So About Those Steam Machines

Valve's first honest attempt at taking over your living room, the much talked about Steam Machines, are finally here. Or at least one is, the Alienware Steam Machine. I've gathered links to a few reviews for your web browsing pleasure. Long story short, the reviews are mixed.

Don't buy a Steam Machine... yet.

What Valve Got Right And Wrong With The Steam Machine.

Alienware Steam Machine review: A gaming PC for your living room.

Alienware Steam Machine Review: PC Gaming With Console Comforts.

Allow me to summarize all of that. Most people like the controller but don't like the menus. The box looks great but it's not incredibly powerful. The biggest kicker I've seen people mention is that the Linnux based Steam OS the Machines run isn't compatible with all the games available on Steam. Steam's entire catalog for the PC is about 6,000 games but only 1,500 of those are compatible with Steam OS. The Verge shows a great table where you can see that out of the 10 most popular games on Steam only one of them is compatible with the Steam Machine There is an option to use the Steam Machine to stream games from your PC to your TV but that requires a hard line connection between both (which at that point why not just run a long HDMI cable to your TV?).

Honestly none of this sounds great to me. I just don't see where the market for the Steam Machine is. If you already run a high end gaming system you probably already have a battlestation and aren't that interested in moving your gaming to the living room. If you don't have a PC the game selection on the Steam Machine is so limited I don't see what the advantage is over getting an Xbox One or a PS4. Yeah it's more powerful than either of those but it's not THAT much more powerful. Is that really worth the trade off of only being able to play a fraction of the games?

Good luck with this one Valve.

Six Months With a Steam Machine

About 6 months ago SaharaDrac (probably not his real name) received a Steam Machine for beta testing. His review is less than enthusiastic. Apparently the controller blows and the Linux based OS is kinda limiting. That's not great news.

I don't think the controller issue is that big of a deal. If they're not already married to keyboard/mouse, most gamers that pick up a Steam Machine are probably going to find a way to install a Xbox 360 controller anyway. Valve obviously can't just include on, so while it's disappointing that their proprietary controller is hard to use I don't think it's a system killer or anything.

On the other hand, the issues with Linux could very well be a system killer. I've mentioned before that the single biggest obstacle for the Steam Machine is the Linux based operating system. They HAVE to get 3rd party publishers to have games available for it. Can you imagine spending a thousand dollars on a gaming console that can't play Destiny? Half Life 2 isn't going to cut it for Valve. If this bird's going to fly it's going to need some help from the big software developers like Activision, EA, etc.

Anyhoo, watch the video. It's not that long but he goes into some pretty good detail as to why he found the machine a disappointment.

The Steam Machine Needs More Time

A couple days ago Valve announced that the first round of Steam Machines were going to be pushed back to 2015. Not exactly great news for people hoping for the "real" next generation of consoles. I have a theory going on that's probably crazy talk but here me out. I think the delay on the Steam Machine is due to a delay in Half-Life 3. I know, I know, there's nothing but speculation when it comes to Half-Life 3 but I just have this feeling that Valve has something extra up their sleeve when it comes to the Steam Machines. A linux based console/pc hybrid can't be the easiest sell, it's going to need really good and I mean REALLY GOOD, games to get the attention of the unwashed masses. Call of Duty #57: Duty Harder just won't cut it. What better way to turn some heads than releasing what might be the most anticipated game of all time as an exclusive (or at least as a steam exclusive).

I mean this has to be some sort of software delay right, I get it that Valve says this delay has to do with the controller but really? The Controller? That dog don't hunt. Modern wireless controller tech has been around since 2006 is it a problem with the touch pads? Motion sensors? Unless they're being developed by Gabe himself in his basement that doesn't sound right to me. I'd much rather believe in a thing that probably doesn't exist than here some sort of "rational" explanation.

Did You Know Gaming: Team Fortress 2

Oh Team Fortress Classic... so many hours. So many hours.

This episode of Did You Know Gaming takes a look at Team Fortress 2. Now I'll freely admit, I've played TF2 for a total of like 30 minutes but I've played hours and hours of Team Fortress Classic, so I was very excited to see this video. I'm not gonna front, TFC had it's problems but it's still one of my favorite games ever. My glasses might be a bit rose colored as it was the first game I ever really played on-line with a decent high speed internet connection.

I never did get into TF2. By the time I picked it up on the 360 it was already 3 years old so the on-line community was pretty stout. I remember being really frustrated with finding servers and getting my ass whooped all the time. Still, it was easily my most anticipated game of 1999.

Mystery Solved

I'll say this once. If Half-Life 3 doesn't ship with the new Steam Machines I'll eat my hat.

Steam Machines are pretty

Normally I'm not the kind of blogger who just grabs another blog's content and repurposes it as my own. I'm the kind of blogger who just finds a youtube clip or a cartoon and will say a couple funny lines about it. With that in mind here's a bunch of stuff I took from Destructiod's coverage of CES. I mean I didn't just take everything so you should take the time to check out Destructiod's gallery of Steam Machines. They also have really basic spec and price info on all the units plus a few more I didn't include.

A couple interesting things we've learned. The machines shown will retail for $499 to a staggering $6,000. The cheapest look to be your average Intel i5s with 8 gigs of Ram. The fanciest get real fancy real quick. i7 processors, 16 gigs of RAM, dual video cards, solid state hard drives, pretty much the works.

So here's where we're at. If you buy a Steam Machine you're essentially buying a Valve branded gaming computer. There's really no getting around that. Some of these cases are pretty slick but you can tell most of the guts are straight off the shelf, although it is the Newegg shelf not the Best Buy shelf, so they've got that going for them.

This is interesting development in that it's really sort of a non-development. A lot of people have claimed that the Steam Machine will bring PC gaming to the masses. If it does it's doesn't look like it's going to do it with any tricks or gimmicks. These are pretty straight forward gaming PCs. And some of them even seem to be a good value. I'd be hard pressed putting together as nice of a computer as the Zotac or the CyberPower at their prices ($599 and $499) especially is such a dapper case (personally I love the fact that the Zotac looks like an old wireless router).

I still feel like it's going to be the software side of things that makes or breaks these. If Valve has found a way to make Linux easy to use and develop for, I have a feeling these will get real attractive to gamers really quick.

SteamBoxes are here

Over the weekend a couple very interesting photosets showed up on reddit, unboxing pictures of Valve's new SteamBox. I didn't want to post them all here, so go head over to imagur and check them out. I'll be here when you get back...

Good? Ok, let's talk. That's a PC. I've built plenty of PCs in my day and that is a PC. Looking at that back panel that's a mico-atx motherboard if I've ever seen one. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It certainly looks like it has all the bells and whistles. HDMI and DVI ports (multiple monitors?), co-ax for some reason, eSata for extra storage, lots of sound options, standard keyboard connector, mini-usb ports in the front. It's got the works but it's nothing you can't pick up on NewEgg right now.

The case itself looks slick, especially turned on but it all looks a bit cheap to me. The USB ports on the front aren't 100% square, the controller looks like it's made of cheap plastic and around the back of the box the lid doesn't looks completely flush. But what can you expect from a demo unit? Valve shipped 300 of these out to some eager nerds, I've heard reports that they basically shipped boxes with 3 different sets of specs. The one I've linked to looks like it got the works.

4 cores @ 3.2 GHz, 16 gigs of system RAM, 3 gigs of Video RAM, GeForce GTX 780, those specs are nothing to sneeze at. You might not be set for 4K gaming but as far as pure power goes it blows the doors off the Xbox One and the PS4. A couple things are conspicuously absent. No physical disc drive (sorry Blu-ray fans) and no mention of hard drive space on the system info screen. I mean it has to have some sort of hard drive. I can't imagine the OS is just loaded onto a flash drive and you have to bring your own external drive to the party. I wonder if they went solid state to reduce load times and save space on the inside.

Long story short, looks cool I want one. Developer support will still make or break this thing but I like what I see so far. Now just make with the Half Life 3 valve.

Not Half Life 3

Valve made the last of their big announcements last week and it wasn't Half Life 3. It wasn't even Half Life 2: Episode 3. It was this ugly ass controller for their upcoming console/PC Steam Machines. I don't want to tell Valve how to do their business but come on, no one is going to use this. They're just going to keep using Xbox 360 controllers because even with the janky d-pad it's still the best controller out there. No one is going to use the buttonless monstrosity. It's like the Kinnect for your thumbs.