Even with reduced prices you're not going to get the price of a decent spec PC down to a really low price unless a company is footing the bill and selling at a loss. That's not something Valve are going to be doing. At best they might, and I stress might, be able to put together a PC that's marginally cheaper than people like Dell but I doubt it, especially if it's designed for gamers and therefore containing decent parts.
But even that would be a huge success. If average joe gamer can buy a gaming PC with good components in it, rather than some crappy Dell PC with obsolete crap in it, that would be great. And if it's cheaper too, it could be huge. And like I said the difference is that Valve could actually sell a range of cool keyboards, gamepads, mice, and whatever else they can come up with, maybe with a steam OS too, and everything you play on it can be bought from steam, including games made by valve and marketed especially for it. In other words, it's profit every step of the way.
Valve hates competition, without Steam Valve would actually need to work and release games, instead of sucking revenue from all the developers around the word. So yes, bring it on Windows8 , let's see some competition in the field !
Dell do make decent gaming pcs The Alienware brand is not that overpriced anymore. Valve are not gonna release super powered hardware for £350 to rival the next ps4 Xbox just not going to happen. As for windows 8 I won't be installing it and neither will anybody else I know. I'd install mac osx before id install windows 8.
My guess is that the steam 'console' will use linux as its main OS and have steam integrated into it. I also think there will be more than 1 console to choose from. My guess would be like different Stages 1,2,3, so steam can say if you want to play games stage 1 enough, for good looking games stage 2 or 3. Then I think you will be able to upgrade your console so like stage 1 is getting on a bit, but if you get the stage 1 v2 package it will be able to run the newer games. Quote rollo: 'Dell do make decent gaming pcs'
http://kotaku.com/5941793/valve-is-bringing-steam-to-your-tv-today-watch-out-consoles Valve present Steam TV - Turn you PC into a gaming console I guess their hardware will be a X-Box like controller.
My pc never has been in the living room and to be honest I don't see that changing. Big picture mode would be great for those games that suit a controller like GTAIV or Assassins Creed. But what about something like the new counter Strike where keyboard and mouse is still king. I'd love to be able to play those controller preferred games on my big tv via some sort of streaming. Now that would be something. This is certainly advantageous to some with their pc and tv in the one room however. That controller keyboard idea is excellent. Very simple and looks like a vast improvement on typical on screen keyboards for controllers. As they said in the interview however its a bit of an open ended plan so it will be interesting to see how things progress.
It looks very nice and very like XBL. But, like theshadow2001, my PC has never been in my media room and probably never will be. Having said all that, I have always been curious as to how Arma would look on my projector, so maybe it is time I built a proper media PC?
The problem with this system, is that using a controller will feel like a broken one. Keyboard/Mouse keys are all in press or not. Controllers have triggers and at least 1 analogue directional pad. Your trigger button won't work. As it will either press repeatedly a key as you lower it, or only trigger when you press it all down in full.. loosing accuracy, and response. Same for the analogue stick.
Controllers work just fine in games that support them. Most games that support a 360 controller are plug and play on Windows with full use of the triggers and joysticks as they work on consoles. Other controllers typically have drivers or software that make them emulate a 360 controller and work much the same. Given the amount of multiplatform games on the market today controller support on PC versions is basically standard.
Wrong. If the game doesn't support the XBox 360 controller (many PC games don't... DESPITE having an XBox 360 version of the game), or don't support a generic gaming controller (many PC games don't), then you have a problem with the emulator that Steam provides. I know this, because I have an XBox 360 controller for the PC, and I have used software that does exactly what Steam does with the controller, plus MUCH MUCH more, including creating macro keys, and keyboard combinations. This doesn't work well.
I have personally played multiple games with ease using a 360 controller, and PS3 controller using software to emulate a 360 controller. Assassin's Creed (and presumably the sequels), Dark Souls, Beathazard, Dirt 2 (and presumably 3) all off of the top of my head. I believe more games from my Steam library also work plug-and-play with 360 controllers but can't confirm personally such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Saints Row 3 (and possibly 2 as well), Borderlands, Portal 1 and 2 and a variety of others should all support it as well. I can only assume that the software you're using is interfering. There should be no need to use any additional software when using an Xbox 360 controller on Windows.
There is talk in the interwebs that Valve may be working on a VR headset to compete with the Oculus Rift. A headset like that could easily be an input method, where the user interface (screenshotted above) would be what you're looking at with the VR goggles, and then you just look left and right and up and down to aim it and stuff, and then just press a button to select it. The VFX1 in the 90's had a thing you hold in your hand with some buttons on it, so no doubt a modern one would have something similar. I really hope this kind of thing does happen because innovation is pretty slow in terms of this out of the box thinking type stuff. All hardware enthusiasts really talk about these days is graphics cards, cpu's, and SSD's.
Had no issue using a ps3 or Xbox 360 controller on many games that I've played from steam or even games that were not on steam. Any game that's seen a console release will work with a controller pretty much, final fantasy 7 rerelease works fine for example. H.A.W.X 1 and 2 flight sims work fine as well. First person shooters even work if not that we'll.( you lose accuracy)
Personally I can't wait to try out the Big Picture mode; I've played Steam games through my TV on a 360 controller before now, and they usually work really well. The part that doesn't work so well is controlling the Steam UI, which used to be impossible without a mouse and/or keyboard. FWIW I've never had any issues playing PC games with an Xbox 360 (wired or wireless) controller at all. Never had to use Xpadder or any other kind of emulator either; if the game supports game pads, then they can see the 360 controller just fine, and all the analogue axes - including triggers - work just fine. If the game doesn't support game pads, then you're pretty much SoL - forcing a game that doesn't support a joypad to work with a joypad by means of a keyboard emulator is a nasty horrible kludge. And regarding the original topic of this thread, if Valve aren't working on some sort of box-that-goes-under-the-TV, then why make all the effort in improving Linux performance? Surely it's not just to release their own "Steam OS" - bear in mind that their Linux efforts so far have concerned the Source engine, so it doesn't make much sense to put so much effort into something that will ultimately limit you (the limiting factor being that Linux doesn't support DirectX and lots of Steam games use DirectX). Of course you could level the same argument at a "Valvebox", but then you're talking about releasing your own consumer electronics product; that opens up an awful lot of doors for more cash to flow in through. It doesn't have to have the latest and greatest graphics to look good or compete with current (or next gen) consoles and, if we're talking about Linux here, it doesn't even have to have an x86 processor. Once you get away from x86, hardware cost doesn't need to be such an issue; look what the Raspberry Pi can do with ~£25, and they still make profit on each unit. Granted that uses an older ARM core and only OpenGL ES graphics, but who's to say that there isn't some version of Tegra on the way which supports full-fat OpenGL? Someone else already mentioned it, but all they need to do in order to make it a success is to release Half-Life 3 only on Valve hardware . I doubt that's something that they'd ever do though... That would make me a very angry bunny indeed.
