Now that Steam Machines have established all one needs to play computer games via Steam is a small box, a controller and a screen, the SteamBoy combines those three things into one portable gaming system.
Announced on the last day of E3, the SteamBoy is an independent project by a group unaffiliated with Valve, aimed at bringing a little PC gaming to players’ pockets. According to information given The Escapist, it’s a modestly-powered system that, while not up to recommended Steam Machine specs, will be cable of running most PC games at playable frame rates.
A quad-core CPU, 4GB RAM, a 32GB built-in memory card and a 5-inch 16:9 touchscreen doesn’t sound like much, but it’s certainly enough to play. Factor in Steam’s new streaming functionality and the SteamBoy could be a must-have companion to a standard gaming machine.
Of course that all depends on whether the machine actually surfaces, and whether or not Reliable Corporation goes after them for using the same name as their line of floor cleaning products.
SteamBoy Aims To Be The Handheld Steam Machine [The Escapist]
Comments
22 responses to “Meet SteamBoy, The Portable Steam Machine”
Looks promising
That video is like a trailer for a new Terminator film.
im actually pretty interested in this; depending on the price.
Has a lot a potential. If the price is affordable and gets a lot games it will be an amazing product.
Not sure I like those touchy slidy things, would prefer sticks.
There’s been a fair few indie games that I wouldn’t play on PC but would play the hell out of if they were a hand-held.
100% with you. So many cheap, indie platformers like Fez or Thomas was Alone that I feel like I’m wasting my time playing on an expensive gaming rig when I could be playing a game I paid ten times as much for, and saving the smaller game for when I don’t have the luxury of being in the one spot for hours at a time.
POOP gaming?
Looks really interesting. Please change the D PAD!
I have never used a dpad like that but I think it would work well after getting used to it.
Hell yes!
Hmmmm. There is a cottage industry for those open source portable devices for all manner of piracy *cough* homebrew like the GP32X etc. The fact that steam OS is free means making a device using the OS wouldn’t incur any licensing costs. Open source handhelds might get a bit more interesting now. Who knows people might even buy games for them 😉
Sounds great. I would totally get one if it’s not too expensive. I can see myself using this to play some indy games I don’t have time for while I’m on the train, or also if my son is sleeping in my bedroom, for instance, use it like the Wii U gamepad to play some games like dota 2.
If this thing doesn’t come with super meat boy bundled, someone has made a huge mistake.
Could be a good idea. There are lots of smaller indie games that would work well on a hand held but i think the market is trending towards touchscreen so we’ll probably see more games designed for that rather then traditional hand held controls.
I imagine you would log in to your Steam account on the thing, so if you’ve bought Super Meat Boy (and they have a linux/SteamOS SKU (not sure how it all works)), you’ll already have it good to go!
This would save me from buying a gaming laptop! I’m so loving this thing.
You have no idea how long I’ve dreamed of such things!
Hey, @sughly
It’s like those mastah race brats and handheld dorks will be teaming up against us!
:p
ALSO:
http://anination.free.fr/images/affiches/steamboy.jpg
If the price is around 150 – 200 I’d consider it, anymore than that and I would definitely pass.
since it is just a ‘streaming gaming device’ they can easily make money back/more on games that are purchased via steam
That reminds me, how are the NVidia Shield and Razer Edge going?
From my understanding, they can either go AMD, Intel or ARM. AMD with a dedicated GPU and 5 minutes of battery life, ARM with no native games and days of battery life or Intel and an Iris IGPU with half/half.
Would be sweet if Valve ported Steam to ARM-Linux, would make some amazing setups. Imagine an $80 Chromecast style ARM stick just for Steam In-Home Streaming, or a Raspberry Pi.
Surely in this day and age someone will complain about the ‘boy’ suffix. The gameboy is long established sure, but for a new device this is not really original or genderly correct. Why not call it the SteamFeg or something. Steam-anything except gender related etc.
Someone’s likely to rag on me but come on guys, you know the gender argument actually has a place in this particular instance.