5 Reasons Why Valve Steam Machines Won’t Disrupt Industry


There’s plenty of hype and excitement over the coming of the Steam Machine—a Linux-powered gaming PC designed for big-screen (formerly known as Steam Box.) The Valve-spearheaded project looks to be...

5 Reasons Why Valve Steam Machines Won’t Disrupt Industry


There’s plenty of hype and excitement over the coming of the Steam Machine—a Linux-powered gaming PC designed for big-screen (formerly known as Steam Box.) The Valve-spearheaded project looks to be...

NVIDIA’s Shield Console Launching at June 27 with $50 Discount


Like Microsoft, NVIDIA too loves to get some feedback from its user base. Thus everything about its Shield Console has been in accordance with the tastes and preferences of hundreds of gamers who...
    


Steam Big Picture Mode Leaves Beta


If you're a fan of digital download video games, you may have used Steam in the past to download games on your PC. Steam has had an interesting mode specifically designed to allow PC gamers to play a...

Valve’s first hardware beta starting by next year, wearable computing still far off

Valve Software's hardware division is still in its infancy. Despite having existed for over a year, recruitment is still its primary concern -- "prototyping is almost secondary," longtime inventor/hacker/now Valve employee Jeri Ellsworth told us in an interview this week. As the team ramps up, production becomes more and more prolific, of course; Ellsworth lights up when she talks about the work her team is doing now. She gets verbose when asked about corporate culture at Valve, about how she's never worked at a company where risk and failure are so acceptable -- even encouraged. She's visibly excited about the prototypes she's creating at Valve's new prototyping facility, but manages to contain herself enough to not let slip exactly what her and her team are working on.

When asked what the team's immediate goals are, she obliquely states, "To make Steam games more fun to play in your living room." That's the team's one-year goal, at least. The challenge is making games that require a mouse and keyboard palatable to people who are used to a controller, or to people who just don't want to migrate PC controls to the comfort of their living room. Working in tandem with Steam's newly beta'd "Big Picture Mode," Ellsworth's team is creating a hardware solution to the control barriers found in many Steam games. She wouldn't give any hints as to what that solution is exactly, but she left no options off the table -- from Phantom Lapboard-esque solutions to hybrid controllers.

Regardless, it sounds like gamers will have a chance to give feedback on those designs, as Valve's hardware team is planning a beta for its various products. Ellsworth is hoping to have one for the team's first product in the coming year -- we'll of course know much more about the product by then, she says. Internal beta tests are already underway, and a variety of the team's prototypes are available in the office for other Valve employees to tool around with. The next step is getting prototypes into gamers hands -- she says Valve already has a production line for short runs, making a beta possible -- and iterating on design before launch. As for how the beta will be handled, she posits it'll be tied to Steam in some way, but no logistics are anywhere near nailed down.

Continue reading Valve's first hardware beta starting by next year, wearable computing still far off

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Valve's first hardware beta starting by next year, wearable computing still far off originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steam Big Picture beta hands-on

Steam Big Picture beta hands-on

Been keeping up with Steam's Big Picture interface? Then you probably know it's already in beta. The 10-foot UI hopes to help Valve's content distribution portal get comfortable in front of your couch, offering gamers access to their favorite PC titles from a gamepad-friendly interface. We piped the beta out to our own living room to take a look, and weren't surprised to find a sleek attractive UI with a heap of polish. That said, we were glad we didn't leave our mouse and keyboard at the office.

Continue reading Steam Big Picture beta hands-on

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Steam Big Picture beta hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve launching Steam Big Picture Mode later today, look at its snappy UI right now (update: it’s live!)

As rumored, Valve's bringing its digital distribution gaming portal to televisions today with Steam "Big Picture Mode." Kotaku confirms the news this morning that the TV-friendly version of Steam will launch "later today," alongside a slurry of screenshots and impressions. Beyond what we already know about the service -- it's the full Steam we already know and love, albeit with controller-based input -- a variety of new details abound. A built-in web browser, for one, and a new form of text input for controllers which seems to massively trump the usually QWERTY setup.

The entire store is apparently navigable via controller (though mouse and keyboard still work, if that's your kinda thing), and you can even prioritize games based on what's workable with a gamepad. Does this mean that the long-rumored "Steambox" is headed to living rooms soon? Not so fast, says Valve. "We really don't have a road map. And we think we're going to learn a tremendous amount through this first release." Big Picture Mode's beta is PC-only for now, but a Mac version is promised as coming "soon."

Update: Users can now opt-in to test the mode and download a beta version of Steam. Hit the second source link below to get started.

[Thanks, Yannick]

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Valve launching Steam Big Picture Mode later today, look at its snappy UI right now (update: it's live!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NYT: Steam’s Big Picture public beta begins Monday

NYT: Steam's Big Picture public beta begins on Monday

Can't wait to use Steam's forthcoming Big Picture mode to game from the comfort of your couch? Well, you're in luck, because it might be ready for a test drive tomorrow. According to The New York Times, the living room-friendly user interface is getting the public beta treatment starting Monday. Gabe Newell let loose last month that both the TV-geared view and Steam for Linux betas would be "out there fairly quickly," but there's still no word on when the Ubuntu-bound preview will land. In the meantime, we'll keep busy by gawking at Valve's augmented reality headset, which the NYT got a glimpse of during a trip to the firm's headquarters, at the source link below.

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NYT: Steam's Big Picture public beta begins Monday originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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