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Gabe Newell Reveals More About Steam Boxes, New Input Devices
adeelarshad82 writes "Valve's presence at CES this year isn't to show off some new games, it's all about meeting with hardware manufacturers behind closed doors to talk about Steam Box. In an interview at CES which highlights Valve's plans for the console, Gabe Newell describes Steam Box as two projects. The first, codenamed Bigfoot, focuses on the hardware for use in the home with a TV. The second, codenamed Littlefoot, is investigating mobile gaming. Gabe goes on to discuss Valve plans on having three levels of Steam Box described as 'Good, Better, or Best' and expectations for the controller where the company wants something that's more high precision than anything else out there at the moment."
The interview at the Verge is pretty extensive.
Dream come true: Half-Life 3 with a real crowbar controller!
At the risk of feeding the troll...
First off it won't be competing against PCs. It's going to be competing against consoles.
Secondly... why not? You realize that under the hood most consoles are just small form factor PCs right? Have a look at the hardware in an XBox 360 or a Playstation 3 and things will look familiar.
Then add in the fact that console gaming isn't necessarily about just horsepower (look at the Wii). This product will be jumping into the arena with a tried and true digital distribution system already in place, which is one of the bigger remaining speed bumps in the console market. From TFA they're also looking at having tiered hardware, which is going to appeal to a lot of people.
I'm not saying you're wrong to be skeptical, but saying that it's because it can't compete with something it's not really competing with... well to use the old car analogy it's like saying, "That Nissan Leaf has some great innovation, but I remain skeptical that it can really rival the advantage of the raw horsepower and versatility of the F-150."
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
From the Verge article: "For example, Valve intends to make Steam Box a server, which can serve games on multiple TVs around the home simultaneously. So you could purchase a single Steam Box and use it with multiple controllers for playing games on the different TVs around your home." I'd like this very much please, thank you. If I could share games in a steam account within a household that would be awesome. Currently, when I'm logged in and playing Game X from the account then no one can play Game Y. That's not any different than with consoles but you can buy multiple consoles. Buying multiple consoles solves the problem completely. Having multiple steam accounts with games split across them doesn't. You aren't going to have a separate steam account for each game. And then you still can have the issue of two desired-at-the-moment games being on the same account. And constant account switching. This is not a major issue, but it would be a very-nice-to-have.
I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that Valve doesn't have shareholders to answer to.
Considering a bit is the limit for how fine grained you can get on a computer
Actually, no. A bit is the smallest logical unit a modern computer can handle, but the more bits you use the more fine-grained you get, ie. a 1bit register can only represent on or off, whereas an 8bit register can register 256 different values. Ergo, your assessment is incorrect.
the keyboard is the most precise input device you could create....
Incorrect, see above.
Imagine gaming in binary.
That doesn't even make sense. Binary literally means a representation of two different values -- how do you game in a representation of two different values? Well, the answer is easy: you can't play a logical, numerical representation of a system with only two possible values. That's like saying "imagine gaming in biodiversity."
Depends on keyboard. PS/2 interface limitations are long gone in the age of USB keyboards, and this is mainly limited by the microcontroller used in the keyboard itself as well as how keys are linked to it.
For example, my G15 handles six simultaneous key presses. In some combinations it can handle even more, but six is what it's advertised for.