Steambox

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. 😛

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. 😛

Beware of unofficial steam boxes.

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There is one being made called the Xi3 Piston, starting at a low price of $1,000 or $1,750. Which come equipped with 8GB of RAM, a 3.2 Ghz Quad Core processor.

Not a pretty price. Hell even a $600 gaming laptop has better equipment. :evil: Fuck, people buy consoles because they’re cheap, No sense in turning them off at the price tag.

I hope people don’t confuse these unofficial ones with Valve’s Steambox.

Microsoft doesn’t see Valve as competition for XBox

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http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/5/406695 … competitor

Valve is preparing to enter the console market with its “Steam Box” gaming hardware, but Microsoft doesn’t consider it as a competitor just yet. Speaking at Microsoft’s TechForum this week, Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business, fielded questions about the strategy for Xbox and its competition. Asked about viewing Valve as a competitor, Mattrick simply said “no” before noting Valve is “doing some innovative stuff” and creating some great experiences. “The scale of products and things that are being brought to market are probably a little bit richer when I look at Sony, Nintendo, Apple, and Google,” noted Mattrick.

You know. A long time ago Gabe went back to microsoft to see if they would be interested in partnering up with Valve, only to get shot down. It’s nice to see they still haven’t learned anything.