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The PS Vita of Steam Machines arrives in 2016 for $299
The Steam Machine invasion is happening this fall. But while these computers are said to be more powerful than traditional consoles, such as the Xbox One or PlayStation 4, none of them are exactly portable. Smach Zero's device, however, is. Formerly known as Steamboy, the handheld system runs Valve's SteamOS and features a 5-inch, 720p screen, 32GB of onboard storage (plus an SD card slot), 4GB RAM, HDMI-out and configurable gamepads. In terms of connectivity, you'll find Bluetooth, WiFi and, on the Pro model, 4G for true on-the-go gaming. Smach Zero is also promising access to over 1,000 Steam games at launch, but we'll have to wait and see if that turns out to be true. According to the manufacturer, it will be available during Q4 of 2016 starting at $299. If you'd like to pre-order it, you can do so on November 10th -- the same day as other Steam Machines are launching.
You can pre-order the first official Steam Machines starting today
Look, there's literally no shortage of things you can slot into your home theater system for a spot of streaming media or some melt-into-your-couch gaming. If you want to be able to recline in your living room and comfortably sneer at people who play games on consoles, though, you can pre-order an official Steam Machine -- and the accoutrements to make it shine -- starting today.
Steam Machines are coming this fall and this is what they look like
Steam Machines. Maybe you've heard of them. They're Valve's oft-talked about, rarely seen in the wild solution for streaming PC games to the fancy HDTV in your living room. And at GDC this week, the company brought us closer to the promise of that commercial reality with a display of all the various units you're likely to see hit retail by November of this year. As Gabe Newell told us, the variety of Steam Machines on offer, from the low-end $50 Link to the premium $5,000 Falcon NW Tiki, present a "good, better, best choice for consumers." But enough talk -- I know you just want to see the goods. So check out the gallery below for a trio of the Steam Machines Mr. Newell demoed for us, as well as a video just after the break showcasing an expanded selection coming later this year.
Alienware Alpha review: almost the Steam Machine you're looking for
It's hard to describe the Alienware Alpha. On the surface, it's a small-form gaming PC, custom-built from laptop components to fit in your entertainment center. But it was supposed to be a frontrunner in a new category of gaming devices. It isn't. Valve's Steam Machine initiative was delayed past its original launch window, leaving manufacturers like Dell to fend for themselves in a market that doesn't exist yet. It's a weird, awkward place to be in, but here we are, testing the Alienware Alpha: a Steam Machine before its time. The question is: Can one of the biggest names in PC gaming succeed where others have failed?
A Steam Machine without Valve: life with the iBuyPower SBX
It was gaming's hot topic for 2013: Steam Machines. Otherwise known as Valve's plan to take on the living room. The project had my attention for months, with Valve teasing a revolutionary controller, a custom operating system and even an army of hardware partners at CES 2014. Now, almost a year later, those PC manufacturers are ready to unleash their products on the world, with or without Valve. But what happens when you launch a Steam Machine without the project's progenitor? You get the iBuyPower SBX: a $549 Windows 8 desktop ($399 without the OS or accessories) designed to be an entertainment hub. So can Steam's Big Picture mode survive without the backbone of Steam OS or the company's oddball touch controller? Let's find out.
The Alienware Alpha has come for your money, Earthlings
Alienware and parent company Dell have made good on the promise to release a console-sized, TV-oriented PC by year's end with the Alienware Alpha - a not-quite Steam Machine that runs Windows 8.1 and comes with an Xbox 360 controller (as opposed to running SteamOS and utilizing a Steam Controller the way a "true" Steam Machine does). For $550, you can order the base model, which comes with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M graphics card, Intel i3 processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB hard drive. For $700, you can double the RAM and storage capacity to 8 GB and 1 TB, respectively. For $800, the Alpha will come with an i5 processor instead of an i3 (as well as the additional RAM and storage space). Lastly, for $900, you can get an Alienware Alpha with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M, i7 processor, 8 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage. If you prefer to do your shopping in person, the Alpha is available at select Walmart and Fry's Electronics locations. Online, you can order via Walmart, Fry's Electronics, Dell, Best Buy, GameStop, Amazon, NewEgg, Sam's Club and Tiger Direct. Hey, maybe you'll even get one in time for the supposed Steam Fall Sale start date of November 26 and put it to use right away. [Image: Dell]
Alienware to launch SteamOS-less Steam Box this year
Alienware Alpha is a small gaming PC designed for the living room, and it launches this holiday for $550. It's Windows-based and ships with an Xbox 360 controller, plus a dongle that supports up to four Xbox 360 controllers, and it will be able to run all games in 1080p and at 60fps. This is Alienware's Steam Machine in every way except technically: It won't ship with a Steam controller and it won't ship with SteamOS. These are the two things that make a Steam Machine, according to Valve. "It's absolutely Steam-ready," Alienware Global Marketing Director Bryan de Zayas told Joystiq on the E3 show floor. "It's not that we're bypassing Steam. It's critical. They have the majority of the digital downloads."
The first 13 Steam Machines
At CES, Valve premiered its third-party Steam Machines from 13 ground-floor manufacturers: Alienware, Alternate, Cyberpower PC, Digital Storm, Falcon Northwest, Gigabyte, iBuyPower, Materiel.net, Next Spa, Origin PC, Scan, Webhallen and Zotac. The cheapest Steam Machine clocks in at $500, Valve said, and already Digital Storm unveiled its hybrid PC model that starts at $1,900. The Falcon Northwest Tiki costs up to $6,000. The size, shape and capability of each Steam Machine varies as much as the price. Find your favorite (or the one you can afford) below.
Alienware announces Valve partnership, Steam Machines
Alienware will beam a Steam Machine down to Earth in late 2014, the Dell subsidiary announced today. No spec details or price was given, but the Alienware Steam Machine will, according to a statement by Gabe Newell given in a press release, encapsulate "the full potential of what a Steam Machine should be." If by "full potential" Newell means that it looks pretty, well, we can't argue there. Sleek! "We have been working with Alienware since we began defining our vision of the Steam Machine," Newell said. "Alienware's historic commitment to gaming, their design and engineering capabilities and their global reach made them an ideal partner for us on our Steam Machine project." Alienware will also be offering a Steam Machine version of their X51 desktop PC in late 2014.
Digital Storm's $2,000 Steam Machine is a PC for the high-end market
The Bolt 2, revealed today as a hybrid PC and Steam Machine, is not for the everyday market, Digital Storm Chief Brand Officer Harjit Chana told Joystiq at CES. The Bolt 2 will cost $1,900 when it launches later this month, and the system ranges in price from $1,500 to $2,800. "Our brand itself is more about high-end systems," Chana said. "We're not really a more mainstream type of brand; we're focused on higher-tier. So that's where the Bolt 2 came in. We wanted to create a product that appeals to this type of market as a Steam Machine. Because obviously, when someone thinks of a Steam Machine, they think of something compact, hybrid – something they can place in their home theater environment as well." The Bolt 2 is designed ideally for 4K gaming, with an eye on the future, Chana said. "A $500 Steam Box isn't going to run a 4K TV," he said.
The $500 Steam Machine from iBuyPower is 'not a PC'
IBuyPower built its Steam Machine, the SBX, to compete in the console market. It looks like a console – a rectangle smaller than the Xbox One with the Steam logo pressed into the top – and it's priced to compete with new systems at $500. A few details make it a Steam Machine rather than another new console: It has no disc drive, it runs SteamOS only, and it will ship with the Steam Controller and in-home streaming capabilities. "We're telling all of our vendors that this is not a PC," Tuan Nguyen, iBuyPower director of product and marketing, said during a demo at CES. "Valve doesn't like to admit that they're really competing with the consoles, but they are." The retail SBX should include built-in wi-fi, Bluetooth, an internal power supply, a 500GB HDD, 4GB RAM, quad-core Athlon X4 740 CPU, and a Radeon R7 260X graphics card supporting AMD's Mantle API, iBuyPower's Brad Soken said. Those specs aren't expected to change too drastically leading up to launch. "With Mantle and everything, and the whole GCN up and running, you're very much on par at least with the current generation of consoles, if not even better," Nguyen said.
Maingear's Spark is a tiny Steam Machine with laptop internals
Traditionally, gaming PCs aren't built with size in mind, but Valve's Steam Machine initiative has changed the game -- now these rigs are taking up residence in the living room. In fact, that's exactly what Maingear's Spark was built for. This diminutive PC is built from notebook components: a 3.1GHz AMD A8-5575M processor with Radeon R9 M275X graphics, up to 16GB of DDR3L RAM and support for a 256GB SSD with a spare 2.5-inch HDD tray. All together, the Spark measures in at just over two inches tall and 4.5 inches wide in either direction. Tiny? You bet. Weighing less than a pound, Maingear says it's the smallest gaming PC they've ever offered. Despite its size, the company still had room to squeeze in four USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet and audio jacks and both HDMI and Mini DisplayPort output. Unfortunately, the Spark's final price point is up in the air, but the company promises it will be "an affordable PC solution." Spark is set to launch in the first quarter in Windows 7, Windows 8 and Steam OS configurations.
Steam Machine teardown reveals 1TB hybrid drive, 16GB RAM
The Steam Machine is just a tiny PC designed to attach to your television, so when the gadget surgeons at iFixit pulled a beta Machine apart, they were unsurprised to find common components. Inside the Steam Machine - we stress that this is a beta version of the device; things may change before it hits retail - iFixit discovered an NVIDIA GTX 780 with 3GB of on-board RAM, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a 1TB Seagate solid state hybrid hard drive, a 450W power supply and an Intel Core i5-4570 CPU running at 3.6GHz. These are all items you could find at your local computer retailer, though according to iFixit's math, purchasing these items piecemeal would set you back about $1,300. Overall, iFixit gave the Steam Machine high praise, citing the ample buttons and comfortable nature of its controller, alongside the ease with which users should be able to upgrade their Machine. The only real issue the site found was that the Machine's RAM can occasionally be difficult to replace, but if you've ever put a PC together, you're more than familiar with the finger-slicing difficulties of switching out RAM sticks. [Photo: iFixit]
Digital Storm teases hybrid Steam Machine, reveals $1,469 starting price and not much else
We'll have to wait until CES for a real peek at Digital Storm's forthcoming Steam Machine, but thankfully the show's only a few weeks away. In the meantime, the company's got a few details to offer up, calling the box "one of the most advanced small form factor systems" ever, thanks to options like an NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN graphics card, liquid cooling, airflow thermal management and up to a 700W power supply. The system will offer up both SteamOS and Windows, with a starting price of $1,469. Digital Storm says it opted not to compete with the price of current-gen consoles. Fair enough. In the meantime, here's a dark teaser page for you to stare at for the next couple of weeks.
Gamers can now apply to beta test Steam's In-Home Streaming service
A big part of Valve's steamy vision of the future will be the ability to play full-fledged PC games on a relatively small living room machine, by streaming them to the Steam client from a main gaming PC in another room. (Much like Remote Play on the PS4 and Vita, or NVIDIA's GameStreaming from a PC to its Shield handheld.) Although the SteamOS and Steam Machine projects are still a long way off, Valve says it'll start beta testing of this particular feature by the end of this year. Testers will be randomly selected from among members of the relevant Steam Community group, so join up at the source link to put your name in the hat.
