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This move has been rumored for a while now, with the Steam ecosystem becoming a large flowing mess of indies and AAA studios building games to run on really powerful PC hardware.
Some believed Valve’s third announcement would be three new games for Steam, these would be Half Life 3, Portal 3 and Left 4 Dead 3. This is a little fantasy many have had for a while and it may still be possible when Valve implements all the hardware and software to create the perfect Steam Box.
Essentially Valve will build everything, Steam OS is a Linux-based gaming operating system, similar to Android but for games, not mobile. Valve will work on Linux and develop a gaming user interface familiar and simple for users, we could see this bootloaded as a second OS.
They will then built a Steam Machine (or Box) with different component options, like a normal computer range the price will start at around $499 for the cheap model all the way up to the thousands for a premium build. Valve has said they will cut the price with video game optimisation.
The controller is the third announcement and allows users to play Steam games without using the keyboard and mouse. Keyboard and mouse are seen as the elite gaming controller simply because of the accuracy, precision and amount of buttons, but most casual console gamers prefer the gamepad.
The Steam controller is a new peripheral that tries to mimic the mouse for older games, with two buttons for the mouse clickers and two rounded haptic sensors for movement, instead of the traditional analogue sticks.
This is a big move by Valve to enter the living room, as the next generation consoles are preparing to launch. The question is will Valve have any exciting exclusives for Steam, ones that run much better on the Steam Machine – we will have to wait and see.
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