Tag: Steam OS

Valve Announces the Steam Controller

On By AnjelIn Games, Games, News, Online, PC, PC, Steam, Tech, TechLeave a comment

SteamController

So today Valve finished off their Trilogy of announcements with the Steam Controller, a new Input device they have spent the last year working on.

They have designed it to be used with all current and future steam games, and in place of thumb stick they have added two, high resolution haptic trackpads, which are also click-able. This is definitely an interesting way of designing a controller, one in which Valve believes every game can be played on, even games like RTS games. They have essentially “tricked” the games into thinking you are playing with a mouse and keyboard and thus allows you to play any game on steam with this controller. They added a Diagram showing how this should work in Portal 2.

Steam controller_bindings

As you can see from the Diagram above, the middle area of the controller is also a touchscreen, which is also click-able, not unlike the PS4 controller.

Steam controller_schematic

Valve is also claiming that they have designed the controller to be “hackable” and are interested in how the community will utilize this controller. They plan to release tools out to the public to allow this to happen at an unspecified later date.  This controller will be part of the same Beta as the Steam Machine, in allowing the public to voice opinions and help mold where it goes, from software, all the way to design.

Steam controller_parts

No word on when these will ship out to beta testers. For more information on the Steam Controller, and to see about getting into the beta, you can go here; Steam.

By Dayne “Anjel” Cody
@DayneCody

Steam OS has been announced, coming soon to a living room near you

On By AnjelIn Games, Games, News, Online, PC, PC, Steam, TechLeave a comment

Steam OS Logo

Today, Valve made the first announcement of three that they have scheduled for this week. Valve has announced the Steam OS, a Linux based Steam OS for the living room. In their own words:

As we’ve been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we’ve come to the conclusion that the
environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself.
SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen.
It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines.

In addition to a free open platform, they are also touting that due to being an integrated OS, they have “achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we’re now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level. ” As well, they are stating that Steam OS will integrate streaming your games from your desktop PC. They also stated that they are working on bringing the media services we love over to the platform in the coming months. No word on when Steam OS would be released, only that it would be released as a free download sometime in the near future.

This looks to be a way for Gabe Newell to show his love for Linux, and to try and build a better PC for the living room. We will be very interested in seeing where this goes in the future. Stay tuned for the next announcements that Valve is making later this week.

For more info on the Steam OS check it out here, Steam OS 

By Dayne “Anjel” Cody
@DayneCody