the more powerful units that came with a GTX 780 and an Intel Core i5-4570.

    The Internal hardware is confirmed as being pretty powerful, but what about its I/O panel? In the Steam Machine iFixIt received, the I/O panel featured a PS/2 port for a keyboard or mouse, two USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, DVI and DisplayPort outs, a S/PDIF out, eSATA, ethernet port, Wi-Fi and 3.5 mm audio in. In short, the Steam Machine will be able to handle all of your display needs.

    As for the motherboard, the Steam Machine only has one PCI slot for the video card, two RAM slots for a total of 16GB, and the CPU socket. Considering this is a mini-ITX board, it’s not surprising to see it not have a lot in the way of expansion. That being said, the motherboard can support up to two SATA hard drives, but it only ships with one.

    So, how’s the repairability of Valve’s first foray into hardware? iFixIt gives it a score of nine out of 10, and it’s not at all surprising considering that the Steam Machine is just a PC. The only two issues they had with the Steam Machine was that it was hard to remove the RAM due to the tight fit and that reassembly could be an issue without a manual. In comparison, both the PS4 and Xbox One received a score of eight out of 10.

    Image via iFixIt

  • Steam Machines Will Ship Out On Friday, Beta Participants To Be Notified Today

    Earlier this year, Valve introduced the world to its vision of bringing PC gaming to the living room with SteamOS and Steam Machines. While hardware makers won’t have Steam Machines on the market until next year, Valve said it would be sending out 300 prototype machines to beta testers at some point in December. Turns out that “some point in December” is this Friday.

    Valve announced today that its 300 prototype Steam Machines and Steam controllers will be shipping out to 300 beta participants on December 13. It will also be sending out notifications to said beta participants today at 5 p.m. EST/2 p.m. PST. Those who are selected will get a special badge on their Steam Community profile and will receive a number of free games that run natively on SteamOS.

    That’s all good news, but like always, there’s a bit of bad news as well. Valve’s original plan was to open the beta to PC gamers around the world, but the company confirmed today that the beta had to be restricted to US citizens only. Why? You can blame international regulations for that.

    We’ve had to make the difficult decision to limit our beta to the U.S. only, because of regulatory hurdles. This was not our original plan, and it means we can’t collect beta feedback from Steam customers world-wide, which is pretty unfortunate. All things considered, we’re sure it was the right decision, because the alternative was to delay the whole beta beyond the point when we’d be able to incorporate any feedback into the 2014 products. This decision only affects Valve’s 300 prototype units; the commercial versions of Steam Machines that are for sale in 2014 won’t be affected by this. More information on those will be announced at CES on January 6.

    As a consolation prize of sorts, Valve says that SteamOS will be available to download on Friday. This version of SteamOS will be available to both individuals and OEMs, but Valve recommends that anybody who isn’t familiar with Linux should wait until later next year to download it.

    As an added bonus, here’s a picture of the production line where the Steam Machine prototypes are being built:

    Steam Machines Will Ship Out On Friday

    If you get into the Steam Machine beta, be sure to let all your friends know. You’ll be the the object of their jealousy for at least a few months until Steam Machines become widely available.

  • Steam In-Home Streaming To Enter Beta Soon

    Back when Valve first announced SteamOS, it said that users would be able to either play PC games on its own Steam Machines hardware or stream games from another PC in the house to the television. While Steam Machines won’t go on sale until next year, Valve is now letting interested users register for the Steam In-Home Streaming beta.

    Valve recently unveiled the community for the Steam In-Home Streaming beta. You’re required to join this Steam Group if you want to participate in the In-Home Streaming beta as participants will be chosen at random from the group later this year.

    While the Steam Group doesn’t divulge any details as how Steam’s In-Home Streaming works, screen caps of the beta client have been uncovered by Polygon. It looks like a pretty standard set-up where users can stream gameplay from any connected devices on their local network. It also has a number of settings to help improve performance, from limiting bandwidth and framerate to disabling hardware acceleration.

    As for the other Steam OS projects, Valve will be soon be shipping out 300 Steam Machines to those who won a chance to test the company’s beta hardware. These machines will be powerful enough to play PC games on a television without the need for streaming. They can, however, be used to stream content from your main gaming PC. In fact, some Steam Machines will be marketed as cheap streaming boxes for your main PC.

    [Image: Steam]

  • Valve Demos Its New Steam Controller

    Valve Demos Its New Steam Controller

    Earlier this month, Valve announced its intention to enter the hardware market with Steam Machines complete with Steam Controller. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should really check it out. It’s wild, and totally out there – just like Valve.

    Now, you may be wondering – how the hell do I play games with that thing? Well, Valve is here with a video demo that shows how the controller is used in a variety of games. What you’ll first notice is that the controller’s gamepads can be configured on a case-by-case basis. In a first-person game like Portal 2, the two gamepads can be configured to act like a mouse and keyboard. In a more PC-centric game like Civilization V, one trackpad is configured to act as a mouse while the other is configured to act as directional keys.

    Like all other new controllers, people are going to be skeptical until their get their hands on it. PC gamers are going to be even more skeptical as no other controller in history has ever matched the precision of a mouse and keyboard for PC-centric games, like turn-based strategy titles. Valve obviously thinks they have finally reached that level of precision, but we won’t know for sure until next year when the first Steam machines launch.

    If you want to test drive a Steam Machine and the new Steam Controller sooner, be sure to get your name into the running for one of 300 Steam Machine prototypes. You can find out more about that here.

    [Image: Valve/YouTube]

  • Valve To Host Steam Dev Days In January

    Valve To Host Steam Dev Days In January

    There’s no denying that Valve is a major force in PC gaming. After all, the company singlehandedly revived the PC gaming market with Steam. Now it’s entering the gaming hardware and operating system markets, and it wants developers along for the ride.

    Valve announced today that it will be hosting the first ever Steam Dev Days on January 15, 2014 in Seattle. The two-day event will give developers a chance to learn from each other and from Valve about how to best utilize the Steam platform for their games. As an added bonus, developers will also get a chance to check out some Steam Machine prototypes.

    Here’s the official event description:

    Steam Dev Days is a two-day game developer’s conference where professionals can meet in a relaxed, off the record environment. Developers will share their design and industry expertise, participate in roundtable discussions and attend lectures by industry veterans on topics ranging from game economies to VR, Linux/OpenGL, user-generated content and more. Developers will also have direct access to Valve’s Steam Team, and will be given a chance to test-drive and provide feedback on Steam OS, prototype Steam Machines and Steam Controllers.

    You’ll notice that the above description mentions that Valve’s dev conference will be “off the record.” According to the official FAQ, that means no press is allowed at the event. It’s a decidedly different approach to other game developer conferences, like GDC, where the press is not only allowed in, but encouraged to report on the talks and roundtable discussions. Of course, this is Valve we’re talking about here. The company is pretty reclusive as far as the press is concerned, and it’s not surprising to see its developer conference go the same way.

    If you’re a game developer and like the idea of Steam Dev Days, you can register for the conference today for $95. That’s an incredibly cheap price for a developer conference that promises to have a lot of great info for the game developer.

    [Image: Valve]

  • Valve Reveals Steam Machine Prototype Specs

    Last week video game developer Valve, the company behind the Steam online marketplace, unveiled its vision of bringing PC gaming to the living room and TVs. This announcement included hardware called “Steam Machines” that would run SteamOS and be controlled with the new Steam Controller.

    Along with the announcement, Valve revealed that 300 lucky gamers will get the chance to test out its prototype Steam Machine. Today, Valve revealed a bit more about that beta initiative, including what hardware the machines will come with.

    It turns out that the 300 prototypes will not have consistent hardware. Each could be slightly different from another, though all of them are relatively high end gaming PCs (and some will be really high-end gaming PCs). Each will have an Intel processor and an NVidia GPU. They will also come with tons of RAM and a hybrid 1 TB/8 GB SSHD hard drive. The full specs, from the Steam Universe group announcement:

    GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660
    CPU: some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3
    RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU)
    Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD
    Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold
    Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

    The prototype machines will be fully upgradable, so users who get the GTX660 can pop in their own Titan if they so choose. It also seems that the prototypes will come packed in a relatively thin square box, similar in size to a slightly wider and thicker PlayStation 4. Valve stated that it is not yet ready to post photos of the prototype box, “because they’re not finished enough.”

    Valve also emphasized in this announcement that the prototype is not meant to be the only Steam Machine, stating that other manufacturers will release Steam Machines focused on factors such as a low price or a small form factor. Valve will be creating a system to rate the strengths and weaknesses of different Steam Machines, though details on that will come later. Also, for those who already have nice gaming PCs Valve teased that it is working on a streaming solution to bring SteamOS to their living rooms.

  • Valve Announces Steam Machines, Will Ship Out 300 Prototypes This Year

    On Monday, Valve announced the first step in its plan to take over the living room – SteamOS. Now an operating system is all well and good, but it needs hardware to run on. That’s where the next step comes in.

    Valve announced this afternoon that it intends to enter the hardware market with Steam Machines. The company says that it’s partnering with hardware manufacturers to bring a variety of Steam Machines to market in 2014. Before that, however, it wants some of its most dedicated gamers to test out some prototypes.

    While these products are still in development, we need your help. As always, we believe the best way to ensure that the right products are getting made is to let people try them out and then make changes as we go. We have designed a high-performance prototype that’s optimized for gaming, for the living room, and for Steam. Of course, it’s also completely upgradable and open.

    There are 300 of these prototype Steam machines up for grabs, and Valve will be giving them out this year to a few lucky Steam users who fulfill some requirements. First, you’re gonna need to join the Steam Universe community group. After that, you must agree to the Steam Hardware Beta Terms and Conditions. Once that is out of the way, you’ll have to make 10 Steam friends, create a public Steam Community profile and play a game using a gamepad in Big Picture mode.

    You have until October 25 to compete all the above. If not, you’ll be locked out of the drawing for good. If you do happen to complete all the above in time, you’ll be given a badge that marks you as eligible to receive one of the Steam Machine prototypes.

    If you aren’t selected for the Steam Machine prototype beta, you’ll have to wait until 2014 like the rest of us. At that time, Valve’s unnamed hardware partners will begin to release Steam Machines for public consumption. We don’t know what the hardware will look like yet, but it might be pretty similar to what we saw at CES earlier this year.

    [Image: Steam]