In a post on Reddit earlier today, Gabe Newell himself promised the community that if his charity of choice, the Seattle Children’s Heart Center, receives donations of at least $500,000 he will grace Reddit with his undivided attention for an AMA.

An AMA is what’s known on Reddit as an “Ask Me Anything” where people of interest will post who they are and what they do and then field questions from the Reddit community about their jobs or themselves. It’s understandable why a Gabe Newell AMA is absolutely something to be desired.

His awesome job and previous endeavors in the video game community notwithstanding, Valve is arguably the most respected company in gaming, and in the technology development world overall. They’ve got the mysterious Steam Box coming out soon, so people will surely be asking about that. And, even though I’m sure I don’t have to say it… Half Life 3.

Now with the confirmation of the game’s development, a chance to over-analyze every letter Gabe types in response to a Half Life 3 question is something that no self-respecting Redditor would pass up.

Earlier today at Steam Dev Days, a developer-only convention hosted by Valve in Seattle, it was announced via Twitter that, as the progress forward with the production of the Steam Box, Valve intends to do away with the controversial Greenlight system that currently exists on Steam.

Dave Oshry, who attended the event, released a series of Tweets regarding Valve’s feelings on Greenlight, the future of Steam Machines, and the current state of Steam itself: “Our goal is to make Greenlight go away. Not because it’s not useful, but because we’re evolving.”

As for the Steam Machines, the overall goal is still openness rather than constricting people to a single place. “Our goal with Steam Machines has never been to force customers into the living room if they don’t want to go.” It was also reported that Steam 75 million active users recently.

The Steam Dev Days convention is not open to the press, but thankfully the attendees involved have been actively tweeting updates such as these as they come. Stay tuned to Gamingbolt as more are released.

It seems that Valve has finally decided to grace us with an update on their hugely anticipated Steam console. Valve is generally considered to be one of if not the most respected name in gaming due to their “from the gamers for the gamers” attitude. As a result, the gaming community expects huge things from this upcoming console.

The photo above show off the design prototypes for both the console box itself and it’s corresponding controllers. The goal of the Steam Machine is to bring PC caliber gaming into the living room. Desiger Greg Coomer had this to say:

“We think the PC [Original Equipment Manufacturer] space ought to have been doing this for quite some time.

“Really, every year you could watch one PC OEM or another say, ‘We are going to build the entertainment PC for the living room’ and build something that lives under the TV. “They would often do pretty well at cooling or industrial design, but that was only a fraction of the problems they need to solve for customers to have a good entertainment experience in the living room.”

Are you looking forward to Steam Machine? Let us know in the comments section below.

Source: Seattle Times

It now seems that Xi3 has thrown its hat into the ring. After teasing the so-called Steam Box or the Xi3 Piston at CES 2013 in March, Piston has announced that it will be revealing some more information for its upcoming iteration of the living room PC. It will be revealing some new information tomorrow, with its main page stating that “The wait is over” with a countdown timer in place.

What could Xi3 possibly have in store with its Piston Consoles and how game-changing will they be? How will they compete with Valve’s own Steam Machines? We’ll find out tomorrow. Stay tuned for more information.

“We set out with a singular goal: bring the Steam experience, in its entirety, into the living-room. We knew how to build the user interface, we knew how to build a machine, and even an operating system. But that still left input — our biggest missing link. We realized early on that our goals required a new kind of input technology — one that could bridge the gap from the desk to the living room without compromises. So we spent a year experimenting with new approaches to input and we now believe we’ve arrived at something worth sharing and testing with you.”

It will also feature a touch-screen and Valve showcases just how you can use it to play a game such as Portal 2. Valve also has plans to make the Steam Controller as open as the machines and OS, allowing users to modify it. “We plan to make tools available that will enable users to participate in all aspects of the experience, from industrial design to electrical engineering. We can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

You can learn more about the Steam Controller by heading here. Thoughts on the same?

So does Valve pose a threat to Microsoft’s future plans? Phil Harrison, corporate VP of the Xbox division believes it is too early to comment on.

“To be honest, it’s too early to tell, I don’t have enough facts to properly evaluate it yet. I don’t know their approach, I don’t know enough about their business model, or their financials and so on,” he said in an interview with CVG.

However he applauds Valve for making smart moves in the industry and how, in a way, it validates Microsoft’s approach with the Xbox One.

“But, Valve is clearly a smart company. I admire what they do, I admire how they do it. I would add though, that their approach helps validate ours. The biggest screen in the house is the living room, the console which you have connected to that is also usually connected to the most sophisticated sound system. That’s the centre of gravity for games in the home,” he added.

Do you agree with Harrison’s notion? Furthermore do you think Microsoft will ever bring those initial features back on Xbox One? Sound off in the comments section below.

“Engineers from Valve and Nvidia have spent a lot of time collaborating on a common goal for SteamOS: to deliver an open-platform gaming experience with superior performance and uncompromising visuals directly on the big screen.

“Nvidia engineers embedded at Valve collaborated on improving driver performance for OpenGL; optimizing performance on Nvidia GPUs; and helping to port Valve’s award-winning content library to SteamOS; and tuning SteamOS to lower latency, or lag, between the controller and onscreen action. The collaboration makes sense as both companies strongly believe in the importance of open-platform innovation, and both companies are committed to providing gamers with a cutting-edge visual experience.”

Valve recently confirmed a range of living room PCs to release in 2014 containing SteamOS.

“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.

“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.”

Just how open are we talking? According to the FAQ, Valve has confirmed that you can hack it, run another OS on it, change the hardware, install your own software and heck, even build a robot with it.

Valve will be shipping 300 Steam boxes to users, free of charge, before the official release for testing. Want in on the beta? Head here for more details.

Considering all the talk about the Steam Box, fueled by Valve’s push for Big Picture – which allows for living room gaming on your TV with controller support – will we finally see Valve unveiled its plans for an audience primarily catered to by consoles?

And more importantly, will this provide some kind of impetus for Half Life 3? We know, we know – it’s long been the same old song and dance, and Valve itself stated that the game is currently in “bits and pieces” with no discernible form. But one thing is for sure: if the Steam Box is real, Valve will be looking for a killer app. This was the case when it launched Steam to coincide with the release of Half Life: Episode 1, or when it made Portal 2 exclusive to the PS3 among consoles to facilitate the introduction of Steam.

Will third – or whichever time this is – be the charm? We’ll find out soon.

The biggest mystery is how Valve’s Steam Box will fit into the picture. A micro PC running a linux-based operating system, Valve’s foray into hardware is designed to merge the versatility of PC gaming with the simplicity and comfort of the console experience. Though Valve have pulled their innovations through to resounding success before, there are ten very important reasons why the Steam Box might not be the major player we assume it will be.

Limited Motion Controls

I’m not the biggest fan of motion controls, and the folks at Valve clearly don’t get it either. They have accordingly claimed that they will avoid shoe-horning motion controls into the Steam Box and, whilst this is definitely a smart move, it makes the Steam Box a very different beast to the other eighth gen consoles. The Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One all support motion controls right from launch, and their games and interfaces are likely to offer innovations that Steam won’t be able to emulate without waggle-based control mechanisms. I’m all for controller purity, but the options may be limited because of this.

Biometric Data

Valve have said they’re more interested in pursuing biometric data features with their control systems over the motion controlled shenanigans of their competitors. Collecting data such as pulse and sweat levels could allow Valve to create some fascinatingly adaptive AI and level designs, but it might be a hard sell to the general consumer. We can all understand touch screens these days, but convincing someone to let a controller take their pulse may be difficult.

Less Multimedia

The focus on sharing and streaming gameplay clips has been a big part of the PS4 and Xbox One announcements. Microsoft in particular seem to be gunning down the TV and multimedia route, and even Nintendo are offering TV services through the Wii U in certain territories. Whilst the PC base of the Steam Box obviously offers limitless multimedia potential, the UI of Steam is much less concerned with video and music and making it easily accessible, and this is something that may prevent the Steam Box from achieving mass appeal.

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