Jan 15
Looks like Valve’s wacky Steam Controller isn’t ever going to get the touchscreen it was originally
Posted in: Today's ChiliLooks like Valve’s wacky Steam Controller
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Jan 15
Today the folks responsible for Dell’s Alienware gaming hardware group have announced that they’ll be releasing their Steam Machine in September. This mysterious announcement comes after other hardware manufacturers making … Continue reading
Jan 14
If you’re planning on making your very own Steam Machine this upcoming inaugural release season and you’re a manufacturer looking to sell this device to the public, there’s one point … Continue reading
Jan 13
This past week at CES 2014 we had the opportunity to have a chat with iBuyPower’s Marketing Manager Ricky Lee on their first Steam Machine and the potential for Valve’s … Continue reading
Jan 13
At the moment you’ll find the folks behind the open-source project known as Limelight working on Android devices, attempting to make the PC streaming option for games through Valve’s Steam … Continue reading
Jan 12
For those of you who are rocking on to both AMD and Intel customers, it does not really matter as to which particular platform you are using, as we have now received word that SteamOS will be able to support both. The Steam Universe group was recently updated with word that SteamOS will now boast support for AMD and Intel GPUs, but there is a caveat to it of course. Optimus solutions, which are those with Nvidia discrete GPUs as well as Intel integrated graphics with dynamic switching, will still remain unsupported.
Valve’s Pierre-Loup A. Griffais shared, “This update upgrades the Catalyst driver in our repositories with a preview release. This build should fix the poor in-game performance and malfunctioning return to desktop functionality. Known problems include tearing and poor overlay performance in-game; please install them and post your feedback!”
SteamOS installs should update themselves by themselves, but the refreshed installation images will also be made available to download. Do bear in mind that SteamOS does have minimum requirements, where among them include a 64-bit processor, 4GB RAM, at least 500GB of hard drive space, and support for UEFI booting. One thing is for sure though, there is an onslaught of Steam machines coming our way.
SteamOS Supports AMD And Intel Graphics original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 09
Back in 2013, Valve sent out some Steam Machines to a lucky few beta testers, and recently at CES 2014, the company unveiled a whole host of Steam Machines that are being built by 13 different companies, giving gamers a wide variety of options to choose from. However the question remains, why doesn’t Valve just build their own Steam Machine? After all wouldn’t it be much easier for Valve to control the entire process from start to end? We have seen this method succeed with Apple where both hardware and software are controlled all the way through, so why not attempt to replicate Apple’s success? As it turns out, Valve revealed it was never the end goal to make their own machines, but rather to provide the groundwork and platform and let other companies take over.
Considering that Valve is primarily a software company, it certainly makes sense for them to license out the production of Steam Machines to companies who have already established themselves in the hardware manufacturing side of things, similar to how Google licenses out Android to companies such as HTC and Samsung who already have production plants and machinery all set up and ready to go. However Valve plans to be more hands-on in the production of Steam Machines, rather than just sitting back and raking in the cash. They admit that the success of the Steam Machines ultimately benefits Valve and the Steam platform as well and that it is in their best interest to ensure a certain level of quality in them.
Will Valve eventually make their own hardware? That’s hard to say and while Valve admits that this isn’t the goal at the moment, we have seen in the past how companies like Microsoft have shocked their OEM partners by creating and manufacturing their own hardware in the form of the Surface tablet. We guess we will just have to wait and find out.
Valve Explains Why They Won’t Be Making Their Own Steam Machines original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 09
There are some games which play better with a console controller, and there are games that are impossible to play without a keyboard and mouse setup, but it hasn’t stopped developers from trying. Now as you might have heard, Valve has recently unveiled a host of Steam Machines at CES 2014 where there will be as many as 13 different versions to choose from, and all of which will come bundled with the Steam Controller which is admittedly rather uniquely shaped. Will all games be compatible with the Steam Controller? Well perhaps not and Valve’s Dota 2 is probably not one of them. Speaking to Polygon at CES, Valve engineer Jeff Bellinghausen stated that games such as Dota 2 required a fair amount of keyboard input, making it a pretty complicated process to try and incorporate those inputs into the Steam Controller.
However he also admits that being able to play games like Dota 2 on the couch and on a large screen display, like a television, would be a really neat opportunity. Despite new API support, Bellinghausen does not believe it will be possible to full replicate the keyboard and mouse experience on the controller, but believe that they are 90% of the way there. “What we’re trying to do is find a way to get close to that performance, but [from] your couch. That’s the goal, to get close to that performance level.” Given that Steam is a platform of PC games, it is natural that not all games were designed for controller support in mind, but will Valve be able to pull this off? We guess we will just have to wait and see.
Valve Aims To Have Games Like Dota 2 Playable With The Steam Controller original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 09
Virtual Reality can be great
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Jan 07
13 Steam Boxes, Ranked
Posted in: Today's Chili
Last night, Valve announced and showed off a collection of 13 different third-party Steam Boxes at its CES event. What Valve didn’t do was rank them for you. We’ve taken the liberty of handling that, based on criteria that’s almost entirely arbitrary.
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