steammachines
Latest
Alienware's Steam Machine starts at $549 and launches this holiday season
Alienware is no slouch when it comes to cranking out high-end gaming PCs, but its approach to Valve's Steam Machine project is a bit different. The company is looking to deliver a high-quality PC gaming experience to the living room, but the execution doesn't sound much different from the experience that's already available for other machines running Valve's made-for-TV Big Picture Mode (BPM). The rub of the Alienware Alpha series is that the diminutive PC boots directly into BPM automatically after hitting the rig's power button. The problem with that is two-fold: Big Picture Mode doesn't do the best job of identifying which games are fully controller supported, and because Valve recently delayed its in-house designed controller (which essentially is a stand-in for a mouse), OEMs not delaying hardware of their own need to come up with work arounds.
ASUS has two Steam Machines and one is incredibly compact
Computex has a heavy PC gaming flavor to it in places. Between the likes of NVIDIA and ASUS' ROG brand, it acts as a gentle primer to PC-based gaming hardware ahead of E3 -- which is next week, if you forgot. Alongside a frankly ridiculous 4K gaming laptop, ROG's announced two new Steam Machines with varying footprints and specifications. The GR8 takes up just 2.5 liters of space, and ASUS ROG is talking up the size/power ratio as the best it's ever made, with a Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti inside. Meanwhile, 4K output and Miracast support could well make this a plausible, portable "console" PC -- you'll just need to provide the screen.
Valve: don't expect to buy a Steam Machine until 2015
Looking forward to putting a gaming PC in your entertainment center? Keep waiting: Valve says it doesn't expect to officially launch its Steam Machine until 2015. The delay was announced in a rather casual blog post, and the update is loosely worded -- it's a "release window," not a promise. The quality of the controller seems to be the main thing holding back the release: Valve says its getting a substantial amount of feedback. "It means we'll be able to make the controller a lot better," the company writes. "Of course, it's also keeping us pretty busy."
Steam In-Home Streaming now beams PC games to any room of your house
It has been in beta since mid-November, but Steam's In-Home Streaming is now available to all. Folks who have a fleet of computers at home can link 'em up and then remotely install and play PC games just like you were sitting at your desk. As you might expect, this also enables access to titles on machines running other OSes -- like OS X, Linux and SteamOS, of course. You'll still have to wait a bit to nab up a Steam Machine, but if you're champing at the bit to give it a go, all the info you'll need to get start awaits via that source link.
Another major game engine gets Linux support ahead of Steam Machines launch
The engine that powers the Crysis series, CryEngine, is headed to Linux. That means games like Crysis 3 and Ryse: Son of Rome could see ports on Valve's forthcoming Linux-powered platform, SteamOS. At very least, it means that developers already working with CryEngine have a shortcut to porting their work to Steam Machines; Crytek will show it off in detail next week at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Linux support was long-rumored for CryEngine, with job listings as far back as last July hinting that it was coming. It's unclear when the engine will get updated to support the new platform, but we expect it'll be long before Valve's Steam Machines initiative gets seriously underway.
This new, low-end AMD graphics card's meant for budget-conscious PC gamers, and maybe Steam Machines, too
Not every gamer has the desire means to get the latest and greatest graphics hardware. Fret not budget-minded PC aficionados, for AMD's rolling out a new, more powerful low-end GPU that should suit your financial constraints. Called the Radeon R7 265, it brings twice the memory bandwidth of its predecessor, the R7 260x, which AMD claims translates into a 25 percent performance boost. It'll cost $149 when it goes on sale in late February, and with its debut, AMD's also dropping the cost of the aforementioned 260x to a scant $119. Naturally, those meager price points will appeal to cost conscious consumers, but AMD's announcement could have an effect on Steam Machine OEMs, too. We saw AMD's higher-end R9 graphics in several of the Steam Machines at CES, and we've been playing with a working iBuyPower prototype packing an R7 260x for awhile now. So, it stands to reason that the 260x and 265 will prove awfully attractive options to manufacturers trying to hit the all-important sub-$500 price point needed to compete with other gaming consoles. And, who knows, maybe these new (relatively) inexpensive options will help drive down the prices of both more powerful cards and the GPUs being offered by AMD's competition.
SteamOS gets a native music player in Steam Music
SteamOS still isn't really in wide use, and it's very firmly still in beta. Heck, the latest version still carries the disclaimer, "don't install it on any machine you are not prepared to lose." With Steam Music, though, SteamOS is one step closer to being a multifunctional operating system: it takes your locally-stored music and makes it playable directly in the Steam UI. There's a version for Steam's Big Picture Mode as well, if you'd like to give it a shot on your non-Steam Machine gaming rig. Valve says that random beta participants (culled from group members here) will get access soon, and a desktop version of the player is on the way as well. There's no ability to purchase music, nor can you pipe in music subscriptions/Google Play accounts -- we've asked if (and when) that's coming -- but it's a pretty major step toward offering multimedia functionality on the upcoming Steam Machines. Like every Valve initiative, Steam Music is an evolving one. The intro page says it all: "Our next steps for the feature will be influenced by your beta feedback."
New SteamOS beta tempts more testers with support for older PCs and dual-booting
Valve released its SteamOS beta with a warning: Only touch this if you know what you're doing. While that surely did something to separate true testers from the first wave of eager users, there were a few problems. Even the qualified needed a relatively new machine with UEFI, and a dedicated one at that, given attempts to make the OS a secondary boot option were troublesome at best. However, a fresh beta that folds in efforts by both Valve and the community is now available. On top of fixing the aforementioned issues, thereby welcoming more to get to grips with early SteamOS, other major updates include partition, recovery and DVD install support. This doesn't mean it's ready for general consumption, though, so we'll point the brave to the source link below and swiftly wash our hands of you.
Alienware's Steam Machine launches in September
The Alienware-made Steam Machine we showed you at CES 2014 arrives in September, the company announced during Valve's first Steam Dev Days conference in Seattle. Alienware's little black box has some form of Haswell chip inside, and promised us earlier this year that it'd "perform on par with a gaming notebook" -- outside of that, we don't know any specifics on what powers it. The company's apparently hoping to push it across "several market segments," which we take to mean you can configure it to a variety of different spec/price points. We've reached out to Dell for more specific info and will update this piece as we learn more! Update: Dell tells us, "We're targeting September but haven't confirmed a final date yet."
Microsoft's Xbox head isn't worried about Steam Machines and Oculus Rift; he's excited
Two of the biggest stories at CES 2014 involve gaming, and neither involves the big three entrenched console makers (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo). Oculus VR's latest prototype, dubbed "Crystal Cove," and Valve's Steam Machines initiative are overshadowing even Sony's big PlayStation Now news, to say nothing of curved displays and wearable whatevers. Despite that overshadowing, Xbox Chief Product Officer Marc Whitten isn't too worried about either -- in fact, he's really excited about both and what they mean for the larger game industry he loves. "This is literally the most golden of golden ages that I've ever seen around gaming," Whitten told us in an interview this week at CES 2014. "I think this is what makes gaming great. And you love seeing the passion of seeing someone like Palmer [Luckey] and those guys at Oculus. And seeing someone like John Carmack get on and really be focused on it is great. I don't know how it could be anything but good." He didn't say whether or not dev kits are with Microsoft, but he's used the headset and likes what he's seen. Moreover, he isn't worried about it cannibalizing Xbox One sales. "It's just gonna increase the surface area, and I think that's an incredible thing," Whitten said. Valve's Steam Machines initiative is another story.
This is Alienware's Steam Machine
We all saw this coming, right? Alienware is getting in on Steam OS, and what you see above is the first Steam Machine from Dell's gaming brand. It looks surprisingly measured considering its X51 brethren! Just ahead of CES 2014, Dell showed us the Alienware Steam Machine: It's set to arrive in the "later half of 2014," and Dell isn't talking specs just yet (except to say that it will perform on par with a gaming notebook). Even then, Dell reps declined to make any specific comparisons with Alienware's current notebook offerings, so you really won't know until later if this is an Alienware 14 or 18 equivalent. As for the price, it will be "highly competitive to the next generation of consoles," according to Marc Diana with Alienware business development. So, between $400 and $500, then? Dell is hoping it can sell more Steam Machines than all the other guys, even if this is something of an experimental category. "We feel we are uniquely positioned in that we can serve a lot of customers from the start," Diana told us.
Let's take a very close look at iBuyPower's $500 Steam Machine
You've already seen iBuyPower's pretty little white Steam Machine ahead of CES 2014, but now we've got one of our own and have taken far too many photos of it for you to ogle. Inside and out! The pretty little Steam Machine, dubbed "SBX," is iBuyPower's direct challenge to Microsoft and Sony's new game consoles: $500 gets you the box, a Steam Controller, an HDMI cable, and all the power therein. The prototype we saw packs a quad-core Athlon X4 740 CPU ("with some voltage and speed tweaks"), 4GB RAM, a 500GB HDD, and a Radeon R7 250 GPU (1GB GDDR5) power SteamOS -- no dual-booting here! iBuyPower's hoping for a Radeon R7 260X ("or equivalent") GPU when the SBX ships later this year, but we're told most of the other specs won't change. iBuyPower's Tuan Nguyen sees it as his company's first console, rather than a highly modified PC. It's easy to see his perspective after spending some time with a prototype here at CES. Of the various Steam Machines announced this evening during Valve's press event, SBX is a middle of the road entry in terms of both price and specs. It'll run today's prettiest games on Steam without an issue, but not all of them turned all the way up. Two color variations of the box are planned for when SBX goes on sale later this year ("around June or July" we're told): glossy white and matte black. And that color bar dividing SBX in two? An iOS and Android app named LEDControl enables a wide variety of color choices on the fly (no light at all is also an option).
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.
Here are all of Valve's Steam Machines from CES 2014, in pictures
Wondering what all of Valve's premier third-party Steam Machines look like? Wonder no more! We've captured images of all 13 straight from Valve's CES 2014 press event and dropped 'em into a gallery for you. We'll have far more details on specs and what have you as we learn more, but here's a quick glance at this year's biggest PC gaming initiative. Richard Lai contributed to this report.
Valve still hasn't ruled out making its own Steam Machine
It looks like Valve's not totally ruling out making its own version of the retail Steam Machines that so many other PC manufacturers are making currently. During Valve's press conference this evening at CES 2014, company head Valve Newell said, "We're gonna make that decision as we go along." when asked whether Valve would make its own retail Steam Machine. "We have plans to build more machines as customers ask," he continued. So far, only 300 lucky beta testers have the Valve-made Steam Machine. Newell said that part of Valve's reason for being at CES was to solicit feedback from press and consumers, so it sounds like a Valve-made box might be more than just a dream for now.
Digital Storm's Bolt 2 is a Steam Machine, dual-boots Windows and SteamOS
Digital Storm's latest Bolt is more than the standard tower we've seen from the PC boutique company in the past-- it's a Steam Machine! Well, sort of. It's also a regular PC, with the ability to dual-boot into both Windows and SteamOS. The biggest difference is that it ships with Valve's Steam Controller -- something you'll need if you're interested in playing any cursor-based games in your living room. Confusingly, the Bolt 2 was previously teased with a starting price of just under $1,500; the latest update from Digital Storm puts it at a starting price of $1,899. Apparently this disparity comes down to power: "We decided to offer a more powerful entry level system," a company rep told us. No specs are available, but we previously heard you could outfit the box with a GPU as serious as NVIDIA's GTX Titan. We've reached out to Digital Storm for more, and expect we'll have all the details by later today when Valve holds its CES 2014 press conference. Bolt 2 is set to launch sometime this month.
CyberPowerPC announces customizable Steam Machines starting at $499
There will be no lack of Steam Machines at this years' CES, but CyberPowerPC beat most of the other guys to the punch by announcing a pair of models today that start at $499. Both gaming PCs (consoles?) feature Bluetooth, WiFi, USB 3.0, 8GB of RAM and, of course, come bundled with a Steam Controller -- a requirement to be called a Steam Machine. The cheaper Steam Machine A is packing a 3.9GHz A6 CPU from AMD as well as a 2GB Radeon R9 270 graphics card. It's hardly a barn burner, but it should be more than enough to get you through most modern games. The Steam Machine I, on the other hand, boasts a 3.5GHz Core i3 and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 graphics, as well as 802.11ac WiFi. Though, that configuration pushes the starting price up to $699. Of course, being a veteran of the gaming PC industry, CyberPower is allowing customers to customize pretty much every facet of the machine. So, who knows what the price will top out at? Both machines are expected to ship in the second half of the year.
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.
Valve now a card-carrying member of The Linux Foundation, 'one of many ways Valve is investing in the advancement of Linux gaming'
In case Valve's multi-tiered investment in Linux gaming weren't clear enough from SteamOS, the Steam Controller and Steam Machines, the company's also joining the ranks of The Linux Foundation membership. Valve Linux head Mike Sartain calls the news, "one of the many ways Valve is investing in the advancement of Linux gaming"; he sees the move as yet another step for Valve toward its bigger goal of popularizing accessible Linux-based gaming. Sartain details a three-pronged approach: "contribute tools for developers building new experiences on Linux, compel hardware manufacturers to prioritize support for Linux, and ultimately deliver an elegant and open platform for Linux users." Though Valve's already firing on all fronts (the Steam client for Linux, the Steam Machines reference hardware, and the promise of SteamOS and Steam Machines in 2014), Sartain says The Linux Foundation membership will galvanize that commitment even more. Valve is joining companies like Sony, NVIDIA and Twitter in the silver tier, meaning Valve contributes an annual membership fee of anywhere from $5K to $20K.
Here's the first non-Valve Steam Machine prototype, care of iBuyPower (update: specs)
That game console headlining this text? It isn't a white PS4: it's a commercial Steam Machines box, or at least a prototype of one. iBuyPower tells us that it's building the box for a 2014 launch, but says it's still early. The company says the prototypes are running an early build of Steam OS, but it's not quite a finished product. That rings true of our impressions of Valve's own reference model, which hosted a version of that same OS devoid of media playback and streaming options and had a very limited selection of games. iBuyPower tells us that it actually has two models, codenamed Gordon and Freeman, in the works. The two consoles are identical, save for the light bar round the middle -- one model's is clear, while the other's is black when not illuminated. And, while the company wouldn't tell us about the boxes' internals, it did confirm that the hardware will run all Steam titles in 1080p resolution at 60fps. Not as much info as we'd like to know, but still, it's good to see hints of what we'll see from Steam Machines when they hit the market -- though we'll likely have to wait until CES to see them in action. Update: The Verge reports that the Steam Machine will pack a multi-core AMD CPU, AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card and be bundled with one of Valve's Steam Controllers for $499 when it arrives. It's not clear which model that list of specs and price tag apply to, but we've reached out to iBuyPower for clarification and will update once more as soon as we find out.
