Steam OS Update

With the announcement of the Steam OS, there's been a lot of speculation (and there still is) on what exactly this new product will do. Today, on the steam group, an update was sent out with the hardware specs. These new systems that they're working could easily be built from home and are fully customizable should you feel the need to buy the bits and pieces.

For those of you not so hardware savvy who won't be changing out the entire machine as soon as they get it, here are the beta specs:

More to come on the controller later, but for now this is enough to get me as excited as a little kid on Christmas.

~ Ametis

Steam Box Announcement

Yesterday: the Steam OS and now today: the Steam Box. Rather than releasing one machine, Valve is apparently releasing multiple.

Entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all world. We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you, so we are working with multiple partners to bring a variety of Steam gaming machines to market during 2014, all of them running SteamOS.

Not only that, but before these machines are released, you could be eligible for testing one of them. Only 300 people will get this lucky chance and the way to do it is as follows:

THE HARDWARE BETA ELIGIBILITY QUEST:

Before October 25, log in to Steam and then visit your quest page to track your current status towards beta test eligibility

1. Join the Steam Universe community group

2. Agree to the Steam Hardware Beta Terms and Conditions

3. Make 10 Steam friends (if you haven't already)

4. Create a public Steam Community profile (if you haven't already)

5. Play a game using a gamepad in Big Picture mode

This will then apparently give you a badge and you'll be in the running for the beta testing of the new system.

Aside from the beta, you should expect these new systems in stores (all with different specs depending on what experience they plan to provide) in 2014.

~ Ametis

Coffee Hour: 9/24/13

Join us for coffee hour tomorrow morning at 10:30 central time where we'll be diving into the great debate of Xbox One, PS4, or the newly announced Steam OS. Eric, Sephie, and myself will be there bright and early debating which of the next gens will be the best of the best.

And for those who have missed any of our past broadcasts:


Coffee Hour #1

Coffee Hour #2

Coffee Hour #3

~ Ametis

OPRainfall

Anime Sky

Valve Announces the First out of Three

Valve has revealed the first of what it teased last week, a 'Living Room' version of Steam that runs of the Linux code, Guess Gabe Newell, Co-Founder of Valve, wasn't kidding when he said that Linux is going to be "The Future of Gaming"

SteamOS is going to be available soon as a Free and Stand Alone Operating System that is "Built around Steam" 

According to the Valve Site

With SteamOS, openness means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they’ve been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love. SteamOS will continue to evolve, but will remain an environment designed to foster these kinds of innovation.

Valve has emphasized that SteamOS "achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we’re now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level. Game developers are already taking advantage of these gains as they target SteamOS for their new releases."

The Next Announcement comes out September 25, Wednesday at 10 AM PST.

With the SteamOS being 'unexpected' what can we expect from Valve soon? Half Life 3 or the long awaited SteamBOX? Hit us up with your suggestions on the comment box below.

Source : http://goo.gl/ft2ZOH

- Sephie

OPRainfall

Anime Sky