Valve Launches Steam Hardware Devices

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Valve today announces the official launch of its line of Steam Hardware devices in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe. A leading platform for PC, Mac, and Linux games, Steam offers more than 6,000 titles to millions of gamers around the world. The Steam Controller, Steam Link, and Steam Machines are a collection of hardware devices designed to expand the Steam gaming experience into any room in the home.

Earlier this fall, Valve announced dedicated Steam Sections in most GameStop, GAME UK, and EB Games stores. The sections will feature the Steam Hardware devices as well as a variety of Steam prepaid cards. In addition, Steam Machines will be available from their respective PC manufacturers, and the Steam Controller and Link are available via Amazon and directly from Steam.
 
Just got my link in the mail yesterday, so far so good, just REALLY wish there was a way to stream surround sound, the 7.1 home theater kinda begs for it lol, maybe I'm just doing something wrong
 
I've had mine for a few weeks now. Shame the DS4 doesn't work with it. Or at least I couldn't get it to work with any of mine unless I plugged it in USB. Then of course some games still wouldn't recognize the inputs. Using the steam controller makes some games possible (civ5, sim city,etc). However it sucks for fallout 4. My right hand is hurting like a bitch from all the thumb movement on the right pad. Went ahead and ordered a 360 wireless controller and dongle last night.

Other issues I have are with wifi + the steam controller. The bluetooth on the steam controller interferes with the wifi signal as far as I can tell. If you start moving, you'll get sound glitches. Video is still fine. I was just living with it, but went ahead and bought a 100ft ethernet cable and I'll disconnect it when I'm not gaming. Need to drop ethernet to my tv, but probably won't happen for awhile. If the 360 controller doesn't interfere, I'll probably just live with the wifi in the near term.
 
Steam offers more than 6,000 titles to millions of gamers around the world. The Steam Controller, Steam Link, and Steam Machines are a collection of hardware devices designed to expand the Steam gaming experience into any room in the home.
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But only a tiny fraction can actually be played on steam machines. :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
Stoly said:
But only a tiny fraction can actually be played on steam machines. :rolleyes::rolleyes:
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This is a pretty low key product and not really sure if average Joe is going out an buying this in any number right now. But this could be a huge problem for people who buy these things and don't understand this. People don't care about OSes until you give the a reason to care.
 
I would really like to try the steam controller but not at that price.
It is suppose to bridge the gap between a game pad and a mouse/keyboard.
That is ideal for games that require precise aiming.
 
The more I look at it, the less I understand who's the target buyer.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
I would really like to try the steam controller but not at that price.
It is suppose to bridge the gap between a game pad and a mouse/keyboard.
That is ideal for games that require precise aiming.
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at 60$ it seems like it is priced at the right spot.
doubt you will see them in a summer sale at 75%
 
Vaulter98c said:
Just got my link in the mail yesterday, so far so good, just REALLY wish there was a way to stream surround sound, the 7.1 home theater kinda begs for it lol, maybe I'm just doing something wrong
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AFAIK, the streaming protocol Steam uses only supports stereo. Not sure if you'd want a 5.1 encoding/trancoding workload on the host machine to begin with.

Two brief impressions with the Link/Controller, based on a hour of play:
-audio is filled with misc clicks and pops. (hooked up to my AVR)
-controller is really not suitable for *any* FPS. Even the games Steam "classifies" as controller-friendly.
 
Stoly said:
The more I look at it, the less I understand who's the target buyer.
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PC gamers that want to play their games in the living room. You can use the Steam Link and stream any game to the living room. Or you can buy a Steam Machine and play native Linux games in the living room. If a game requires Windows, then you can stream it to the living room with the Steam Machine.

I have a Windows box in my living room that was a barebones Vista machine. I upgraded it to Win 10 64 and tossed in an old HD7950. I can stream games all day from my main machine to the living room without issue. If I had installed SteamOS on it I could stream with it also.
 
I ordered the SteamLink and the controller - so far, only received the controller. I played a few games with it last night: Craft the World (mouse controlled hame), Rocket League, and tried to play Battelfield Vietnam.
-Craft the World - the controller worked a lot better than I thought it would. I had to concentrate on which buttons to push, but moving the cursor felt pretty natural. I didn't even modify the controller settings - it just worked.
-Rocket League worked well enough. I'm used to using an Xbox 360 controller - so kind of prefer the Xbox controller right now as I'm used to it. Still, I think I could get used to the Steam Controller for the game.
-Battlefield - I had issues getting this to work well. Although to be fair, I just used the WASD profile for the controller. I need to go in and tweak it and give it another shot. I could do mouse look and movement, but it didn't feel great. I would prefer a keyboard/mouse. (Again, I could probably adapt. Ive been using a keyboard/mouse for 25+ years).

I'm supposed to get my Steam Link soon. I'll be trying the controller with this. If I'm at my desk, I'm going to be a keyboard/mouse gamer. Just the facts.
 
Obligatory Steam Machines Launch Sale

Only one on this list that tempts me is Borderlands "3" Surprised that Telltale Games are absent from the sale list- but their games are not SteamOS compatible.
 
steakman1971 said:
I ordered the SteamLink and the controller - so far, only received the controller. I played a few games with it last night: Craft the World (mouse controlled hame), Rocket League, and tried to play Battelfield Vietnam.
-Craft the World - the controller worked a lot better than I thought it would. I had to concentrate on which buttons to push, but moving the cursor felt pretty natural. I didn't even modify the controller settings - it just worked.
-Rocket League worked well enough. I'm used to using an Xbox 360 controller - so kind of prefer the Xbox controller right now as I'm used to it. Still, I think I could get used to the Steam Controller for the game.
-Battlefield - I had issues getting this to work well. Although to be fair, I just used the WASD profile for the controller. I need to go in and tweak it and give it another shot. I could do mouse look and movement, but it didn't feel great. I would prefer a keyboard/mouse. (Again, I could probably adapt. Ive been using a keyboard/mouse for 25+ years).

I'm supposed to get my Steam Link soon. I'll be trying the controller with this. If I'm at my desk, I'm going to be a keyboard/mouse gamer. Just the facts.
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Everyone I've seen suggests using trackball mode for first person shooters.
 
Saturn_V said:
AFAIK, the streaming protocol Steam uses only supports stereo. Not sure if you'd want a 5.1 encoding/trancoding workload on the host machine to begin with.

Two brief impressions with the Link/Controller, based on a hour of play:
-audio is filled with misc clicks and pops. (hooked up to my AVR)
-controller is really not suitable for *any* FPS. Even the games Steam "classifies" as controller-friendly.
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The audio popping could be the encoder(nvfbc). I read its slow. ive heard that nvifr is a faster encoder. I had to disable nvfbc with a script someone wrote and posted to the steam forums.
 
PanzeR- said:
at 60$ it seems like it is priced at the right spot.
doubt you will see them in a summer sale at 75%
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IMO it is not priced at the right spot. Very cheap build quality, haven't tried playing games with it but it suffices for controlling the desktop so far from my hour of testing so far. 1 drop from couch height onto a hardwood floor will most likely crack the casing somewhere. Very thin cheap plastic everywhere. 40$ is where it should be max.
 
Yeah. Every review I've read keeps using the same words to describe the Steam Controller. Cheap and flimsy.

I've talked to a few Steam friends who own one and they all regret buying it. Madcatz was even brought up.
Stoly said:
The more I look at it, the less I understand who's the target buyer.
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heatlesssun said:
Proponents of Steam Machines have said that it's for console gamers that want a console to play PC games.
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cageymaru said:
PC gamers that want to play their games in the living room.
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We've been arguing the target audience for Steam Machines for two years, and we still can't come to a conclusion as to who this device is for.

Is it for console gamers who want to jump to PC, or is it for PC gamers who want to play in the living room? If it's for the former, why would a console gamer choose Steam Machine over Xbox or PS4? And if it's for the latter, why would a PC gamer purchase an entirely new machine instead of using an HDMI cable?
 
crusty_juggler said:
We've been arguing the target audience for Steam Machines for two years, and we still can't come to a conclusion as to who this device is for.
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And the amount of collective time you've spent crying about it every time a thread about it has come up is pretty adorable.

Like I have no use for a WiiU, yet you wouldn't see me squirting tears about it in every WiiU thread.
 
DPI said:
And the amount of collective time you've spent crying about it every time a thread about it has come up is pretty adorable.

Like I have no use for a WiiU, yet you wouldn't see me squirting tears about it in every WiiU thread.
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Don't really know his post history but that doesn't seem like "crying" but rather discussing something on a forum about computer hardware/games. I must say I agree. The target audience isn't too well defined. We'll see how it goes, but I think it will be another Shield or Vita at best.
 
Thing is, it can't compete with xbox/ps because its more expensive and has very small libraty of games not to mention no exclusives and NO EA GAMES, (which may actually be a good thing... :D)

Casual gamers have better/cheaper alternatives and gamers that want to play in the living room are better off getting a shield console or the steam link.
 
Origin PC has dumped Steam OS.

Origin PC said:
"We decided that we will not offer Steam OS because we believe that a system that boots directly into Steam Big Picture mode coupled with an available Steam Controller already offers a seamless Steam experience within Windows" “We are confident this allows users to take full advantage of all the power and features that ORIGIN PC systems have to offer."
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Perhaps the most well known player in the custom PC industry is refusing to ship their product with Steam OS, and they're flat out saying it's for performance reasons.
Saturn_V said:
Cue John Heard!
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Oh, I get why these machines were created just fine. The CEO of Valve threw a hissy fit upon seeing an app store in Windows 8, claimed Microsoft is going to lock Steam out of Windows, and then lead his company on a mission to move PC gaming away from Windows.

I understand the why of Steam Machines, but I cannot grasp the who. Who on Earth is going to buy a console that cost substantially more and performs remarkably less than literally every single one of it's competitors?
 
Stoly said:
Plus, most games run slower than its windows counterparts, and many have lower IQ. And AMD support is abysmal to say the least.
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If you're using Linux you would know that's not entirely true. Though only a handful of games do run faster on Linux, those are mostly Valve games. The rest are using a wrapper like eON to get Linux compatibility. Though I've not heard anything about lower IQ compared to Windows.

Though AMD is bad right now for Linux I don't see Steam Machines with anything but Nvidia graphics. At least so far. AMD is migrating their drivers over to Gallium and will open source it but that's so far a slow and painful process.
 
crusty_juggler said:
Perhaps the most well known player in the custom PC industry is refusing to ship their product with Steam OS, and they're flat out saying it's for performance reasons.
Click to expand...

It's more fundamental than that:

“We decided that we will not offer Steam OS because we believe that a system that boots directly into Steam Big Picture mode coupled with an available Steam Controller already offers a seamless Steam experience within Windows,” a company representative told us.
Click to expand...

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...-against-steam-os-for-its-steam-machines.aspx

In short, they're saying Steam OS is pointless. If you look at Origin's site, they're promoting their "Steam Machines" as compatible with the entire Steam library.
 
So here's the perspective of someone using a gaming PC(NCase M1 shout out, awesome case) connected to their living TV and gaming from their couch.

Where Steam fails in a Windows environment is multiple users, both Windows and Steam. Games save based on the local Windows user, so you can't use a single Windows login. This means logging out and logging on Windows to properly manage your game progress, whenever you switch users.

Then, even more unforgivable, Steam doesn't store credentials for more than a single Steam user. Blows my mind Valve has not made it easy to just switch users without having to retype a user/password in every single time. Or hell at the very least store them individually for each Windows user instead of the entire system.

In short, I'd love to just boot into Big Picture mode and be able to switch users just like I do on any console, strictly through a gamepad. How Origin says it works does not work in reality, it is the furthest thing "Seamless". Instead you need to pull the keyboard out, login as the correct Windows user, then login as the correct Steam user. When it's time to switch users you may as well just restart the entire system and re-do that process. Granted I don't know is SteamOS handles it any better.

It really is an awful Living Room experience. Maybe I'm missing something, if anyone has tips I'm all ears. I'm not loading a Linux OS, for reasons mentioned already.
 
Ugh, I turned on WiFi on my Windows 7 computer and then let Steam connect to the Internet a couple of days ago and had to click "not interested" on their controller and other junk they were offering. I mean, I hope the Linux thing works for them so that more people don't feel like they have to use Windows, but I wish they wouldn't try to recommend stuff to buy. It's never right anyhow. They advertise stupid 3D shooters that appeal to little kids at me. I want games for smart people not stuff that the average stinky guy that moved back into his mom's basement would buy. :(
 
Taco said:
So here's the perspective of someone using a gaming PC(NCase M1 shout out, awesome case) connected to their living TV and gaming from their couch.

Where Steam fails in a Windows environment is multiple users, both Windows and Steam. Games save based on the local Windows user, so you can't use a single Windows login. This means logging out and logging on Windows to properly manage your game progress, whenever you switch users.

Then, even more unforgivable, Steam doesn't store credentials for more than a single Steam user. Blows my mind Valve has not made it easy to just switch users without having to retype a user/password in every single time. Or hell at the very least store them individually for each Windows user instead of the entire system.

In short, I'd love to just boot into Big Picture mode and be able to switch users just like I do on any console, strictly through a gamepad. How Origin says it works does not work in reality, it is the furthest thing "Seamless". Instead you need to pull the keyboard out, login as the correct Windows user, then login as the correct Steam user. When it's time to switch users you may as well just restart the entire system and re-do that process. Granted I don't know is SteamOS handles it any better.

It really is an awful Living Room experience. Maybe I'm missing something, if anyone has tips I'm all ears. I'm not loading a Linux OS, for reasons mentioned already.
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This is why I'm excited for SteamOS. Though, I don't expect it to be anywhere near useable until a few years from now. This whole Steam Machine launch currently is just a big old beta test. To get the idea of it being out there and whatnot.

I'm excited because I want an OS catered to my HTPC like environment. Windows is not a ideal solution. However, I'm not buying a Steam Machine because I can build my own computer. I will probably grab the streaming device though. Hopefully, in a few years and more games are being released on it, I'll probably build a machine around SteamOS.
 
twonunpackmule said:
This is why I'm excited for SteamOS. Though, I don't expect it to be anywhere near useable until a few years from now. This whole Steam Machine launch currently is just a big old beta test. To get the idea of it being out there and whatnot.
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I guess Microsoft isn't the only company that uses paying end users as beta testers.

twonunpackmule said:
I'm excited because I want an OS catered to my HTPC like environment. Windows is not a ideal solution. However, I'm not buying a Steam Machine because I can build my own computer. I will probably grab the streaming device though. Hopefully, in a few years and more games are being released on it, I'll probably build a machine around SteamOS.
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Windows 10 in a lot of ways works well on the big screen. That Start Menu that many have bemoaned on the desktop works very well as a 10' interface with something like the Steam Controller. Even Windows Store apps can work out well on the device with dedicated Netflix, Hulu and other video content apps along with even more games on the causal side that work well with the Steam Controller.

There's just nothing new or improved here at any level above what's already available and indeed the lack of support for much the Steam library is a big step back. Maybe that'll get better in 3 to 5 years. But for right now only folks that don't care for Windows or don't like Microsoft see much of anything here.
 
When one of OEM partners drops it because they said it brought nothing new to the table it's hard to perceive that as much a threat. I'd love for Steam OS and Steam Machines to bring something new to the table for gamers as I agree that's good for gamers. Fewer games and other applications on a different platform isn't brining anything new however.
 
heatlesssun said:
When one of OEM partners drops it because they said it brought nothing new to the table it's hard to perceive that as much a threat. I'd love for Steam OS and Steam Machines to bring something new to the table for gamers as I agree that's good for gamers. Fewer games and other applications on a different platform isn't brining anything new however.
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Apple didn't "bring something new to the table" when they launched the iPhone, but they seem to have done pretty well at replacing Windows Mobile and Blackberry. The same thing can be said about Android phones when they launched and eventually took the majority of the phone market. Microsoft didn't bring anything new to the table when they introduced their first version of Windows since there were already graphical interfaces out there before they launched their product.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Apple didn't "bring something new to the table" when they launched the iPhone, but they seem to have done pretty well at replacing Windows Mobile and Blackberry.
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The iPhone bought a lot new to the table compared to those platforms in 2007. Certainly more than Steam OS does to PC gaming.

CreepyUncleGoogle said:
The same thing can be said about Android phones when they launched and eventually took the majority of the phone market. Microsoft didn't bring anything new to the table when they introduced their first version of Windows since there were already graphical interfaces out there before they launched their product.
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Much less mature market for Android than desktop Linux that's been around for 20 years where people are still talking about things getting into gear 3 to 5 years out. It would much easier to say give it time if every year for the last 20 hadn't been "The year of desktop Linux".
 
heatlesssun said:
The iPhone bought a lot new to the table compared to those platforms in 2007. Certainly more than Steam OS does to PC gaming.
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Such as...?

Much less mature market for Android than desktop Linux that's been around for 20 years where people are still talking about things getting into gear 3 to 5 years out. It would much easier to say give it time if every year for the last 20 hadn't been "The year of desktop Linux".
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People who make "year of Linux" claims are usually journalists looking for page views or subscribers or whatever so they splash a headline to get people who are easily duped into controversy to read something. As for computing, the Linux kernel is being happily executed on lots and lots of computing devices so it's arguable that (thanks to junk like Android) Linux is just as popular as Windows, but I'm not getting into that debate since it's as off topic as the whole Ribbon thing from that other thread.

Linux on desktop computers has always been the domain of the 1%ers of the computing world that had the capacity to learn how to use it. Windows is for everyone else from the trailer court to the struggling middle income guy who wants to pretend to be a gamer to his friends. There's nothing wrong with that. It helped grow lots of related industries and made certain people lots of moolah to build into dynastic, wealthy families. That's coolness and I'm glad for it.

However, I do think Microsoft has lost momentum and is no longer the instrument of change it was before. They're chasing after other companies with copycat services like their store (following iTunes and Google Play) and tried unsuccessfully to enter the tablet market with Windows 8 that resulted in the big backpedaling that we're seeing now with their new sales of a convertible they're calling a laptop and Windows 10's UI changes to shed the screen-only interface of 8. In fact, they've failed to make any significant impact with tablet initiatives or non-standard computing platforms despite attempting to do so for a very, very long time. There's like crappy Windows 95 tablets out there and that big table they called the Surface before the Surface was a tablet. Now they're furiously trying to play catch up in developing alternate revenue streams through data mining of the user population and deploying subscription-based Office suites. Being late to enter a market doesn't mean doom and gloom, but it certainly shows that Microsoft doesn't have the initiative to act as an instrument of change in the broader computing market and that opens the door for things like SteamOS which would never have seen the light of day were it not for various recent misssteps from the people in Redmond.
 
heatlesssun said:
Windows 10 in a lot of ways works well on the big screen. That Start Menu that many have bemoaned on the desktop works very well as a 10' interface with something like the Steam Controller.
Click to expand...

Eh. I have Windows 8 currently, and though better than Windows 7, in terms of HTPC usage...it still isn't ideal.

It's hard to describe exactly what's missing...but Windows 10 still isn't an ideal HTPC OS. I also don't think MS has any desire to correct that either. They are so busy with their Xbox, that they give two shits about the growing market that is occuring on the PC front. Their answer is to sell them an Xbox. Valve's is to sell them a PC. I prefer Valve's solution.

True, it isn't perfect yet and I'm not going to buy into it at that this moment. However, I'm excited about the OS being geared towards this market. Now, they just need to get it to work and be supported. Which, if they can get devs to support Vulkan, I think we'll see a much larger turn out for SteamOS support in the future. However, I don't expect it to replace Windows or anything. I'm just hoping it gets the conversation going of turning out OS and UIs geared towards the couch.
 
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