There are a couple important differences: the first 300 or so beta units won’t include a touch screen, and they won’t be wireless. Instead, they’ll have four buttons in place of the touch screen, and they’ll require a USB cable.
Valve sucks. I owned the steam controller in the 80s. They're ripping off the NES.
EA Shill!!
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midga"There's so much hot dog in Rome" ~digi(> ^.(> O_o)>Icrontian
As an avid controller user (basically any game that can use one, and many that aren't supposed to) and a huge proponent of proper design, I find this extremely exciting. This will be in my hands as soon as they are released. Maybe sooner.
So there's this bit on Kotaku about how the controller reacts when you use it. Sounds interesting:
"This sounds weird, but it's almost like rolling two weighted trackballs that are too large to actually fit into the controller," Lambe said as he tried to explain what it's like to have one's thumbs on those two trackpads. "For camera controls, slide one thumb to the right, and you'll feel this ticking, like you're turning a physical control. Flick your thumb quickly, and this imaginary physical thing reacts like something with weight to it—the 'trackball' continues to roll for a bit, eventually coming to a rest. And since it's all controlled through the software, the same trackpad then becomes more like a mouse or a laptop trackpad when you're navigating through menus.
That is pretty much what I assumed given the way they described the haptics they are using but they are reactionary and a lot of those are not designed for full force from the user. We need some of our rocket scientist that interface with haptics on a regular basis to give us insights.
Considering the crazy Dexterity you need to play SMB and Spelunky pretty well, AND you're still getting an (on the promise of some refinement) endorsement from a SMB dev, i'd have to say that's pretty damn telling.
The nubs idea for the circular pads is actually pretty brilliant idea- that combined with the haptics would pretty much solve most problems you'd have with a controller of it's variety.
Now consider the following- fighting games have been coming to Steam for a little while now. Imagine playing something like Street fighter 4 or Skullgirls with one of these bad boys. Work on that and get an FGC expert in there to give it a go- THAT would be a TRUE test of one of those pads.
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midga"There's so much hot dog in Rome" ~digi(> ^.(> O_o)>Icrontian
edited September 2013
I'm mostly super excited about the possibility of a dual-stick controller that feels good, and DOESN'T HAVE STICKS THAT WEAR OUT. The 360 controller that I bought earlier this year has about had it. It's the third one I've gone through. Yes, I'm hard on my sticks (#takei), but it's just how I play. It'll be nice to not have to replace my controller every year.
-edit-
I really hope it has some feedback options. Having it feel more like a d-pad for a platformer would be SO fucking sexy.
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 GDDR5 (GPU) Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high
My guess? Valve has bought into the whole "Radeon drivers are sub-par on Linux" meme.... which was true at one point, but at least my own personal experience disagrees with of late.
Actually, after hearing some more speculation, I'm revising my guess as far as the lack of Radeon goes... people seem to think that the SteamOS streaming feature is going to make use of the same tech as the Nvidia Shield. It would make sense then that it requires Nvidia hardware to get the job done (if that is the case anyway).
“Last week, we posted some technical specs of our first wave of Steam Machine prototypes,” said Valve spokesman Doug Lombardi. “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.”
The tl;dr version is that a Steambox is really no different from an OEM PC--it just has a name that actually gets people excited. Any hardware vendor can use any old hardware configuration and submit it for the Steam Machine seal of approval.
Comments
:headache:
Keyboard+Mouse for life!
"I’m a happy Steam customer happily using my happy mouse and keyboard. I don’t want a controller?
You can’t make a sentence into a question by just putting a question-mark at the end."
@_k_
From the Questions section: Seems to imply the final product will be wireless
SO MUCH EXCITE
Who's There?
Haptic
Haptic Who?
Haptic Ill Gabe
The nubs idea for the circular pads is actually pretty brilliant idea- that combined with the haptics would pretty much solve most problems you'd have with a controller of it's variety.
Now consider the following- fighting games have been coming to Steam for a little while now. Imagine playing something like Street fighter 4 or Skullgirls with one of these bad boys. Work on that and get an FGC expert in there to give it a go- THAT would be a TRUE test of one of those pads.
-edit-
I really hope it has some feedback options. Having it feel more like a d-pad for a platformer would be SO fucking sexy.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse#announcements/detail/2145128928746175450
boxMachine over here.http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/11/04/valve-will-not-make-exclusive-games-for-steamos