Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech















SAN FRANCISCO—Enough press releases, enough GDC teases. On Wednesday, Valve Software finally unveiled a full range of Steam Machines, along with the "final" Steam Controller, the Steam Link streaming box, and even the SteamVR hardware. We'll soon talk at length about our half-hour demo with SteamVR, composed of six distinct, interactive demos, but for now, we'll recap our impressions of the rest of Valve's hardware spread.

Valve Software confirmed that we tested the "final" version of the Steam Controller, which received a November 2015 release window in an announcement yesterday. That final design includes two touchpads (with the left one having a d-pad shape etched onto it), a back panel that can be clicked down with middle fingers on both sides, a single joystick—finally—and an Xbox-style spread of face buttons and shoulder buttons. The above gallery has captions with some thoughts on the controller's features, including the new GameCube-like triggers.







We demoed three games, all of which launched with WASD-and-mouse control schemes on PC: The Talos Principle, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and the new, in-development version of Unreal Tournament. In all three, Kyle and I still struggled to feel competent with the right-hand touchpad as a mouse replacement. We played against easiest-difficulty bots in the latter two games and could barely line up solid gunshots most of the time. It's one thing to say we'll "get used to it" after more time with the controller—the increased speed and "momentum roll" of swiping the touchpad seem like features that will really pay off for people who get used to the Steam Controller—but the bots we faced practically stood still most of the time, and we're not that bad at first-person shooters.

Weirdly, we were more annoyed with the controller's final ABXY buttons. I thought they were too small—that's my thumb right there—while Kyle complained about their placement where you'd expect to find a joystick on both Sony and Microsoft's pads. The buttons' general action, at least, felt smooth and easy enough.

Steam Link, Steam Machines

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Valve gave us a quick demo of the Steam Link to prove that the device could beam Steam content efficiently. We weren't convinced that it was a 100 percent perfect stream from PC to TV, since we noticed very, very small bits of artifacting in a rainy scene in Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, but it was otherwise a stable, lag-free demo—albeit a brief one, and more importantly, run as a wired test as opposed to wireless. GDC is a bad place to test wireless tech, of course, but wireless streaming is an important feature we'll want to test before plunking down for one of these $50 boxes in November. If you're wondering, Valve didn't have anything to announce regarding dedicated streaming apps for Steam Link just yet.

Sam Machkovech



























In the case of Steam Machines, well, they're coming, and they're certainly more expensive than current-gen consoles. The 14 models that debuted at GDC start at no less than $460—the cheapest being an Athlon X4-powered rig by iBuyPower with a 1GB Radeon R7 video card inside—so Valve certainly isn't positioning any of its suppliers' machines to be affordable, mass-market living room devices.

SteamVR: Invading eyeballs since 2012

The rest of Valve's demo space was mostly made up of a long, museum-like display cataloguing SteamVR's ongoing development since 2012, along with a series of six demo rooms in which invited guests could test SteamVR's current build—in the form of the HTC Vive headset—for the first time. Kyle will post his impressions pretty soon, but in the meantime, enjoy a slightly out-of-context gallery about the VR system's genesis.

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech







































Listing image by Sam Machkovech