Valve will release the Steam Box sometime next year as a direct assault on Sony and Microsoft’s bread and butter — the living room. Will the Steam machines succeed? We don’t know yet. There hasn’t been such a distinct and capable competitor fighting for our gaming time like Valve, and what they’re offering is extremely tempting.

My guess is if the Steam Boxes could be sold at reasonable prices, then it’ll come down to services offered on said systems.

We’ll be paying close attention.

Valve announced that 65 million people are now using Steam, which is a 30% rise from last year’s size this period.

With Family Sharing, Trading Cards, Early Access, Big Picture Mode and Linux support, one can say 2013 has been one of Steam’s best so far in terms of content in its 10 years of life.

However, these might pale in comparison to the other big guns Valve introduced this year: a trio of announcements in the form of SteamOS, Steam Machines and Steam Controller.

Gabe Newell noted:

The console gatekeepers, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, better watch the throne.

When the prototype Steam Machines’ specs were released, they all had Nvidia GPU’s. This sparked rumors that Nvidia might have an exclusivity on the rigs. However, Valve shoots down said rumors.

Valve’s Doug Lombardi said that AMD and Intel versions of the SteamOS-powered living room machines will be revealed at a later date.

Speaking with >Maximum PC, Lombari said:

“Last week, we posted some technical specs of our first wave of Steam Machine prototypes. Although the graphics hardware that we’ve selected for the first wave of prototypes is a variety of Nvidia cards, that is not an indication that Steam Machines are Nvidia-only.

In 2014, there will be Steam Machines commercially available with graphics hardware made by AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. Valve has worked closely together with all three of these companies on optimizing their hardware for SteamOS, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future.”

Valve and Nvidia also worked together for the SteamOS, but it seems that was nothing than a collaboration, or a deal for more Nvidia-powered Steam Machines. Who knows?

Thanks, Polygon!

Valve announced a Steam Dev Days Conference, which will be held in Seattle, Washington in January, 2014. It will be invitation-only, and will last two days. Valve described it as a place where video game professionals can meet and discuss in a “relaxed, off the record environment” to share their ideas and more.

Valve said the topics would include game economies, virtual reality, Linux/OpenGL, user-generated content and more.

The company also said that attendants will have the opportunity to test and give their feedback for SteamOS, Steam Machines and the Steam Controller. More information can be found at the official page for the conference.

This was unexpected. What are your thoughts?

Here’s Valve:

So for our own first prototype Steam Machine ( the one we’re shipping to 300 Steam users ), we’ve chosen to build something special. The prototype machine is a high-end, high-performance box, built out of off-the-shelf PC parts. It is also fully upgradable, allowing any user to swap out the GPU, hard drive, CPU, even the motherboard if you really want to. Apart from the custom enclosure, anyone can go and build exactly the same machine by shopping for components and assembling it themselves. And we expect that at least a few people will do just that. (We’ll also share the source CAD files for our enclosure, in case people want to replicate it as well.)

And to be clear, this design is not meant to serve the needs of all of the tens of millions of Steam users. It may, however, be the kind of machine that a significant percentage of Steam users would actually want to purchase – those who want plenty of performance in a high-end living room package. Many others would opt for machines that have been more carefully designed to cost less, or to be tiny, or super quiet, and there will be Steam Machines that fit those descriptions.

Here are the specifications for Valve’s 300 prototypes.

The 300 prototype units will ship with the following components:
GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660
CPU: some boxes with Intel : i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB DDR5 (GPU)
Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD
Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold
Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

Now, to be sure, these machines will cost you some big bucks. For example, as pointed out by Kotaku, the lowest end Steam Box, using a GTX660 and an i3 CPU, could set you back about $880. And the highest end machine, with a Titan and an i7 CPU, will run you about $1,850.

ValveTime reports that the Half-Life 3 trademark that was filed earlier this week in Europe was a hoax.

The following update from ValveTime clears things up:

“We can now confirm that the “Half-Life 3″ trademark has been removed from the Trademarks and Design Registration Office of the European Union (OHIM) website. The entrant appears to have disappeared entirely after only being listed on the website database for little over a week, allowing us to identify that the trademark’s listing was more than likely a hoax intended to generate fake buzz for a game which is unlikely to appear for several years. Returning readers may remember when we had discussed how the “Half-Life 3″ listing was previously never officially checked or authenticated before its removal.

On October 2nd 2013, a brand new trademark filing appeared on the same site, this time for Portal 3″, which is listed under the trademark number of “012190286″. While this new filing should almost definitely be taken with a rather large pinch of salt, we can confirm that the “Portal 3″ listing appears to have been appropriately examined by OHIM, unlike the previously listed “Half-Life 3″ trademark. Thanks to the recent sneak peak into Valve’s Jira account, we can confirm that there is currently no “Portal 3″ development team within the company, highlighting that this brand new listing is also very likely a hoax of some kind, regardless of whether or not it has been officially examined. We’ll keep you posted if and when we learn more.”

And back at square one it is. It would be a convenient time to announce it, but nope, this isn’t the case.

This comes just after a Half-Life 3 trademarking, and looks interesting, if not pouring oil in the fire.

Valve’s User Picker software opened inexplicably to the public last night, and leaked the development groups that are working on “Half-Life 3″ (46 members) and “Half-Life 3 Core” (10 members).

First outed by Reddit users, a screenshot could be salvaged and used to further spread misery in every gamer’s life that has been waiting for Half-Life 3 for so long.

Can this even be real? Did Valve just filed for a Half-Life 3 trademark? And does this mean… Never mind, I’m just lost for words at the moment, as it seemed, momentarily, that Valve had completely forgotten about the franchise, and yet we found out today that it lives.

The trademark was found by a NeoGAF member, and has totally sent the internet up in flames.

So will Half-Life 3 be exclusive to Valve’s Steam Box? Probably. What better way to sell your product than bundling it with one of the most anticipated games ever.

So, the weekend is here. What did it bring along? The new SteamOS, the Steam Machines, and the Steam Controller are the ones that stand out, so gamers can now be happier than before. Valve is going the extra mile, wanting to bridge that gap between console and PC. The future looks bright, and I’m eager to see what more does Valve have in store for the gaming world.

In other news, we’re just a few days short of entering the Battlefield 4 beta (1st for early access/MOH:W owners, 4th for everyone), and me and Ernice are certainly looking forward to teaming up with you and taking down the enemies, one crumbling building at a time. Who doesn’t love building campers in Battlefield? It’s as simple as running a heavily armored tank through its supports, or just sending some RPG’s their way in cooperation with some teammates for a boosted effect.

As for me, I’m switching between Final Fantasy XIV and Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD ReMix on PS3, Scribblenauts Unlimited on Wii U, Street Fighter x Tekken and Killzone Mercenary on PS Vita, and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days on my 3DS. Might even boot up the PC for some League of Legends with friends later on. It seems like a pretty lie, but I can literally handle all of them almost simultaneously.

Anyway, what’s your weekend story? How are you gonna spend this time off? Let us know below, and we hope you have an awesome weekend!

What was somehow expected has finally been revealed. Bridging the gap between PC-made-living-room-console, Valve announces the Steam Controller. The Steam Controller is designed to work with every  single Steam game that’s there or will join, even ones that don’t support a controller. Sounds good? It looks better.

Lastly, it is hackable, as Valve puts it. As people like to toy with their PC’s, consoles, tablets, everything in general, and have contributed a lot out of it, Valve believes that leaving the controller open for everything you may want to do to it. Also, signing up for the hardware beta will also allow you to receive one of the controllers with your Steam Machine; no two signups needed.

So, what does this news mean to you? Excited? Unsatisfied? Let us know!

Those of you who thought the second announcement would be a Steam hardware one, me included, were right. Valve has announced the Steam Machines, a variety of SteamOS-powered gaming machines that will join the market in 2014.

Completely open and customizable, they stay true to Valve’s PC philosophy; in other words, a console that can be modified to keep up with the times, running a Linux-based OS, the game-based SteamOS. As Valve puts it:

300 consoles will be shipped to Steam users for testing, and you can participate — the details are here. The prototypes are shipping this year.

Different manufacturers will bring different machines; I suppose, manufacturers translates to AMD, Nvidia etc. Machines will be optimized for power, noise, size, price, and “more factors”, as “entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all” affair. It’s been made clear that it works with a mouse and keyboard, but a gamepad is also equally good and convenient to use, and will probably be (or resemble) the Big Picture Mode that Valve introduced earlier this year.

Valve wants to get in your living room. This will be achieved through the SteamOS, a new Linux-based operating system. It will be free to download and install on any machine “soon”, as Valve says, and will support hundreds of games at launch.The games weren’t specified, but images suggest that Metro: Last Light, Trine 2, Crusader Kings 2, Total War: Rome II and more are there at launch. Non-compatible games will be able to be streamed from a Windows PC or Mac running Steam on the same network.

SteamOS is a gaming OS, and thus, you can expect “significant performance increases in graphics processing”, plus better audio and reduced input latency. Valve is also working with several companies and services to bring music, TV and movie streaming to Steam and SteamOS.

Gabe Newell’s Valve is teasing three announcements to come on Monday,  about “the steps we’re taking to make Steam more accessible on televisions and in the living room.” On  a Valve-owned teaser site that went up today, Valve said “the Steam universe is expanding in 2014.””

“Last year, we shipped a software feature called Big Picture, a user-interface tailored for televisions and gamepads,” the site says. “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.”

Then, they went on to say “we have three announcements to make beginning with the first one on Monday morning.”