Valve’s Steam Machine initiative, alongside the associated Steam Controller project, has become the most infamous case of gaming hardware vaporware this side of the Phantom; however, it is Valve, so they do deserve the benefit of the doubt. And apparently, they are gearing up to honor our trust, with a final reveal for the Steam Controller, and what remains of the Steam Machine initiative, coming up at the Game Developers Conference 2015 in March.
This information comes to us from Origin PC CEO Kevin Wasielewski, who revealed the details to GameSpot today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“At GDC, they’re going to have more information,” Wasielewski said. “And we’ll be there. That’s the official stuff we can say. They came out with the controller, then they got some user feedback, and they had to revamp it; they got some more user feedback and had to revamp it again. So they went through that like three or four times. And now their controller is finalized. So now they’re going to production and at GDC is when they’re going to announce more stuff.”
He also talked about what was once the Steam Machine initiative, confirming that the Steam Machine name seems to be pretty much dead by this point, owing to their being no need for separate branding.
“I think that’s kind of pretty much dead,” he said of the term Steam Machine. “It’s like a living room PC–is now the new term. Living room PCs have been around forever. That’s not anything new either. But it seems like there’s a legitimate demand and push for living room PCs.”
It sounds like Valve may have scaled back on the entire effort to have specific Steam Machine standards and branding, and may instead be just content selling its controller and pushing the SteamOS on regular ‘living room PCs.’ Certainly, that would explain why companies that formerly had Steam Machines planned, such as Alienware, went ahead with releasing those machines even after Valve’s delay in pushing the standard out in the first place.
So, looks like GDC this year will be the place to be if you are a Valve fan. We’ll keep you posted.
