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Valve Announcements for this week

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Zakis

War Priestess
Last week Valve teased three announcements coming this week concerning Steam and possibly game titles. Well the first one has dropped today. Second one is scheduled for Wednesday at 1pm est.
http://kotaku.com/valve-announces-steam-os-1371869324

Valve Announces Steam OS
ku-bigpic.png

Steam is getting its very own operating system, Valve announced today. It'll be a combination of Steam's current platform and Linux.P

SteamOS is a free operating system designed for living rooms that Valve says "combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen."P

Valve says they've already got "hundreds of games" that will come to the new operating system next year, including AAA titles, and that you'll be able to access the entire Steam catalog via "in-home streaming," a process they haven't quite explained yet. (We've reached out to a number of publishers, including EA, Activision, Square Enix, and Ubisoft, to see who's planning to develop or port games for SteamOS.)\P

"In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we’re now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level," Valve writes. "Game developers are already taking advantage of these gains as they target SteamOS for their new releases."12P
The games pictured on the new SteamOS website are Trine 2, Metro: Last Light, Europa Universalis IV, Rome II: Total War, and Football Manager 2013.P

Valve also announced four new features that will be available both for SteamOS and the standard Steam platform: streaming, family sharing, parental restrictions, and options for movies, music, and other media.P
"SteamOS will be available soon as a free download for users and as a freely licensable operating system for manufacturers," Valve writes. "Stay tuned in the coming days for more information."P
This is the first of three scheduled Valve announcements this week, all connected to the company's plans for bringing Steam into living rooms.P

For almost a year now, Valve has been teasing the idea of Steam-branded hardware—an initiative that could prove game-changing as we enter the next generation of consoles. Last December, Valve boss Gabe Newell told me that the Steam Box would compete with Sony and Microsoft's next-gen offerings. The company has been slowly trickling out details since then.P

Announcement #2 will go live on Wednesday at 1pm Eastern.
 
The moment I saw this I immediately began pricing my media computer for my TV. The game streaming is going to be an awesome feature!
 
Welp, not interested unless it comes with the appropriate hardware. I really hoped for the following 3 announcements:
  1. Portal 3
  2. Team Fortress 3
  3. Left 4 Dead 3
Just to troll everyone.
 
Euchale said:
Welp, not interested unless it comes with the appropriate hardware. I really hoped for the following 3 announcements:
  1. Portal 3
  2. Team Fortress 3
  3. Left 4 Dead 3
Just to troll everyone.
Click to expand...
I can only imagine the hell that will be raised if the third announcement is not HL3
 
Gyoin said:
I can only imagine the hell that will be raised if the third announcement is not HL3
Click to expand...


To be fair, they ended on sort of a cliffhanger....and its been years. I would say fans have a right to be pissed if we don't hear ANYTHING about it.
 
Zakis said:
To be fair, they ended on sort of a cliffhanger....and its been years. I would say fans have a right to be pissed if we don't hear ANYTHING about it.
Click to expand...

Maybe the third one is the announcement, for an announcement about Half Life 3?
 
We have an announcement to make. In the year 2015 we will announce the making of Half-Life 3.
 
There are designs associated with each announcement.
1st - O - SteamOS
2nd - [ O ] - I'm guessing this is SteamBox running the SteamOS.
3rd - [ O + O ] - Maybe Source2 running on SteamOS? Or some kind of sharing even though that has already been released. Multiplayer?
 
2nd announcement. Steam Machines.

Source: http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/

A powerful new category of living-room hardware is on the horizon.
Join the hardware beta now.
Choose the model right for you in 2014.
Finally, a multiple choice answer

Entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all world. We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you, so we are working with multiple partners to bring a variety of Steam gaming machines to market during 2014, all of them running SteamOS.

But first, Valve’s prototype

While these products are still in development, we need your help. As always, we believe the best way to ensure that the right products are getting made is to let people try them out and then make changes as we go. We have designed a high-performance prototype that’s optimized for gaming, for the living room, and for Steam. Of course, it’s also completely upgradable and open.

This year we’re shipping just 300 of these boxes to Steam users, free of charge, for testing. You can make yourself eligible to get one. How? Read on!
Here’s how to participate

Want to make yourself eligible to participate in the beta? Add yourself to the list of candidates by completing the Eligibility Quest on Steam. Sound hard? It’s not.

THE HARDWARE BETA ELIGIBILITY QUEST:
Before October 25, log in to Steam and then visit your quest page to track your current status towards beta test eligibility
1. Join the Steam Universe community group
2. Agree to the Steam Hardware Beta Terms and Conditions
3. Make 10 Steam friends (if you haven't already)
4. Create a public Steam Community profile (if you haven't already)
5. Play a game using a gamepad in Big Picture mode
You can complete the steps in any order. Once you’ve completed all of the steps, you’ll be awarded a special badge, and you’ll officially be among the pool of people from whom we’ll choose beta participants / hardware recipients.

On October 25th, the list will be locked. So complete the quest before then!

Your help is critical to our design process. Your feedback will shape both the new OS version of Steam and the new category of gaming machines that will run it.
Questions!

When can I buy one?!
Beginning in 2014, there will be multiple SteamOS machines to choose from, made by different manufacturers.

I’m pretty happy with my PC Gaming setup, do I have to buy a new piece of hardware now?
No. Everything that we’ve been doing on Steam for the last 10 years will continue to move forward.

If you guys are delivering an OS to hardware manufacturers, why is Valve also making its own box?
We're conducting a beta of the overall Steam living-room experience, so we needed to build prototype hardware on which to run tests. At Valve we always rely on real-world testing as part of our design process. The specific machine we're testing is designed for users who want the most control possible over their hardware. Other boxes will optimize for size, price, quietness, or other factors.

How will you choose the 300 beta participants?
A small number of users (30 or less) will be chosen based on their past community contributions and beta participation. The remainder will be chosen at random from the eligible pool.

Should I create lots of Steam accounts to increase my chances of getting selected?
No, that won’t work.

What are the specs of the Valve prototype?
We'll tell you more about it soon. Remember, there will ultimately be several boxes to choose from, with an array of specifications, price, and performance.

Where’s a picture of it? How big is it?
We promise we'll tell you more about it soon.

When will the prototypes ship?
This year.

Will beta testers be allowed to share info about their experience and post pictures and opinions online?
Yes, that really is the whole point. The input from testers should come in many forms: bug reports, forum posts, concept art, 3D prints, haikus, and also very publicly stated opinions.

Will I be able to build my own box to run SteamOS?
Yes.

Can I hack this box? Run another OS? Change the hardware? Install my own software? Use it to build a robot?
Sure.

Can I download the OS to try it out?
You will be able to download it (including the source code, if you're into that) but not yet.

If I’m not in the beta, how can I help and contribute feedback?
The Steam Universe Group is where feedback is being collected. Most areas of the group will remain open for participation by all Steam users. Some may be limited to beta participants only, but there will be plenty of ways to contribute feedback for everyone.

What games will be available during the beta?
The nearly 3,000 games on Steam. Hundreds already running natively on the SteamOS, with more to come. The rest will work seamlessly via in-home streaming.

What is SteamOS? What’s included?
Here's a link to what we said earlier about SteamOS. We'll have more details to tell you, soon.

Am I going to be using a mouse and a keyboard in the living-room?
If you want. But Steam and SteamOS work well with gamepads, too. Stay tuned, though - we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input.
 
Simpwn said:
When will the prototypes ship?
This year.
Click to expand...

fake, Valve answered a question starting with "when" with something other than "soon"

P.S. feeling the love from the whole "select text and hit the QUOTE ME!" button. Much better than quoting a massive post like this and having to delete everything but the one line you want.
 
I'm excited about open source getting into the mix. As gaming and programming evolves and becomes more accessible, I think products like this are going to be big. I think Steam OS and their box are a little ahead of their time- I think most will stick with the Big 3, but open source console gaming has to start somewhere. Here is good.
 
Simpwn said:
I’m pretty happy with my PC Gaming setup, do I have to buy a new piece of hardware now?
No. Everything that we’ve been doing on Steam for the last 10 years will continue to move forward.
Click to expand...

I´m a little bit concerned, that they get the Big Picture look in normal steam :/
 
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