Steam Hardware Plans?

A post on The Verge follows up on recent comments by Valve's Gabe Newell about the possibility of Steam hardware by saying this is exactly what Valve is working on, and a reveal may come as early as next week at San Francisco's Game Developer's Conference (thanks Kotaku).

The article cites unnamed "sources" who say Valve is working with various hardware vendors on a "Steam Box," which sounds more exotic than "Windows PC," which is what this seems like, as word is: "Apparently meetings were held during CES to demo a hand-built version of the device to potential partners. We're told that the basic specs of the Steam Box include a Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GPU. The devices will be able to run any standard PC titles, and will also allow for rival gaming services (like EA's Origin) to be loaded up." They note a couple of possibilities that may make this more distinctive than a hardware specification, speculating it may include a proprietary controller, a biometric feedback device, and could take better advantage of Steam's "big picture mode."

This all still speculation at this point, as Valve has not responded to their request for comment.
View : : :
115.
 
Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
Mar 4, 2012, 20:32
Dev
Re: Steam Hardware Plans? Mar 4, 2012, 20:32
Mar 4, 2012, 20:32
Dev
 
Jerykk wrote on Mar 4, 2012, 20:05:
Lots of people own and use PC's with ZERO knowledge and understanding of hardware, and valve can make a lot of stuff happen automatically under the hood.

But how many of those people are PC gamers? You don't really need a lot of tech knowledge in order to check your e-mail or browse the web. Being a PC gamer, on the other hand, requires significantly more tech savvy.

Even if Valve hides all the OS stuff, you still have the in-game stuff to deal with. How many console gamers know what V-Sync is? Or mouse smoothing? Or DX11? Or triple buffering? Or anisotropic filtering? Or antialiasing? The average console gamer doesn't know or care about any of these things. They just want to sit on their couch and play games. Sure, players can skip all the video and control configuration and just jump into the game, but that typically results in an inferior experience because default settings are usually crap. And if someone doesn't care about having an inferior experience, they'll just stick with consoles.
With a steam box, valve presumably would preconfigure many of the games that come preloaded on the box. Also, they could setup something to either pre-configure a game when it comes out, or a steam overlay that would pop up on the config part and suggest appropriate settings (I think I mentioned that kinda thing already in this thread). After all, valve already has a steam hardware survey system setup to find out what hardware is in a system. I could see companies willing to interface configuration with steamworks in new games if it would get them more sales, and valve does most of the work.
Date
Subject
Author
1.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
3.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
2.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
6.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
4.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
8.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
9.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
10.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
12.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
5.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
7.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
17.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
31.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
22.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
23.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
27.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
36.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
43.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
60.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
75.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
77.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
33.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
34.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
35.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
37.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
38.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
39.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
41.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
40.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
42.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
      removed
45.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
48.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
49.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
         Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
50.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
          Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
56.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
53.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
54.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
64.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
71.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
         Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
79.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
          Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
81.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
           Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
82.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
            Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
83.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
             Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
84.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
           Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
70.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
47.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
      removed
72.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
73.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
74.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
         Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
80.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
44.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
46.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
51.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
55.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
57.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
      removed
58.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
61.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
65.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
66.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
         Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
68.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
          Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
69.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
           Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
11.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
18.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
13.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
14.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
15.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
16.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
19.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
20.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
21.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
24.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
25.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
26.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
28.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
29.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
30.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
32.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
52.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
59.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
62.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
63.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
78.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
86.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
87.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
93.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
94.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
96.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
98.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
99.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
107.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
109.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
111.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
101.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
102.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
106.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
118.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
67.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
76.
Mar 3, 2012Mar 3 2012
85.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
89.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
103.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
104.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
105.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
108.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
110.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
112.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
113.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
 115.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
        Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
116.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
117.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
120.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
         Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
121.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
          Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
124.
Mar 5, 2012Mar 5 2012
          Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
122.
Mar 5, 2012Mar 5 2012
123.
Mar 5, 2012Mar 5 2012
         Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
125.
Mar 5, 2012Mar 5 2012
          Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
139.
Mar 14, 2012Mar 14 2012
           Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
130.
Mar 6, 2012Mar 6 2012
         Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
131.
Mar 7, 2012Mar 7 2012
          Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
133.
Mar 7, 2012Mar 7 2012
           Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
134.
Mar 7, 2012Mar 7 2012
            Re: Steam Hardware Plans?
114.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
88.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
90.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
91.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
92.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
100.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
97.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
119.
Mar 4, 2012Mar 4 2012
126.
Mar 5, 2012Mar 5 2012
127.
Mar 5, 2012Mar 5 2012
128.
Mar 5, 2012Mar 5 2012
129.
Mar 5, 2012Mar 5 2012
132.
Mar 7, 2012Mar 7 2012
135.
Mar 8, 2012Mar 8 2012
137.
Mar 8, 2012Mar 8 2012
136.
Mar 8, 2012Mar 8 2012
138.
Mar 8, 2012Mar 8 2012