Gabe Newell Reveals More About Steam Boxes, New Input Devices

adeelarshad82 writes "Valve's presence at CES this year isn't to show off some new games, it's all about meeting with hardware manufacturers behind closed doors to talk about Steam Box. In an interview at CES which highlights Valve's plans for the console, Gabe Newell describes Steam Box as two projects. The first, codenamed Bigfoot, focuses on the hardware for use in the home with a TV. The second, codenamed Littlefoot, is investigating mobile gaming. Gabe goes on to discuss Valve plans on having three levels of Steam Box described as 'Good, Better, or Best' and expectations for the controller where the company wants something that's more high precision than anything else out there at the moment." The interview at the Verge is pretty extensive.

"Doomed to fail"....

[mark-t]

... is the universal prognostication from producers and technical directors where I work. I'd personally love to see a Linux console succeed, but I just don't know if this is gonna work. I'd heard that the consoles are going to be priced in the neighborhood of $500 or more, and I fear they may price themselves out of the market for all but people who were planning on getting the console anyways simply for the sake of owning one. As an even worse side effect, if their device does not succeed, it might even have the consequence of steering future people away from the idea of trying to use Linux as a viable gaming platform ever again.

Valve watching

[pr0nbot]

It's nice to watch a company in that phase of its existence where it's still essentially "good", i.e. doing interesting things in a better way, just ramping up, and morally fairly neutral. If they get anywhere they'll inevitably metamorphose into rapacious consumer-o-phobes, but for the moment I wish them godspeed.

Steam Box Server

[ApharmdB]

From the Verge article: "For example, Valve intends to make Steam Box a server, which can serve games on multiple TVs around the home simultaneously. So you could purchase a single Steam Box and use it with multiple controllers for playing games on the different TVs around your home." I'd like this very much please, thank you. If I could share games in a steam account within a household that would be awesome. Currently, when I'm logged in and playing Game X from the account then no one can play Game Y. That's not any different than with consoles but you can buy multiple consoles. Buying multiple consoles solves the problem completely. Having multiple steam accounts with games split across them doesn't. You aren't going to have a separate steam account for each game. And then you still can have the issue of two desired-at-the-moment games being on the same account. And constant account switching. This is not a major issue, but it would be a very-nice-to-have.

Re:So it's not a console

[Mike Frett]

Exactly what I was thinking, why all the Linux talk when you are just going to enable people to Install Windows, which they will. What Valve has done is gotten Linux users excited, and then spat in our faces. Developers will NOT make games for Linux in this fashion. I can see Devs now telling people if they want to play their game on a Steambox, they need to Install Windows. I'm Personally upset and if this is the case, I'm finished supporting the liars and scam artists at Valve.