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The Valve Thread

NecroMorrius

By NecroMorrius
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NecroMorrius

NecroMorrius

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I know it's much maligned, but where would something like the Wii controller fit into it all? I guess Nintendo would just have release it as an optional extra and have a default button and stick control system.

That's actually a good route for Nintendo. Make a legit handheld that beams to the TV and then keep selling wacky new peripherals so you can play it in the living room. Then they can sell handheld games and "living room" games on the same storefront. They could be all NIntendo about it and refuse to let you download the game until you plug in the required peripheral.

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Mr. Gerbik

Mr. Gerbik

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Steam Machines - Prototype Details

As we talked about last week, the Steam Machines available for sale next year will be made by a variety of companies. Some of those companies will be capable of meeting the demands of lots of Steam users very quickly, some will be more specialized and lower volume. The hardware specs of each of those machines will differ, in many cases substantially, from our prototype.

Valve didn't set out to create our own prototype hardware just for the sake of going it alone - we wanted to accomplish some specific design goals that in the past others weren't yet tackling. One of them was to combine high-end power with a living-room-friendly form factor. Another was to help us test living-room scenarios on a box that's as open as possible.

So for our own first prototype Steam Machine ( the one we're shipping to 300 Steam users ), we've chosen to build something special. The prototype machine is a high-end, high-performance box, built out of off-the-shelf PC parts. It is also fully upgradable, allowing any user to swap out the GPU, hard drive, CPU, even the motherboard if you really want to. Apart from the custom enclosure, anyone can go and build exactly the same machine by shopping for components and assembling it themselves. And we expect that at least a few people will do just that. (We'll also share the source CAD files for our enclosure, in case people want to replicate it as well.)

And to be clear, this design is not meant to serve the needs of all of the tens of millions of Steam users. It may, however, be the kind of machine that a significant percentage of Steam users would actually want to purchase - those who want plenty of performance in a high-end living room package. Many others would opt for machines that have been more carefully designed to cost less, or to be tiny, or super quiet, and there will be Steam Machines that fit those descriptions.

And the specs you've all been waiting to hear:

Here are the specifications for Valve's 300 prototypes. The 300 prototype units will ship with the following components:

GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660

CPU: some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3

RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU)

Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD

Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold

Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

IF YOU HAVEN'T APPLIED FOR THE BETA DO SO NOW VALVE IS GIVING AWAY LAYTE-LIKE PC'S FOR FREE :lol: (yeah, yeah I know Layte has two)

We aren't quite ready to post a picture of our prototype - just because they're not finished enough. Before they ship we'll let you know what the prototype looks like. And we expect people to redesign the machine, too. Both from a technical perspective, deciding on different components, and from an industrial design perspective, changing the enclosure in interesting ways.

So high-powered SteamOS living room machines are nice, and fun to play with, and will make many Steam customers happy. But there are a lot of other Steam customers who already have perfectly great gaming hardware at home in the form of a powerful PC. The prototype we're talking about here is not meant to replace that. Many of those users would like to have a way to bridge the gap into the living room without giving up their existing hardware and without spending lots of money. We think that's a great goal, and we're working on ways to use our in-home streaming technology to accomplish it - we'll talk more about that in the future.

TL;DR:

-fully upgradeable

-omg Titan

-not meant to replace your precious existing high-end PC

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layten

layten

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Titan stock cooler is very good, much better than the usual crap you get on graphics cards. It doesn't need a big case at all as directly vents all the hot air outside the case. On my old x58 setup I was able to have the cards directly next to each other with only a few mm gap between them and it didn't cause any over heating issues.

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TehStu

TehStu

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So 3 tiers of performance, by the looks of it. See, Comrade?

 

I never said there wouldn't be three tiers. You have absolutely no idea what we were arguing about.

Give over. You said they wouldn't be defining a spec, that they hadn't said that. A few days later, they've obviously got 3 in mind. I can't fathom how you don't understand it.

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ah

ah

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But Steam has games.

And there's no license because it's an open platform, right? You just build your machine, put the free SteamOS on it, and sell it. Valve make their money from people having even more reasons to use Steam for their game purchases.

Oh, but then I'm not sure how the controller fits into that, though. Is it also open for others to just build their own?

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DocG

DocG

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Out of interest what sort of gaming PC could I buy for 350 quid?

Starting from scratch, the unavoidable boring basic stuff -- case, PSU, RAM, (arguably) Windows licence, controller, HDD -- is going to eat well over half of that budget before you can even look at CPUs or GPUs. Part of the economics of PC gaming is carrying as much as possible of that stuff forward through upgrades. Cases and PSUs rarely become obsolete and rarely fail, for example.
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DocG

DocG

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And there's no license because it's an open platform, right? You just build your machine, put the free SteamOS on it, and sell it. Valve make their money from people having even more reasons to use Steam for their game purchases.

Oh, but then I'm not sure how the controller fits into that, though. Is it also open for others to just build their own?

That's a good question. I'm guessing maybe yes, because the controller isn't (I suspect) about directly making money as such -- it's about giving Steam a unique selling point to differentiate it against competing platforms. And then Steam sales proposer and Valve makes money. It's analogous to how Android doesn't make money for Google, but instead ensures that Apple and Microsoft can't make their mobile platforms Google-hostile and thus push Google out of the entire handheld market. Hence why Google gives Android away for free.
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Mr. Gerbik

Mr. Gerbik

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And there's no license because it's an open platform, right? You just build your machine, put the free SteamOS on it, and sell it. Valve make their money from people having even more reasons to use Steam for their game purchases.

Oh, but then I'm not sure how the controller fits into that, though. Is it also open for others to just build their own?

The controller fits into that the exact same way the OS does - people having even more reasons to use Steam because now everybody who wants to game on their comfy couch and not whilst sitting at their desk behind a keyboard, can now do so thanks to both Steam OS and the controller. And not just games which can be played with a 360 controller, but also m+kb games.

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