Tag: Steamos

When Valve unveiled its Steam Controller last year, I was quite skeptical about the value of its built-in touchscreen. It turns out many of Valve’s testers had the same opinion. This January, at the 2014 Steam Dev Days conference, the company announced that it was ditching the touchscreen for a more conventional button configuration.

Here’s another computer looking for a dumb terminal to mate with. Like the ICE xPC, Tango crams in the main components of a computer into a palm-sized case. It also uses a dock to connect to an HDMI display and other peripherals.

If console gamers have the PS4 and Xbox One to be excited about, Valve has given the master race and their incessantly upgraded next, next-gen PC hardware something to tinker with. You can now download the first public beta version of SteamOS, the Linux-based and gaming-centered operating system.

Yesterday Valve released a video showing a prototype of the Steam Controller – which is designed to be used with the company’s upcoming Steam Machines – being used to play a handful of games. The demo focused on the controller’s “legacy mode”, in which the controller emulates a mouse and a keyboard, letting you map keys and cursor movement to the controller’s buttons, triggers and trackpads.

Earlier this week Valve teased the free, gaming-oriented and Linux-based SteamOS and the PC-console hybrid Steam Machine. It soon completed the establishment of the fundamentals of its living room invasion by unveiling the Steam Controller. As with the Steam Machine, the controller is Valve’s attempt at bringing the best of PC and console gaming together.

Ben Heck’s Steam box will soon be a legitimate Steam Box. The avid PC gamer can build his Steam Box, the console gamer will be able to buy a Steam Box, everyone can have a Steam Box!