So Gabe was making a console instead of HalfLife 3

Behold the SteamedBox!



So apparently is more like a reference design for a gaming HTPC of sorts that any OEM company can build and sell, and it would run Steam.

It says its going to have a i7 combined with 8GB of RAM and a nVidia GPU. The thing is that if Valve is going to make money through steam as always, how are OEMs going to make money from this? a PC with those specs can easily go beyond $1000. Nobody is going to pay that much for a console so they have to subsidize it, but how? only Valve could do that, and they wont even make the actual thing.

There wont be any licensing costs, but how do they get around the need for windows? a special license or something?

TBH it sounds a lot like what the 3DO was supposed to be

 

Where did you get this picture? I heard about this rumor over at IGN, but I thought the real announcement was gonna wait till next week?


Links please?

 

Here: https://twitter.com/#!/gregcoomer/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitter.com%2FuVdGOtZq

That's the twitter feed of Greg Coomer, a product designer at Valve and the head of the steambox team

Short bio:

Prior to joining Valve, Greg helped Microsoft design various software products. Before that, he worked with Nintendo, started and ran a user interface design company, and spent several years as a freelance product designer. After helping to come up with the company name, Greg went on to lead the first game project that Valve ever cancelled. Greg's secret dream is to create a game called ​

Akzidenz-Grotesk. You know, for kids.

 

Wow this is legit thanks! I can't help but remember the Phantom system and all its promises. Oh well, Onlive came out and was the same tech.

This is actually better than those cause it don't stream games but is a fully functional console sized gaming PC.

I don't see how they are gonna sell these for $699.

 

Yeah I was thinking about the phantom too, it wasnt a shit idea really problem is the whole company was make-believe from a conman trying to get some money and then run away

Now OEMs could buy all parts in bulk and get a nice discount, but even then I dont know how it could be less than $600, and thats still too much, the only advantage being that steam games are cheaper

 

I'll believe this when I see a formal announcement of some kind.

 

All the stuff leading up to this shows that Gabe was wanting this in an interview last week I think, over at IGN I read it that if they needed to make their own hardware to realize their games, they would. I guess he got tired of waiting on next gen systems from the big 3.

This of course would still be a PC, and Valve could still release Half-Life 3 on other systems too without competing with themselves lol.

 

Judging from the back-plate design, that is a Zotac Z68-ITX-B-E motherboard, it has a NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 GPU internal, so unless they want to add a better GFX card to it (Very doubtful due to the size of that case and the wattage, and heat restrictions) I wouldn't expect much out of there system.

As for the rest of it ,looking at the picture it looks like a pico atx power supply safe to assume 160watt max, they want to add a i7 to the system, but it will probably overheat in that small space or the HSF will be extremely load.

Edit: As for using old gen PC hardware to make a console, it can work (Xbox 1) but it has to atleast keep up with current(No next gen,its around the corner) hardware, and with a GT430 this wont.

 

No idea, that could just be a prototype,if they did a fully custom system (own PCB) they could probably squeeze in a GTX560m or better and a i7 mobile, but then it would be insanely expensive...

 

What a waste of money and planning... and who would use a controller for Counter-Strike etc?

It's a little stupid in my opinion, they release Steam games like HL, TF etc on consoles already, so why this?

 

Am I missing something here? The guy posted a picture on Twitter 5 months ago saying "Built this tiny PC" and people are assuming it's a prototype for a Valve system?

 

These specs are what was purported to be the Steamboxes specs, so this still seems legit to me.

That guy is supposed to be in charge of the Steambox development team, so everything I read at IGN in 3 different articles and here still leads me to believe this could be real.

Look at IGN.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/03/02/report-valve-developing-steam-box-console

This HAS to be the prototype. :encouragement:

 

The specs dont lighn up with what we can clearly see he used.

In the IGN article its compared to the Alienware X52, that the recently got to review:

"Intel Core i5 3.0GHz with an NVIDIA GTX 555 and 8GBs of RAM."

That sounds a bit more realistic, but the GTX 555 is still not enough to be anywhere decent, not to mention the X52 with that configuration costs $999 no one would spend that on a console.

 

That makes a little more sense, but I'm still not fully buying it...mainly because why have onboard graphics? A $999 console doesn't sound good to me, but a Steam-branded PC with those specs sounds plausible.

 

Gabe could ship it with the Valve pack free or something. Valve dont really lose anything because it's all e- and that'd lure customers in.

 

It can be done, if it uses a mobile i7 it may not be that expensive since you can find laptops with that CPU and a discrete GPU for around $600 while this thing doesnt have a screen or battery, so it would be cheaper to make

MSFT lost almost 5 billion because the first Xbox was X86, intel tore them a new one with part prices. You just cant license a X86 CPU, the only alternative would be to get a very good deal with AMD but still even bulldozer CPUs are getting pounded by intel: a lowend i3 is better for games than a quad FX.

At best they would get a custom thuban APU with a 6870 built-in. The thuban is no monster but its cheap and has 6 cores and since it would be closed hardware like any other console devs can optimize their games for multithreading to take advantage of the extra cores, something they rarely do now.

Still is all about GPUs now, you can pair a fairly weak CPU to a highend GFX card and you'll get better results than with a highend CPU and a midend card.

 

The OS front is still complicated, they could use Win7Legacy which is really lowspec and very cheap (license) since they only need the very base of the OS and DX, not all the aero UI stuff and other PC features

Valve could also go with linux: is not impossible, you can play almost any game with Wine or Cedega, and valve can optimize the existing code to make it more lean.

It can be done, the problem as always is price

 

Half-Life 3 is going to be a launch title and a Steambox exclusive. Lol

 

Marketed as "Gabe Cube" ROFL