Tag Archives: steambox

Here’s the first non-Valve Steam Machine prototype, care of iBuyPower

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That game console headlining this text? It isn't a white PS4: it's a commercial Steam Machines box, or at least a prototype of one. iBuyPower tells us that it's building the box for a 2014 launch, but says it's still early. The company says the prototypes are running an early build of Steam OS, but it's not quite a finished product. That rings true of our impressions of Valve's own reference model, which hosted a version of that same OS devoid of media playback and streaming options and had a very limited selection of games.

iBuyPower tells us that it actually has two models, codenamed Gordon and Freeman, in the works. The two consoles are identical, save for the light bar round the middle -- one model's is clear, while the other's is black when not illuminated. And, while the company wouldn't tell us about the boxes' internals, it did confirm that the hardware will run all Steam titles in 1080p resolution at 60fps. Not as much info as we'd like to know, but still, it's good to see hints of what we'll see from Steam Machines when they hit the market -- though we'll likely have to wait until CES to see them in action.%Gallery-slideshow123245%

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Xi3’s Piston modular PC launching November 29th for $1,000

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As if shelling out $900 this holiday to snag the two next-gen game consoles wasn't enough, Xi3's Piston modular gaming PC is arriving on November 29th for $1,000. Should money be no object to you, the adorable little box is available for pre-order right this minute, and that'll lock in an earlier arrival by two weeks. Included in today's news of the Piston's launch date is word that internal storage capacity was upped by another SSD connector; Xi3 says up to 1TB of SSD storage is now supported.

In a hilarious nod to Valve's Steam Machines news last week, Xi3 notes, "By adding a second SSD to their Pistons, users will be able to load a second operating system onto their machines, including the newly announced SteamOS." As previously reported, Xi3 is (at least in part) financially-backed by Valve, and the Piston is a bit of a "Steambox" (the previous name for Valve's Steam Machines effort) itself. SteamOS is said to be coming "soon," ahead of Steam Machines' official launch in 2014, and you'll see no surprise on our faces should SteamOS arrive ahead of Piston's November 15th pre-order availability.

On Xi3's homepage, the Piston is positioned with a wireless, Piston-branded gamepad (seen above). It's unclear if it ships with the system later this year, so we've reached out to Xi3 for more info.

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Valve announces Steam Controller, a gamepad for its game console

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Valve announces Steam Controller, a gamepad for its game console

Valve revealed Steam Controller today, a controller for its living room PC-based game console initiative. It's the third announcement this week from Valve, following reveals of SteamOS and Steam Machines on Monday and Wednesday (respectively). The controller is shaped like a standard game console controller, but in place of thumbsticks there are two clickable trackpads. Valve's saying that the dual trackpads provide resolution that "approaches that of a desktop mouse," making previously PC-only games playable on a couch.

In the middle of the controller is a "high-resolution" touch screen (also clickable) that enables both control and navigation. "Players can swipe through pages of actions in games where that's appropriate. When programmed by game developers using our API, the touch screen can work as a scrolling menu, a radial dial, provide secondary info like a map or use other custom input modes we haven't thought of yet," the controller's announcement page says. There are also haptic sensors all over the controller, which offer "super-precise" haptic feedback to players -- they're in both trackpads on the front, as well as in the shoulder buttons and around the rear grips. Valve says that these sensors not only relay physical information to players, but also "play audio waveforms and function as speakers."

Like any gamepad, the Steam Controller has a handful of buttons as well: 16 in total, according to Valve. Two are around back, while the majority are found out front -- one sits in each corner of the middle touchscreen, and three sit below that screen. Game devs should have no issue getting their games working with the controller, according to Valve, as the API will become available for free for devs at the same time that the Steam Machines beta goes live "later this year." Additionally, gamers interested in beta testing Valve's controller can sign up the same way you signed up for the console beta: a quest is now available in your Steam account.%Gallery-slideshow99391%

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Source: Valve

Valve unveils Steam Machines, a hardware beta for its living room game console

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Valve unveils Steam Machines, a hardware beta for its living room game console

Valve announced Steam Machines today, a living room game console that launches at some point in 2014. The company also announced a hardware beta for its own version of the console; the beta starts this year. Today's news is the second of three planned announcements this week meant to expand the company's digital game distribution service, Steam. The company's issuing just 300 hardware prototypes in 2013 -- "free of charge, for testing" -- and you can enter to become one of those lucky 300 through your existing Steam account (an "eligibility quest" was added to Steam's quest page that will guide you through the process).

Valve says that a variety of "Steam Machines" -- the new name for the company's "Steambox," a living room gaming console for playing PC games -- will become available next year "made by different manufacturers," including Valve itself. The hardware beta, which we first told you about many moons ago, only includes Valve's version of the Steam Machine. All the machines will run SteamOS, the operating system that'll power Valve's big living room push (it was announced earlier this week). There aren't any specs given for the various devices. Valve says that, since there will be a few different options, there'll be "an array of specifications, price, and performance" when we learn more "soon." It sounds like the 300 beta testers can share their experience with the rest of us, though, as Valve's asking for loud, public feedback.

Apparently the beta will include "the nearly 3,000 games" that are available on Steam including the "hundreds already running natively on SteamOS." Everything else is streamable, says Valve. In terms of using a mouse-and-keyboard setup in your living room, Valve says that's an option, but "we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input."

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Valve announces SteamOS, a new platform for playing PC games on TVs

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PC game service operator and game development studio Valve announced SteamOS this afternoon, finally formalizing a PC gaming hardware project known as "Steambox" we've heard dribs and drabs about over the past few years. The OS will function on "any living room machine," and it also streams games from your Mac and PC, as well as offering media playback functionality. The OS seems to be multifunctional in this aspect, both acting as an operating system for living room-based machines directly connected to televisions, and offering streaming capability from computers outside the living room. "Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV," the announcement page says. The OS is free and built on Linux; it will be available "soon."

Valve says it's "achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we're now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level," with regards to streaming capability. "Game developers are already taking advantage of these gains as they target SteamOS for their new releases." No specific developers are named, but a job posting from Crytek points at one suspect.

The project is intended to compete with traditional game consoles, and it seemingly evolves Steam's "Big Picture Mode" to that end (which isn't to say that service is going away). Valve specifically lists four new features as the pillars of SteamOS: in-home streaming, family sharing, music / TV / movies, and family options. Let's dive into those after the break.

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Source: Valve

Valve’s planning an announcement for Monday and it could be the Steambox

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Valve's planning an announcement for Monday and it could be the Steam Box

There's only so much we can read into Valve's vague plans to "connect the dots for customers who want Steam in the living room," but the safe bet is on the Steambox. The company's just-launched teaser site shows a countdown clock leading up to Monday's announcement, as well as an image of a controller leading into darkness (oh, and there's the profile of a cat, too). Valve's planned entry into the hardware space has already been well-documented, so a dedicated console for PC-gaming in the living room should come as no surprise. What's more intriguing, however, is Valve's desire to connect users to its "design process." Could that mean the launch of a beta testing program? We'll know for sure come early next week.

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Source: Valve

Crytek hunting for developer who can bring CryEngine to Linux

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DNP Crytek hiring Linux dev, hopes to make your penguin box weep

The penguin has been getting awfully cozy with game developers lately. This time it's with the company known to make GPUs melt at the faintest whisper of its name: Crytek. According to a recent job listing, the German shooter shop is looking for a programmer to work on a Linux version of CryEngine. Of course, you need to relocate to Deutschland and have a few years experience in software development under your belt. Seeing another major PC studio devoting resources to the open-source OS only increases the growing momentum for Valve's Steambox ecosystem of choice. To answer the eternal question, it appears that yes, even the Tux can run Crysis.

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Via: VG 24/7

Source: Crytek

Xi3 starts Piston pre-orders: buy an early Steambox for under $1,000

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Xi3 starts Piston preorders buy a protoSteambox for under $1,000

While Xi3's Piston may only be a Steambox through its software optimization, that still leaves us with a milestone on our hands now that the system is available for pre-orders: it's the first Valve-blessed PC on sale. If you're willing to set aside just under $1,000 ($900 during SXSW), you can claim a Big Picture-friendly mini PC with an embedded, 3.2GHz version of AMD's quad-core A10 in addition to 8GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive. There's no mention of the conventional spinning storage referenced at CES. Expansion is limited to larger-capacity SSDs, although that's not surprising when the entire computer is smaller than a GeForce GTX Titan. The real jolt will be the launch timing. Xi3 won't have Pistons shipping until around the holidays, which could leave some of us hunting for less-than-official (if considerably larger) substitutes for the full Steam experience.

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Via: Joystiq

Source: Xi3

Valve’s Steambox prototypes heading to some Steam users in ‘3 – 4 months’

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We've known that game company and Steam operator Valve Software was going to offer prototypes of its hardware to Steam users for some time, but company head Gabe Newell niw says that those prototypes will start arriving in the next three to four months time. Moreover, beyond just the controllers we suspected to be part of the beta program, Newell tells the BBC that said prototypes will be of the Steambox, Valve's living room-friendly PC gaming initiative. "We're working with partners trying to nail down how fast we can make it," Newell said.

He cited noise and heat concerns as the holdup for retail availability of various Steamboxes -- both Valve itself and a variety of third-party companies are working on the initiative, including Xi3 and unnamed others. He also speculated about what control device might be included in various Steambox setups (the systems are said to range in power and price, from low to very high). He did posit that some form of biological monitoring would be built into a potential Valve game controller (biometrics). "You need to actually be able to directly measure how aroused the player is -- what their heart rate is, things like that -- in order to offer them a new experience each time they play," Newell said. He also cited the controller as a current roadblock in making the Steambox available. "The main thing that's holding us up right now is nailing ... we have a couple of different controller prototypes that we're using, and that's one of the things that we're giving to customers," he added. Valve is apparently planning on including a handful of controllers with Steambox prototypes in its upcoming beta, so that users can give feedback for each and Valve can break down how players are using them.

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Source: BBC

Controller designer, hardware lead Jeri Ellsworth out at Valve

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Controller designer, hardware lead Jeri Ellsworth out at Valve

We're still eagerly awaiting Steambox-spec'd hardware in our living rooms but Valve's endeavor into hardware will move on minus one party member, noted inventor / hacker Jeri Ellsworth. She reported the firing in a tweet earlier today, however any reasons, future plans or possible link to the project itself were not mentioned. When we spoke to Ellsworth last fall, she was working on controller prototypes to address mouse/keyboard use from the couch. At the time she also happily noted the Valve corporate culture's acceptance of risk-taking and failure on the way to new product development. We've attempted to contact both parties and will report back if we hear any other details -- especially if they include any more fashion / Commodore 64 mashups.

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Source: Jeri Ellsworth (Twitter)