Valve Launches First Generation Steam Machines

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 01/07/2014 10:03 AM | source: | 10 comment(s)

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Dota 2, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced over one dozen Steam Machine designs now in production from leading manufacturers and targeted for release in 2014. The lineup of Steam Machines announced today offers a wide variety of price and performance options made possible by the Steam Machine's open design, with systems starting as low as $499 and top end systems rivaling today's bleeding edge gaming PCs.

Every Steam Machine includes an innovative Steam Controller designed for use with a wide variety of game genres, and is powered by the SteamOS, a custom OS built atop Linux. "The first generation Steam Machines offers something for every gamer, which is a critical part of extending Steam into the living room," said Gabe Newell of Valve. "With over 3,000 games and more than 65 million gamers on Steam, it's important to offer gamers a variety of Steam Machines that allow them to select what makes the most sense for them."

Announced earlier this year, Steam Machines are new entertainment systems targeted for use in the living room and leveraging Steam, the popular online platform for gaming and software with over 65 million accounts worldwide.

The makers of first generation Steam Machines are:

Alienware
Alternate
CyberPowerPC
Digital Storm
Falcon NW
GigaByte
iBuyPower
Maingear
Material.net
Next Spa
Origin PC
Scan
Webhallen
Zotac

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toniglandyl
Member

Posts: 33
Joined: 2013-10-31

#4738535 Posted on: 01/07/2014 10:13 AM

it's materiel.net not material.net

it's a French site.

EDIT : seems like info on the boxes are available here : http: //media.steampowered.com/store/steammachines/SteamMachinesBroc_WEB.PDF
(remove the space)

southamptonfc
Senior Member

Posts: 2052
Joined: 2006-04-10

#4738549 Posted on: 01/07/2014 10:47 AM

Sorry, please delete!

krisby
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Joined: 2002-12-13

#4738764 Posted on: 01/07/2014 04:50 PM

I'm not clear on how this will work, I assume as it is using the existing steam library that it will continue to use windows games, therefore how can this run without an emulator? seems pointless buying what is essentially a linux games console with a built in emulator to run windows games.
But I imagine I am missing something here, so how is this meant to work?

EDIT: Nevermind, just found that the games will be developed to run natively. I did wonder that initially but sounded like such a large exercise for what is a niche product, but if Steam want to waste their time and money doing it, more power to them, I just hope that doesn't affect the price of windows game titles when they need to move money round the balance sheet.

F1refly
Senior Member

Posts: 9042
Joined: 2004-07-31

#4738772 Posted on: 01/07/2014 04:58 PM

Either some makers are also putting Windows on those machines as a dual boot config or they got their numbers wrong. I don't think Linux has that many games unless they are including the potentials from the use of WINE?

teleguy
Senior Member

Posts: 1354
Joined: 2010-06-09

#4738785 Posted on: 01/07/2014 05:06 PM

Most of these games are supposed to be streamed from a Windows machine to the Steam box.

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