Valve Teases Steam Box With Countdown Timer

[Andy Chalk]

Valve Teases Steam Box With Countdown Timer

Valve says that the "Steam Universe" will expand into your living room in 2014.

It looks like the long-awaited Steam Box could finally, really be happening. First we had Valve mondo hondo Gabe Newell say that the company would "be rolling out more information about... bringing Linux into the living room" sometime next week [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127849-Gabe-Newell-Says-Linux-Is-The-Future-Of-Gaming], and now a page with the header "The Steam Universe is Expanding in 2014" has turned up on Steam.

"Last year, we shipped a software feature called Big Picture, a user-interface tailored for televisions and gamepads," it states. "This year we've been working on even more ways to connect the dots for customers who want Steam in the living-room. Soon, we'll be adding you to our design process, so that you can help us shape the future of Steam."

And there's a countdown! There's a little more than 72 hours on the clock, which mean that zero will strike around noon EST on Monday. That's when the first of three promised announcements from Valve will be made, which presumably coincides with the three symbols underneath the neutron star thingie. There's also a silhouette of a cat eyeballing a controller that looks suspiciously like a sandwich. I have no idea what to make of that.

Anyway, the point is, something is happening! And we'll find out what it is on Monday! Until then, you may stare at the timer and speculate as you see fit.

Source: Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/]


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[Maze1125]

Half-Life 3 as launch title!

 

[Vie]

Place your bets ladies and gentlemen.

My money is on a highish spec gaming machine running a custom linux disto, Ubuntu based, which Valve will sell dirt cheap. Will be locked down so you buy everything through Steam so they recoup their hardware loss with software sales.

 

[Rainforce]

Half-Life 3 as launch title!

it's 3 circles in total.
do you know what that means?

either way, I hope it doesn't mess with steam too much...it's pretty alright as it is currently.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Clearly, based of the picture, this will be the revolutionary Steam for Cats that we've all been waiting for.

Anyway, if I had to make a guess on the 3 announcements, I would say SteamBox, Source 2 and Half-Life 3, with Half-Life 3 inter-changeable with pretty much every other Valve series, since most of them are on 2.

 

[Genocidicles]

Three announcements...

Three day countdown...

Three symbols...

Guys! It's so obvious!

Spoiler

Ricochet 2 for launch title!

 

[NathLines]

But will I get hats if I buy it?

Whenever some company puts out a timer I just assume that the product in question is completely underwhelming. So I just hope that whatever this is, it's SOMETHING.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Wasn't the last time Valve did a countdown, for the stupid potato thing?

 

[CriticalMiss]

Hmm, the cat and the controller look like they are made from carboard.

Cat
Controller
Cardboard

Three Cs! And three As! AND THREE Rs! Three threes means Half-Li...hold on there's four Rs. Nevermind.

I get the feeling that the part about 'adding you to the design process' is going to mean THERE ARE THREE Os! Half-Life 3!

 

[Li Mu]

HL3 surely has to be a release title. Otherwise we have a console with NO GAMES! Nobody is going to buy a console to play 2 year old games. Speaking of which, hey Valve, how about releasing some GAMES! Remember those? You know...those things you used to make that were pretty damn good. How about giving us some new ones.
I know you all run on Valve time, but surely the idea is to bring out more than one game per average life-time.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Right Valve, lay it on me. My body is ready.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

Great timing, I'd wondered when this was going to happen.

This is just in time for a lot of the console-esque games that Steam is getting that are building interest in the platform.
King of Fighters XIII, Ultra Street Fighter IV(GFWL-less), Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 3, Trails in the Sky First and Second Chapter, Skullgirls, Mighty No. 9, Shantae, A Hat in Time, and lots of other games.

I'd really like it if they improved their Japanese region support and tried aggressively marketing the product in Japan. The XBOX 360 failed and I know it might seem fruitless, but due to a few titles like Idolm@ster it at least carved out somewhat of a niche. And if Valve marketed it stronger and better in Japan than Microsoft did with the XBOX 360, they could indeed at least do better in Japan than the XBOX 360 did.

Sadly, I fear that Valve know and care even less about this market than Microsoft do. Which is a shame, because Valve is a lot less consumer exploitative than Microsoft. And I would definitely like to see the Steam Box get the kind of Japanese developer support that the XBOX 360 got.

Along with paying to get support from companies like Namco Bandai. I think that Valve working with SEGA would be a great idea. SEGA has already done great things with the PC and Steam in recent year. Along with buying out Atlus, they have a great possibility to do great things together. I'd love to see Valve cut a deal and us see Persona and Etrian Odyssey games on Steam. I definitely know that Microsoft cut a deal with Namco Bandai and Mistwalker to get Tales of Vesperia and Blue Dragon on the XBOX 360. And it would be very smart of Valve to do something similar with the Steam Box.

 

[Covarr]

I will laugh my ass off when it turns out all the living room talk on the countdown page is trolling us and they announce more Left 4 Dead 2 DLC instead.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Vie]

Place your bets ladies and gentlemen.

My money is on a highish spec gaming machine running a custom linux disto, Ubuntu based, which Valve will sell dirt cheap. Will be locked down so you buy everything through Steam so they recoup their hardware loss with software sales.

If I remember correctly they already demented this. Something about you being able to install anything on it (Different Distribution, Windows,...).

But I think it's the best to just sit back and wait.

Theres nothing stopping them from making it a locked down enviroment, UEFI can be locked down by a manufacturer after all.

The only reason win8 machines aren't locked from OS replacements, bar the surface RT, was the stink free software people kicked up over the vendor lock in issue. The irony of UEFI being used to vendor lock people to Linux would be delicious.

 

[Church185]

quote for attention

The cat and the controller look to be made of cardboard.

OT: I'm super excited by the prospect of Valve making consoles! I wonder if there will soon be a new titan in the console arena...

 

[AstaresPanda]

Would be great if it was HALF-LIFE related but.....i doubt it. Either way love valve

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Ensue the "consoles are doomed/going to die" threads that I can pretty much see happening.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Half-Life 3 confirmed.

Bear with me. There's a cat and a countdown, right? A cat is the main protagonist of the infamous Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment. In that experiment there's a mention of an atom that may or may not decay within a designated time. The time required for half of the unstable radioactive atoms to undergo radioactive decay is called...

...wait for it...

...wait for it...

Half-Life!


At least it makes some sense. Unlike the simplistic nature of "3 circles = Half-Life 3" analysis.