This week gaming company Valve made public a new operating system based on their game collection and environment: SteamOS. As Steam continues to be a central part of the gaming community here in 2013, dominating the world of digital distribution of games the world over, SlashGear took the opportunity to speak with one of the […]
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
SteamOS is on the horizon – an operating system based in Linux made to run on a variety of devices called Steam Machines. The gaming company known as Valve suggests that their Steam Machines will become “a powerful new category of living-room hardware”, having been created by a wide variety of manufacturers and working with […]
Those wishing to get in on the SteamOS environment early will be glad to hear Valve announcing their next step in the process towards final release- Steam Machines. What was once code-named Steam Box is now Steam Machine, and the prototype is coming up quick. While Valve will be working with a wide variety of […]
Following the announcement of SteamOS, Valve just unveiled the long-anticipated Steam Box — sort of. Instead of releasing a Valve-branded Steam Box, the company will actually work with multiple manufacturers to release a series of Steam machines for your living room.
Yet, Valve also presented a specific prototype, a Steam machine designed by Valve. This particular machine is closer to what everyone expected. For now, only 300 copies will be produced and sent to lucky beta testers. The company doesn’t say whether those prototypes will eventually become the Steam Box, but it wouldn’t surprise anyone.
As for the Steam machines, Valve promises “an array of specifications, price, and performance.” It could be pretty similar to the Chromebook lineup. Customers will be presented with multiple performance tiers — it should make it easier to buy a traditional gaming computer. Hardware will be hackable and you will be able to install another operating system for example.
As a reminder, SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system for your living room. It is optimized for gaming, movies and music. While many games are not available on Linux, SteamOS allows you to stream your games from your Windows or Mac machines using your local network
Today’s announcement is very short and doesn’t say which OEM will actually build Steam machines. All we know is that they will ship in 2014. The Valve-branded prototype could come to beta testers earlier as the company will select beta testers on October 25th.
On Steam’s website, users can find a teaser page with three icons that represent three different announcements for the living room — SteamOS and the Steam machines were only the first two announcements. Valve hints at a new input method for the third one. On Friday, Valve should answer the last standing question — which game controller will ship with the Steam machines?
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.”
This week the gaming-centric company known as Valve has announced plans to release SteamOS, a living room-aimed operating system that will be free to download and free to license. This operating system is based on Linux architecture – similar to how Android is a Linux-based OS – and the company intends on expanding well beyond […]
Ben Heck’s Steam box will soon be a legitimate Steam Box. The avid PC gamer can build his Steam Box, the console gamer will be able to buy a Steam Box, everyone can have a Steam Box! That’s all in the near future – hopefully not in Valve Time – with the announcement of SteamOS, a free Linux-based operating system “designed for the TV and the living room.”
According to the teaser page, Valve has progressed far enough with SteamOS Valve to have “achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing”, and now they’re working on “audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level.” Valve also claims that developers are already working with the standalone operating system, with “hundreds of great games” already running natively on SteamOS. In the event that your favorite game doesn’t have a SteamOS version, Valve says you’ll be able to stream a game from a PC or Mac running the Steam client to the machine running SteamOS.
Valve also said that they’re working with media providers to tie in to Steam and SteamOS. Add in Big Picture mode, cloud syncing and the propensity of Steam to drop prices like it’s hot and you could have an all-conquering entertainment machine.
Can Valve finally bring about the rise of the PC-console hybrid? A machine with the idiotproof user interface of a console, but with the futureproof software and hardware options of the PC? Is Valve saving Half-Life 3 for the SteamOS? The bastards?
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Mentioned almost as a footnote in today’s release on their larger SteamOS headline, Valve has let it be known that they’re entering into deals for multimedia delivery as well. Speaking on music, TV, and movies specifically, Valve has suggested that both SteamOS and Steam – the software client you use on your Windows, Mac, or […]
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