Steam

Steam Music Beta open to all!

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Not only that, the desktop side of steam has it’s own music player. So that’s cool that they have more than just the big picture side. It worked fine for me while I used it in the closed beta, but I don’t really listen to music much while in big picture mode unless it’s specifically for music.

But yeah! The player for the desktop side is pretty nice. It even seems to work with my Logitech keyboard! I can pause, start, stop and skip with button presses.

Is that steam in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

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I saw this article about a portable steambox called a steamboy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM63RuEhgHU

This sounds interesting, although the specs do leave me asking a few questions. Like does it use SD cards? What kind of quad core processor will it use? And of course what are we looking at in terms of battery life?

Either way it’s a nifty idea, and if it takes off that would be great. Although the amount of space they give you (32 GB) doesn’t really give you much room for some titles unless you focus on smaller side scroller type games. Imagine playing something like skyrim. Although you could factor in the in home streaming bit, that could be very useful. Hell it’s been great sitting out in the living room with a controller streaming some Devil May Cry or anything else controller friendly. I can fool people into thinking I have a console. 😛

Streaming steam

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I got into the steam streaming beta. Been testing streaming between my desktop and laptop. So far it seems to be handling well between two windows OS’s with lag only on a couple games. I think the next test will be streaming windows games to my Linux side. See how well that handles. 😀

This will be very beneficial for people wanting to build their own htpc’s and also dedicated streaming systems to play games in the comfort of the living room.

Duke Nukem Forever was so horrible that Duke 3D got a multiplayer update

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Oh well. I’m sure it’ll make some people happy. I may even give it a shot at some point. But yes, Duke Nukem 3D Megatron Edition got an update on Steam yesterday that allows people to play multiplayer together.

Again, not a bad thing. But methinks 3D Realms reeeealy seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Microsoft admits to neglecting the PC gaming platform

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It’s been far beyond obvious for a quite some time that Microsoft hasn’t exactly had much interest in the PC Gaming market. Not when they have been trying to sell a console, and the failure of GFWL not only proves this but also this article where Microsoft basically wishes they could have done what Steam has accomplished to keep PC Gaming alive and well.

“Valve is right down the street from us,” Spencer noted. “They’ve done a great job of keeping the PC ecosystem strong at a time where I don’t mind saying that we could have been more focused on what was going on in PC gaming.”

He also goes on to say:

“We were probably too focused purely on console,” Spencer admitted. “With Steam, [Valve has] done an amazing job of building this thing that, in a lot of ways, we should have been building as well at Microsoft.”

It’s amazing to think of in retrospect. Considering that back in the 90’s Microsoft wanted Windows to be the future platform of gaming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gun4erVV8CM

My how times change.

This looks like it’ll be fun.

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I’m sure quite a few of you heard about the second steam announcement today.

In case you missed it here’s how you can (hopefully) participate in the beta.

THE HARDWARE BETA ELIGIBILITY QUEST:
Before October 25, log in to Steam and then visit your quest page to track your current status towards beta test eligibility
3. Make 10 Steam friends (if you haven’t already)
4. Create a public Steam Community profile (if you haven’t already)
5. Play a game using a gamepad in Big Picture mode

I’d say this is definitely worth signing up for. Especially for people interested in the hardware aspect or people who would like a more current gen gaming system. SIGN UP NAO DAMMIT!

Steam gets their own OS. Cool!

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All the fun stuff always happens when I’m at work. 😛 Apparently Steam announced today “SteamOS” their own Linux Operating System. Making it easier for people to create their own Steam based entertainment systems if they so choose to.

This is an excellent idea and Valve doesn’t really have anything to lose since this is a free Open Source platform that anyone could jump into. Unfortunately I don’t have any TV in the house to run Big Picture Mode, but that might change this winter. And when it does I’ll have to install it on my laptop along side my Win 7 install to test. 😛