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Here are all of Valve's Steam Machines from CES 2014, in specs
Remember those Steam Machine partners we heard about? Gabe Newell just took the stage at Valve's CES 2014 event and made them official, doling out specs for gaming rigs from Alienware, CyberPower, Gigabyte, iBuyPower, Falcon Northwest, and more. There are thirteen machines in all, varying from $500 to $6000 a piece. Not all of them revealed their full hardware specifications, but skip past the break, and we'll give you a rundown of what we know.
Valve's Steam Machine partners include Alienware, Gigabyte, more
Valve is working with partners to bring Steam Machines into living rooms this year, and our Engadget pals learned of some of those partners at this year's CES trade show in Vegas. Dell subsidiary Alienware and Taiwanese manufacturer Gigabyte are two of the stand-out names among the 12 third-parties in Engadget's list. The dozen comprises Alienware, Alternate, CyberPower PC, Digital Storm Falcon Northwest, Gigabyte, iBuyPower, Materiel.net, Next, Scan Computers, Webhallen, and Zotac, although Engadget notes Valve may unveil other partners at CES, particularly at its press conference later today. Valve revealed the Steam Machines program last year as part of a three-headed march on the living room, along with SteamOS, its customized Linux operating system, and its Steam-optimized controller. Valve's aim is to provide a variety of Steam-centric gaming machines to suit a variety of homes. So far the number of homes is restricted to 300, where the same number of first-party Steam Machines reside as part of beta testing.
Here are Valve's 14 Steam Machines partners (so far)
Valve's Steam Machines initiative is supported by a first-party box that 300 beta users have right now, but 2014 is all about third-party Steam Machines taking that reference box and running with it. Thus far, the only third parties we know of that're making Steam Machines are iBuyPower and Digital Storm -- today, that all changes. Alienware, Falcon Northwest, iBuyPower, CyberPowerPC, Origin PC, Gigabyte, Materiel.net, Webhallen, Alternate, Next, Zotac and Scan Computers are among the first companies signed on to support Valve's initiative, Engadget learned this afternoon. The entire lineup will be on display this week at CES 2014, and we'll have many more details in the coming days. Beyond the dozen companies above, it's totally possible that there are other third parties signed on for Steam Machines -- we'll have to wait and see when Valve unveils everything at its press conference tomorrow afternoon. Update: As seen in the image above, live from Valve's CES 2014 presser, those third-party manufacturers are double confirmed. Maingear is the final addition that makes 14 in total.
SXSW: ARG! The Attack of the Alternate Reality Games
Ever since the success of The Beast, the alternate reality game created to help pimp Spielberg's A.I. back in 2001, alternate reality games (ARGs) have been popping up left and right, most notably the I Love Bees ARG that was used to launch Halo 2. Based on what the panelists were telling us, there are a lot more coming down the pipeline.However, one of the problems was that the panel promised to help define the term "alternate reality game," but that never happened. Wikipedia calls it "an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions." Which is quite a mouthful. But that makes us wonder, does it have to use the web as a medium to be an ARG? When people used to play T.A.G. or Killer on college campuses, that was definitely an ARG ... but where did those games go?
