Valve recently made the decision to postpone the release of Steam Machine Controller until 2015. The main reason behind the delay is because the tech company needs more time to work on the controllers for the system.
Valve postpones plans
Unfortunately, this announcement also affects the fourteen third-party manufacturers that originally planned to sell their own hardware for Steam Machine. Ovum game consultant Ed Barton explained, “It is targeting a very demanding demographic with the Steam Machine platform, and the controller is one of the key features designed to address the impression that PC gaming can be slightly inaccessible. It’s a very ambitious concept to try to replicate the accuracy of a mouse input with the controller’s two circular touchpads – and if it doesn’t work, the platform would likely struggle to get off the ground.”
Valve is the gaming company behind games like Dota 2, Left 4 Dead, and Half Life. The company also owns Steam, a marketplace that sells a broad range of personal computer (PC) games and enjoys a solid online community. Just late last fall, the tech company announced plans to create their own Linux-based SteamOS. The machine will be designed to plug into the television and will utilize the new controller to give vibration feedback with in-game information such as action confirmations, speed, thresholds, boundaries, speed and more.
Valve’s plans
The company hopes to bring PC games to personal computers to the television later this year to compete with current game consoles on the market (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft).
Developer Eric Hope added in a blog post, “We’re now using wireless prototype controllers to conduct live play tests, with everyone from industry professionals to die-hard gamers to casual gamers. It’s generating a ton of useful feedback, and it means we’ll be able to make the controller a lot better. Of course, it’s also keeping us pretty busy making all those improvements. Realistically, we’re now looking at a release window of 2015, not 2014.”
