Return of the Steam Box!

[melmer]

20 mins then,

If it is a steam box do you think we'll get dates and prices and links to amazon preorder pages...? Not likely. Would be nice though

I want my sexy steam box running half life 3 trailer already!

[Lu]

I'm calling it now that they'll take the same open approach with a potential box, something that's essentially a PC, upgradable and everything. A standard that any interested HW manufacturer can make use of.

 

5 Minutes! 

[elmuerte]

I think it will be cylinder shaped and called: Steampipe

[youmeyou]

I think it will be a perpetual motion machine designed to end world hunger. Calling it.

[Nappi]

I think it will be a perpetual motion machine designed to end world hunger. Calling it.

 

But we want HL3.

[elmuerte]

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/

[mikemariano]

"Make 10 Steam friends"

 

Well, I'm out.  I have only one friend in the whole steam world.

[youmeyou]

Dota 2 peripheral?! A digital lord's gauntlet. 

 

If you want. But Steam and SteamOS work well with gamepads, too. Stay tuned, though - we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input.

[feelthedarkness]

Steam Box is real! Gauntlet thrown on 4th console! 

[Nappi]

Dota 2 peripheral?! A digital lord's gauntlet. 

 

Steam Power Glove™

[melmer]

So a controller on Friday then :-/ it's all a bit predictable and boring

Who's signed up for the beta?

[tegan]

[feelthedarkness]

I would have gone with Steam Engine, which is two puns for one.

[Thrik]

It's predictable but these were clearly designated as Steam announcements, so I'm not really sure I expected anything other than 'software, hardware , peripheral' which is clearly the case. Anyone expecting HL3 or something is clearly nuts considering all evidence so far is it's not even out of pre-production.

[melmer]

I know, I'm just being impatient entitled 2013 man

So what will this controller be? Some bog standard game pad or some crazy new twist

What if the controller has a touchpad much like the PS4? That'll royally fuck over Microsoft

[Twig]

I have to say I'm kind of excited about the prospect of a gamepad that has a decent d-pad so I hope this one has a decent d-pad. Both 360 and PS3 controllers have shit d-pads. 360's is, of course, a million times shittier, but that just means PS3's is a million times less shitty.

 

Also I'm a little sad that it's obviously not going to be a software announcement on Friday. Valve please make more games.

[Lu]

Valve has been talking about measuring galvanic skin response and heartbeat stuff since forever. So my guess would be something like that. I don't expect any game announcements either, but if they are announcing any game it'd probably be Left 4 Dead 3, since it'd be such a perfect fit for the aforementioned tech.

[melmer]

The megadrive six button dpad with its matt finish was a small slice of directional heaven

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Sega-Mega-Drive-controllers.jpg/800px-Sega-Mega-Drive-controllers.jpg

[Gormongous]

This is pretty cool on the face of it, but I really hope that Valve is more militant on the defense of their hardware standard than, say, Intel was with the ultrabook. That was supposed to save the Windows laptop, but everyone ended up trying to exploit the standard's prestige while making them on the cheap.

[Badfinger]

I knew, I'm just being impatient entitled 2013 man

So what will this controller be? Some bog standard game pad or some crazy new twist

What if the controller has a touchpad much like the PS4? That'll royally fuck over Microsoft

 

Vitality Sensor.

[Dewar]

I have to say I'm kind of excited about the prospect of a gamepad that has a decent d-pad so I hope this one has a decent d-pad. Both 360 and PS3 controllers have shit d-pads. 360's is, of course, a million times shittier, but that just means PS3's is a million times less shitty.

 

Also I'm a little sad that it's obviously not going to be a software announcement on Friday. Valve please make more games.

 

The D-pad on the X1 controller is much nicer. Hopefully it will be easy to get the new controllers hooked up to the PC.

 

Will beta testers be allowed to share info about their experience and post pictures and opinions online?

Yes, that really is the whole point. The input from testers should come in many forms: bug reports, forum posts, concept art, 3D prints, haikus, and also very publicly stated opinions.

 

This made me feel a lot better about the whole process. I generally turn down closed betas for stuff like this just because I hang out on enough video game forums to not want to have to worry about slipping out protected info.

[Lu]

I feel like the announcements this week are way more exciting for developers than for gamers, at the moment. This is exactly the future of gaming hardware that got me so super excited a year ago. I really like where this is headed!

[mikemariano]

I hate that this is still all vaporware.  If they had any significant partners, they would have said so.  By announcing a 2014 launch they also are explicitly not competing with the Sony and Microsoft launches.

 

Prior to the Valve layoffs, they made it clear to Jeri Ellsworth that the company was not at all interested in having a machinist on staff.  They wanted tinkerers, but not practical problem solvers.  I'm worried that the real beta testers will be their Steam Box partners.

 

But hey, they gamified their beta signup.  Classic Valve!

[JonCole]

I can't wait to see where the peripheral falls between Xbox 360 controller and... well, Xbox 360 controller. Every "new" console including the Ouya and OnLive Microconsole completely and blatantly imitate the 360 controller. And since you probably just want to support Xinput anyways, it'll just be a 360 controller behind the scenes if I had to guess (unless Valve is releasing a new controller standard for PC? I dunno, that'd be dumb)

[brkl]

I wonder how they are planning to get around the Horsebag patent. Probably just some small technical change that allows them to do basically the same thing.