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.
The long-running distinction between dedicated game consoles and gaming PCs is disappearing with Valve’s announcement of its own operating system, SteamOS. The hardware is changing too, with next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony offering much more than the ability to play disc-based games, not to mention both being built on PC architecture (x86). And PC gaming has never been more friendly in the living room, between Steam’s Big Picture Mode and solid gamepad support for many games.
With one of Valve’s other announcements last week, Steam Machines finally put a name to the living room PC gaming initiative we’ve long heard about (what the press dubbed “Steambox“). Though we heard about Xi3’s Piston back at CES, and we knew about the company’s financial ties to Valve, it was unclear how tied its little modular gaming PC was to the initiative. Now, however, it’s more clear than ever: Xi3’s release date press release repeatedly describes the Piston as “the Piston Console,” meant to push up against the big three game console manufacturers. Sure, it costs $1,000 (and up), but it promises to handle modern PC games with aplomb. And it’s a tiny little box!
We caught up with Xi3 this week for a second look at the Piston game “console” — a custom version, for the game Loadout — and its first-party wireless controller. We also got a chance to actually play some games on the little box: the first time anyone outside of the company did as much, we’re told. Head past the break for our impressions.%Gallery-slideshow99844%
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD
When the Xi3 Piston modular PC / game console ships this November, it’ll ship like most PCs do: without a gamepad. Sadly, the in-house controller from Piston will be sold separately for a separate, undisclosed price. “There will be a future announcement about our plans for controllers,” was the most that chief marketing officer David Politis would share during a brief interview this morning. We managed to snap the pic you see above before the controller was whisked away; Politis and co. refused any closer snaps, not to mention a opportunity to go hands-on.
The PC-cum-game-console will launch with “some version” of Windows (the console we saw here was running Windows 7), rather than SteamOS. The only look we’ve had at Xi3’s GUI was brief, during SXSW’s gaming expo. And Politis called that brief glimpse “presentation-ware.” He said we’ll see it running “before we officially ship” in video form at the very least, and it’ll run as a Windows-based program on the shipping box. He did speak to how it will work, though. “It’ll be customizable … when [the Piston] is ready to run, you’ll be in our GUI. You won’t be in an OS per se,” Politis told Engadget. “It’s connected to the net, so you should be able to access any type of content you already have ownership of or licensing rights to from inside of the GUI. And you’re gonna be able to do that. You can start thinking through, ‘What do I already own or have license rights to that I can access through the internet?’ These are ticking off the different types of things that you and your readers own or have access to.” When we specifically noted Amazon, Netflix and Hulu, as well as gaming services like Steam and UPlay, Politis confirmed our (obvious) guesses.
Update: Xi3 told us that the custom GUI will ship with the console in November. Please excuse the confusion!
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD
We have been hearing many rumors about Valve’s Half-Life 3 game for a while now, with some gamers vehemently believing that Valve was leaving them clues about the game in other games, and this is despite Valve having denied Half-Life 3 rumors. In any case the status of the game remains a complete mystery, but here’s something that should get fans pretty excited: Valve has filed for a trademark for Half-Life 3. The trademark filing was done in Europe at the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, essentially Europe’s trademark and designs registry.
According to the filing, the Half-Life 3 trademark is owned by Valve but was filed on behalf of the company by Casalonga & Associes, a patent and trademark firm, with the trademark covering “computer game software”, “downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices”, and other goods and services. The trademark was filed on the 29th of September but as it stands, there is no equivalent filing in the USPTO. While this definitely looks promising, the alternative is that it does not necessarily mean that the game is in the works, but rather it could mean that Valve is trying to protect its Half-Life franchise from being used by someone else.
Either way hopefully Valve will have an official statement on the matter soon, but what do you guys think? Are you excited?
Half-Life 3 Trademark Filed In Europe original content from Ubergizmo. 
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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.
Filed under: Desktops, Misc, Gaming, Peripherals, HD
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
We’ve only known about the Steam Controller for 24 hours, but it turns out a variety of developers already got a chance to put the controller to use ahead of the lucky 300 beta participants later this year. The devs we spoke with didn’t use the final format of the controller, but the non-touchscreen beta form seen above: four large buttons stand out in place of the clickable touchscreen panel (planned for the final version of Steam Controller). It’s the version that will ship to those aforementioned 300 beta participants later this year, and it’s the version that Valve is showing game developers ahead of anyone else. Follow us beyond the break and find out what they had to say.%Gallery-slideshow99391%
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Peripherals, HD
Earlier this week Valve teased the free, gaming-oriented and Linux-based SteamOS and the PC-console hybrid Steam Machine. It soon completed the establishment of the fundamentals of its living room invasion by unveiling the Steam Controller. As with the Steam Machine, the controller is Valve’s attempt at bringing the best of PC and console gaming together.
The Steam Controller doesn’t seem to have biometrics or gaze tracking capabilities – two features that Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has cited as desirable input options – but one look at it and you can see that it’s still quite different from most gamepads. For starters, instead of a d-pad or analog joysticks, the controller has two high-resolution trackpads. Valve added “super-precise haptic feedback” to trackpads in the form of weighted electro-magnets. The feedback will be used not only to add tactility to the trackpads, they can also be used to provide other in-game cues and can even function as speakers. How about that?
Chris Remo of developer Double Fine claims he was able to test a prototype of the controller a few months ago and said “…the cursor pads worked amazingly well.” When asked if the haptic feedback helps, Remo said, “Yes, it makes it feel like you’re actually operating a real physically mechanical device, not just a touchscreen.”
Perhaps Remo was actually referring to the trackpads in the second statement that I quoted, but the controller does have a high-resolution touchscreen. It’s the small square at the center of the controller. When you touch the screen, an overlay of the touchscreen’s display appears on your TV or monitor, so you won’t have to look down at the controller while playing. Makes you wonder why they even made it a screen right? Then again, it could be used to display data that should be kept hidden from other players. Take that Lambert!
Aside from its touch-friendly input options, the controller also has good old buttons. There are a total of 13 standard buttons – four face buttons at the corners of the touchscreen, three narrow rectangles below the touchscreen, four shoulder buttons and two rear buttons – but because the two trackpads and the touchscreen are also clickable, you have a total of 16 buttons. The image below shows a sample key binding setup for Portal 2. Note that the touchscreen is divided into four buttons in the setup.
What makes this controller extra special in my opinion is that it has a “legacy mode” that fools your Steam Machine or your desktop computer into thinking that the controller is a keyboard and mouse. This makes it compatible with all Steam games, which is why the diagram above indicates the mapped keyboard and mouse buttons and not just the functions. Finally, Valve promises that the controller will be hackable, and that they will provide tools to help people mod the controller.
If you’re interested in owning or building a Steam Machine but don’t want to use the Steam Controller, don’t worry. Valve says you’ll still be able to stick with your trusted keyboard and mouse combo.
Valve will pick 300 lucky Steam members to participate in a closed beta. The beta testers will be given both a prototype Steam Machine and Steam Controller. The prototype controller that Valve will distribute to the testers will be wired and have no touchscreen, but the final version will be wireless and have the aforementioned touchscreen. Check out the Steam Machine FAQ page if you want to know how to apply for the closed beta.
Game creators who have tried Valve’s unusual new game controller tell Kotaku that the device holds a lot of promise. But make no mistake, they also say it feels pretty different from what we’re used to.
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Filed under: Misc
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