Steam Steam OS (Downloadable now), Machines, Controller

It is still in beta so i guess a lot of those restriction will be worked on.

Some more details on the Steam Controller...
http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/8/5289314/valve-working-to-get-dota-2-playable-on-steam-controller

 

Great article on Steam Machines, SteamOS etc.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-11-valve-plays-the-long-game-again

This guy understands what Valve is trying to accomplish with SteamOS and the steamboxes.

 

Steam Controller ditches the touchscreen for better backwards compatibility.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/15/5312452/steam-controller-ditches-the-touchscreen-for-better-backwards

Not sure how i feel about this, was you looking forward to the touchscreen ?

 

So the controller is now basically a 'normal' controller, but instead of analogue sticks it has areolae. The touchscreen was interesting because it hasn't been done before, although the PS4's touchpad is the closest, and all together the controller offered something different. Now it just seems a bit meh, and Valve have backed out of a challenge.

 

I imagine it will reduce the production costs of the controller significantly. I think a better way to go would be to allow connectivity to a dedicated touch screen device like an iPad or Galaxy anyway.

 

Change in controller design:


http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/03/14/v...d-steam-controller-with-analog-button-arrays/

Looks pretty usable, and trading haptic feedback buttons for actual, physical buttons seems like a good idea. In a way, it's drifting back to classic controller design though (not that that's a bad thing per se).

 

Not directly related, but not worth starting its own thread for:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/half-life-3-finally-teased-source-filmmaker-code-report-1440549

Half-Life 3 confirmed.

 

I think they removed the touchscreen because they realised that no one looks at their controllers when playing, and therefore couldn't intrinsically know what would happen when they hit a button on it.

 

"Confirmed" is a bit of an exact word used, when this confirmation comes from someone finding the "hl3" named directories in some possibly 'left over during development' and certainly internal parts of filmmaker.

An alternative scenario is that the developers working on Filmmaker have a directory called "hl3_movies" that they use for playing with half life assets (IE Dog) and that the "3" aspect is just them being playful among themselves with the naming.

The original source has this to say:

and

So in other words...

Calm down dear.

 

Source: Steam Controller will be available in "October or November"
http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/11/source-steam-controller-will-be-available-in-october-or-november/

 

Valve delays Steam Controller to 2015
http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/27/5756152/valve-delays-steam-controller-to-2015