Here we go. It’s almost Steam Box time. Valve has just launched a teaser site for what seems to be their big hardware initiative, with a countdown clock ending on Monday at 1pm Eastern (Tuesday, 3am AEST). Earlier this week, Valve boss Gabe Newell teased a hardware announcement for next week. The pieces are starting to fit!
Here’s a Valve rep, in an email to Kotaku:
As Gabe mentioned a few days ago, we will be talking next week about the steps we’re taking to make Steam more accessible on televisions and in the living room. Specifically, we have three announcements to make beginning with the first one on Monday morning.
And then there’s this curious image:
Of course, we’re not sure what to expect from this big announcement — could this be an official Valve-branded Steam Box? A partnership with other hardware manufacturers to make living-room-centric PCs? Something else entirely?
That message about adding “you” to the design process is rather curious, too. Will this hardware be crowd-sourced in some way?
Exciting times ahead, that’s for sure.
Comments
12 responses to “Valve Teases Big Hardware Announcement For Next Week”
Come on, we all know this is going to be the announcement of half life 3.
Three lines of text on the page, kitten has three whiskers, gamepad has three buttons.
OHMAHGAWD
I can’t find it in me to get excited for this.
1) I can already plug my computer into a TV
2) Any single corporation defining a “standard” of hardware that all other corps must abide by doesn’t scream open or progressive to me.
1) true, but many people can’t/don’t have gaming PC’s – this seems more like a bridge between the two. I know a few people who would like this.
2) my understanding is that the ‘standards’ are only for entry/mid range devices; an example Gabe? gave was that low-mid range wouldn’t have optical drives to reduce cost and keep heat\power use down, yet a higher end device could have optical drives if the manufacturer wanted to put one in.
Custom Linux distro with developer and tech partnerships? Maybe it will support AMD HSA/hUMA?
HALF-LIFE 3 CONFIRMED!
Back to the conspiracy board, I guess.
Maybe it will be something along the lines of the PS Vita TV…some kind of Steam only streaming gadget. Would probably be more practical than a Linux-based Steambox (seeing as comparatively few Steam games run on Linux, and most of those are indie). On the other hand, wireless lag etc.
Right, after 15+ minutes I’ve found a couple of things that the super keen might find interesting.
1) Those 3 circles with the symbols have the following links :
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/glyph_01_a.png
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/glyph_02_a.png
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/glyph_03_a.png
By going to url/glyph_01_b.png you get a “activated” version of that image, doesn’t mean much but I thought it was interesting.
2) These glyphs seem to suggest that day 1, we are getting something, most likely a console. Day 2 we will be getting something that goes into a box [() ] and day 3 we will see something that uses 2 somethings, presumably the console and the other thing, to create something worth a day of info. This is my interpretation so you know, grain of salt and all that.
3) The main image at the top of the page has the link:
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/00_planet_image.jpg
inside a CSS file, there are 4 classes associated with this image, home_content, day1, day2, and day3, each one having a different image with the links:
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/00_planet_image.jpg
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/01_planet_image.jpg
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/02_planet_image.jpg
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/03_planet_image.jpg
As of posting these links return a message stating the resource is unavailable, but NOT a 404 Not Found. Hopefully these images will become available soon, so we can get a sneak peak of what is to come.
Therefore, HL3 confirmed!
Those links actually are 404s currently:
—
[17:41:41.528] GET http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/01_planet_image.jpg [HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found 51ms]
You’ll get the same result with a url like http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/9001_planet_image.jpg
You can set custom 404 pages on web servers so just because it doesn’t show you that it’s a 404 doesn’t mean it isn’t one 🙂
Right, I figured it wasn’t a 404, because if you go to a folder:
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livingroom/
for example you get a proper 404 File Not Found error.
Thanks for the response 🙂
I cant find the page anywhere…