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Valve Job Posting Confirms Hardware Plans
redletterdave writes "Valve is reportedly interested in building hardware. The Bellevue, Wash.-based software developer added a job posting to its site on Tuesday morning for an industrial designer. We're frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space though, so we're jumping in,' the posting said. 'Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years. There's a real void in the marketplace, and opportunities to create compelling user experiences are being overlooked.'"
Well, at least we'll never have to buy more than two consoles from them.
Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years
Maybe the reason for this is the basic form works. The design of the wheel hasn't changed much in a 5 thousand years either. I wonder why.
Keyboard and mouse haven't changed significantly over the years because they work well. Until we have mind control , I doubt anybody will come up with something better than keyboard and mouse anytime soon.
As for built quality, well, that's another thing. Arguably, the quality of keyboards has constantly declined since Model M except for remakes like Unicomp and keyboards with Cherry switches. It would be great if Valves console had a great keyboard but somehow I doubt it...
Maybe they can forget all this crap that no one REALLY wants and just finish Half Life 3.
"Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years. There's a real void in the marketplace, and opportunities to create compelling user experiences are being overlooked"
Yeah, aside from the Wiimote and Kinect and every other product that has changed the input in a meaningful way.
It sounds to me like Valve is interested in developing a gaming laptop with Kinect-like functionality built in. That is an interesting idea, but it's nothing particularly revolutionary. Successful products are seldom revolutionary, so that's not a bad thing. Good luck Valve, with whatever it is you're doing!
Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years
Maybe the reason for this is the basic form works. The design of the wheel hasn't changed much in a 5 thousand years either. I wonder why.
I beg to differ. The basic design requirement of a wheel is that it's round and rolls, and I'll certainly grant you that this aspect of wheels hasn't changed. However, a rough-hewn wooden round, such as used in the simplest of carts, bears very little other resemblance to the three-spoked carbon-fiber performance bicycle wheels I see with some frequency on my morning bicycle commute. Sure, both are round and roll, but otherwise, there's thousands of years of difference between them.
So what are the design requirements for computer input? You could start by looking at the requirements of a keyboard and a mouse: 1) Must have all the keys required to input at least ASCII. 2) Must have some kind of pointer-device control, ideally with at least two buttons.
So sure, you can have your basic flat keyboard, and a basic mouse. Or you could have something quite different, like this, or this, or this, or this (what I'm actually using to type this message).
And that's not even looking into other possible input schemes, such as voice recognition, eye tracking, etc.
I applaud Valve's efforts to look into better ways of doing things. This kind of exploration is exactly what leads to new and better things.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I know you meant this as a joke, but take it seriously for a moment.
Wouldn't it be spiffy if Valve took their hardware plaform and came up with a Steampunk option for it? Obviously the basic low-cost version will have to be basic and low-cost. But they're in an obvious position to sell a Steampunk version for a premium.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Come on. Jeri Ellsworth is working for them. I doubt she's writing PC games, duh. There was a hackaday article about that a quarter ago. I don't follow this industry and even I've known about it for a while. Sigh.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
console controllers, for example, are actually better for some games, such as platformers or racers, though not for FPS or RTS games
As I tried to type a long post on my Nexus 7 tablet a few days ago, I realized something. Pressing buttons on a keyboard or a gamepad is like touch typing, as the player memorizes where the buttons are relative to his thumbs' resting positions and uses the feel of the edges of the buttons to adjust his hand positioning. Using a mouse or touch screen, on the other hand, is like hunt and peck: see something on the screen, move your mouse, and click. Aiming in FPS and selecting units in RTS are nearly ideal hunt and peck tasks; platformers and fighting games need touch typing because movement is relative to the player's current position.
I've written more about this.
Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years.
The trackball? The joystick (which seems to almost be dead hardware compared to a decade ago)
I'm more of a old-school RPG / military strategy guy but for FPS I've occasionally wondered what a right hand joystick left hand trackball FPS interface would be like. Foot pedals would be interesting for a FPS interface, not some annoying wii-type thing where you have to jog to force exercise, but just constant pressure to move or jump or strafe or whatever.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Some games will switch state. If you are right click scoped, the wheel zooms, but otherwise it swaps weapons. Generally, I think you are right, but I don't play a tremendous amount of FPS anymore.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Sauna or some other word that means something along the lines of a Box filled with Steam.
Speculation:
A mouse that has a dedicated scroll wheel for hats.
Extra buttons for hat-based emotes: tip, straighten, salute, decapitating throw.
Two- and three- factor authentication.
Age recognition scanners to auto-ban 13-year-olds.
Hat-shaped controllers with force feedback.
Tickle-Me Companion Cube with lifelike 'clunking' sounds.
...after recent comments from Valve re. developing on Linux (easy to port to, better performance than DirectX, ability to work with / feedback commits to driver devs, etc) — plus Gabe Newell recently calling Windows 8 a catastrophe — I would not be at all surprised if we saw a Valve-branded Linux-based games console in the near future.
But maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part?
Holy crap. That alpha grip thing looks like the most awesome and convenient input method ever. Does it actually work like they market it? :O
I looked into alternate keyboards years ago when repetitive stress was threatening to render me unable to work, and the AlphaGrip was the best option at the time. The other alternates I found were several hundred dollars and with no return policies, while the AlphaGrip was maybe $100 and had a one-month try-it-out period. So I gave it a month, and liked it enough that I now have two (one for my day job, and one for home).
That said, there's definitely a learning curve -- don't expect to type very fast for the first few weeks. But the layout is also different enough that you don't overwrite your muscle memory for regular flat keyboards. I tried Dvorak typing, but hated it whenever I had to use a Qwerty machine; meanwhile, I can switch between using an AlphaGrip and a regular flat keyboard with no finger confusion. The built-in track ball means you can stand up and pace if you want and still get work done. And the shape is different enough that I was able to avoid the repetitive stress issues that were being caused by my use of a flat keyboard + mouse.
YMMV and all that, naturally. :)
(FWIW, I'm not connected with the AlphaGrip company in any way other than as a satisfied customer.)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
You wanna make a game computer, super great, but I don't see their reasoning
"We're frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space"
what? video cards keep getting more powerful and add hardware accelerated features, CPU's as well, monitors get bigger and sometimes more pixels and you the developers have damn near infinite amounts of ram and storage. Its not the lack of innovation in hardware, its YOU damn developers who wont get past your XBOX360 specs from over a half decade ago and never looking at anything else.
"'Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years."
Cause for many types of game it works very well
"There's a real void in the marketplace,"
Where? Its not in computer hardware, you just ignore that it exists, Its not in computer input cause you can get or adapt any type of controller imaginable for a PC, the only void I have seen is that theres not that much software thats little more than an after thought console port.