Slashdot Mirror
SteamBoy Machine Team Promises a Portable Console for Valve's Steam Games
According to an article at The Escapist, a group of hardware developers is working on a portable version of the long-rumored SteamBox console, dubbed the SteamBoy. (Video tease.) This portable version wouldn't be as powerful as some other Steam-centric rigs, but a representative of this group says "it will be possible to play the majority of current games in Steam."
While the exact hardware itself is still under wraps, the SteamBoy design should feature a Quad-Core CPU, 4GB RAM, a 32GB built-in memory card, and a 5" 16:9 touchscreen. ... The pictured SteamBoy looks like a combination of the Steam Controller and the PlayStation Vita, with two touchpads, 8 action buttons, 4 triggers, and two additional buttons to the rear. While that should certainly be as functional as a Steam Machine, we still aren't aware what the system specs will be.
Won't be enough to play any decent modern titles on Steam :/
So long as Valve has the ability to take away my entire Steam collection, with no warning or reason given whatsoever, I think I'll pass on anything Steam related. Having seen a friend deal with VALVe's legendary customer service before, I can't understand why people keep giving them money.
Really cool concept but they are intending to make portable a platform that is made with PC levels of cheap and easy to expand storage in mind. Many games will be fine with 32GB, but some (I'm looking at you, Wolf New Order and your 40+GB download) would be no go. Unless they are able to build it in such a way that games could be installed on memory cards that are easily swapped. That would be interesting.
tinfoilmedia
Something tells me nintendo might have some words for them if they try and sell the device under that name.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I'm guessing these guys never heard about Steamboy.
Say hello to Toho and Sony for me.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
...Steam Boy?! :D Really? STEAM BOY?
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
There's barely any games worth mentioning, other than Indie games, available for SteamOS...
A 32 GB internal memory isn't even enough to hold both layers of a single BD-ROM. How do you expect it to fit games with production values matching AAA PS3 games? Or do you expect game publishers to add "SteamBoy optimized" versions of their games with cut-resolution textures the way PS2 DVD games had to be squeezed into one-fourth of the size to fit on the PSP's UMD?
an Android handheld : that would be self-defeating!
NVIDIA didn't seem to think so when it launched the Shield. Nor did JXD think so when it launched a bunch of pocket-size Android tablets with gaming buttons. Nor did MOGA think so when it released a line of clip-on Bluetooth controllers. I'd like to see why you think an Android-powered device to play Android games with button input and PC games streamed from a PC on the LAN is so "self-defeating", other than perhaps Android's reputation for excessive audio latency.
Yet Nintendo never got in trouble for taking the "Game Boy" name from the songs "Have a Cigar" by Pink Floyd and "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers. Exclusive rights in a trademark are specific to one field of use in one country unless they're famous enough to qualify for dilution protection, and I don't think Bandai's PlayStation 2 game adaptation of Steamboy was released outside Japan.
Should be about as successful as an Ouya. I hope they have some sort of plan to repurpose the hardware, like Dell did.
I think that is wishful thinking for someone who really is rooting for the Red team
At present, the consensus is that AMD GL drivers are severely deficient in performance, capability, and stability (see posting about GL vendors provided by Valve engineering manager). Now this company could work with AMD to greatly improve their GL drivers. Or they could simply use a Tegra K1 (or the subsequent Erista chip) and get everything they need with top-notch driver and Valve support. Given that Shield already runs Portal and Half-life 2, and that Valve and Nvidia have collaborated on the Steam Box, and that NVidia GL drivers are consistently better ... well, you see where I'm going. The Tegra chips seem to make a lot more sense.
I have a lot of games on my steam account, but one issue I have, is that my son can't play an entirely different game on his PC at the same time I play a game. He now has his own steam account for games we know only he will play, but it's a significant and stupid limitation. I can see a day when we will avoid buying a game on steam since playing that game will block each other from playing ANY game. It's just a very poor business decision on their part.
Personally I'd be far more interested in a memory card port so I could have as many saved games and downloads on them as I want. 32GB is a joke nowadays without an expansion option.
As many have pointed out, it's already not enough to play a large number of modern games. Who the hell would want to buy a game device that's obsolete by design?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Valve have failed to deliver on just about every project they have worked on the past decade. Everything from Halflife to SteamOS/Steambox and now they are pushing their next Vapourware product. If it wasn't for their hugely successful marketplace flogging other peoples software this company would have gone bust years ago.
Notice how there's no real information, no indication that Valve is involved (or rather indication than Valve is not involved) and the website is a stub and belongs to a random spanish guy.
If you believe a bunch of nobody is developing an x86 handheld in a Steam controller, fine ; else me thinks it drives traffic and has no other particular function.
I think that the device is not meant for the AAA title. There are thousands of indie titles on steam that would run perfectly on such a device without the need for a PC to render stuff.
who cares about the power, as long as it is powerful enough to stream games from your real steambox!
I would love to see this thing act as a real pipboy in the next Fallout game.
so kinda like the Nvidia Shield when you set it up to stream from your PC.