Valve working on "Steam Box" console?

[fishdbaz]

http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/2/2840932/exclusive-valve-steam-box-gaming-console

"Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GPU."

"[...]will also allow for rival gaming services (like EA's Origin) to be loaded up."

Neat if true.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

If those are the specs, that would be better than the PS4/Xbox 720/Wii U combined.

 

[Vegeta897]

I've got a Valve Box it's called my PC.

 

[Bakurei]

Ummm... That seems like a regular PC branded by Valve. Like that Razer laptop.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

What I don't get is why they would do this after all those hardware surveys and stuff. They have the intel on what their customers are capable of.

 

[ríomhaire]

Maybe I should hold off on buying a controller for the moment

Shit looks neat.

 

[MFL]

Half Life 3 as launch title.

 

[StardogChampion]

Maybe I should hold off on buying a controller for the moment

http://i.imgur.com/HGk7j.png

Shit looks neat.

Reminds me of this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiGOuZ5mYUg

I hope this ends up being cheap, even if they have to subsidise it with the billions they make from Steam...

 

[Krynn72]

What I don't get is why they would do this after all those hardware surveys and stuff.

Uh, really? Yeah, they know what their customers are cabable of, so they want to sell them better stuff. Plus it will make PC games easier to develop for if a large percentage of gamers have the exact same system configuration. I suspect that is the primary goal of this (besides financial profit of course).

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I'm going to stick my neck out and call bullshit on this one. It just seems like someone has cherry-picked quotes and put them together to make a fantasy.

 

[ríomhaire]

I'm going to stick my neck out and call bullshit on this one. It just seems like someone has cherry-picked quotes and put them together to make a fantasy.

This makes sense, but I don't think it's too much a crazy idea to be outside the realm of stuff Valve would be interested or capable of doing. Just bundling a controller with the Big Picture mode seems more likely (because it's simpler) but this news didn't make me do a double-take either.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

I agree with Rhymes and Pi Pi. A controller maybe triangulating between the PC and tv would be pretty cool. Actually I just wanted to say triangulate.

 

[Dog--]

I'd rather stick with my PC.

Unless this thing comes at an amazing price then MAYBE I'll buy it, but still most likely not.

 

[Emporius]

Maybe I should hold off on buying a controller for the moment

Shit looks neat.

Is that a trackball in the left thumbstick socket?

 

[ríomhaire]

Yep. It's even specifically called a trackball in the patent application.

 

[Top Secret]

Valve hired a bunch of Linux people a while back, no?

My guess is this box will have a highly customized Linux distro on it. The choice of an nVidia card supports my hypothesis because nVidia is much better about drivers for linux than AMD is.

Of course, my drug and alcohol intake has been much higher than usual.

 

[Paulaner]

I've got a Valve Box it's called my PC.

^ This

 

[Schru]

It might not be necessarily meant for those who are comfortable with PCs.

 

[MultiVaC]

Valve hired a bunch of Linux people a while back, no?

My guess is this box will have a highly customized Linux distro on it. The choice of an nVidia card supports my hypothesis because nVidia is much better about drivers for linux than AMD is.

Of course, my drug and alcohol intake has been much higher than usual.

I'm not an expert or anything, but wouldn't this be be a major problem for the huge proportion of games that are on Steam right now that rely heavily on DirectX?

 

[DEATHMASTER]

It might not be necessarily meant for those who are comfortable with PCs.

I could see them capitalizing on the console peasant market with something like this. But with the description given, it'd still be expensive as ****.

 

[Higlac]

I'm not an expert or anything, but wouldn't this be be a major problem for the huge proportion of games that are on Steam right now that rely heavily on DirectX?

Want me to take pictures of skyrim working on linux?


Editing to sound less like an ass.

Actually wine works rather well, and I'm sure that Valve will be able to sort things out that don't already work.

That or they're making Steam for Linux.

 

[Stigmata]

The more I think about this the more genius it seems. I can see them selling Steamboxes at or even slightly below production cost simply as a way of growing the Steam brand, and making their profit from Steambox users buying Steam games. If each one came with Win7, Steam, and drivers preinstalled, they'd undercut traditional PC manufacturers like Dell or Gateway while also providing a hardware/software experience on par with Apple and Alienware. All the openness of the PC with the low cost of consoles and the community features of Steam. I suspect they might need to worry about antitrust lawsuits, but that could be avoided by offering OSX variants and putting a folder of shortcuts to competing download services on the desktop.