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Valve Appears to be Working on a New Steam Box

Draugoth

Gold Member


Brad Lynch confirmed these plans in a series of tweets a few hours ago, but not the Chrome OS part which he says isn't related to any full ChromeOS driving these machines.

Obviously immense.... imagine a single Steam OS device that can suspend/resume stream your Steam Library to your Deck or Deckard.

Quanta Computer, Valve’s Steam Deck manufacturer, is giving feedback on this living room console.

AMD Lilac is likely the raw developer board provided for the platform that Valve planned to use until the first Fremont board finished
F7 is the identifier used for the firmware powering each Steam Deck
F7A - F7Aerith (became Jupiter/LCD)
F7G - F7Galileo (OLED)
F7F - F7Fremont
All references to Fremont ensure checks for a full-size HDMI Type-A port you’d see on TV-focused consoles and other desktop computers that don’t have a dedicated GPU with its own HDMI ports
He also clarifies that ChromeOS EC doesn’t have much to do with the device running a full version of ChromeOS
It’s an open-source microcontroller that can be flexibly used to manage a variety of low-level tasks

Framework Laptops use a very similar method of CEC.

And yes, this fits the 10-year anniversary announcement that Valve made for the first flopped gen back when they didn't have Proton and tried to get developers to make their games directly for Linux.

Source
 

Hohenheim

Member
Cool! More hardware to choose between is always good, but I think a new Steam deck/ally 2 is enough for me, as a companion to the PC. When docked those devices kinda works just like a Steam Box/console anyway.
 
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Humdinger

Gold Member
Interesting. I'm probably not a customer for the Steam Deck because I'm not into handheld gaming and (from what I've heard, anyhow) the performance when docked is roughly equivalent to last-gen consoles. I'd rather have a more powerful box, a console basically but minus the hassles that come with PC gaming - which is what I looked at the Steam Box as potentially delivering. Not sure why it flopped so hard the first time around. Maybe this time the planning and execution will be better. I'm not a tech guy and don't really follow this stuff, so I have no idea. But it does make me curious what they are cooking up.
 

Nvzman

Member
I honestly think the way things are going with Xbox shitting the bed and PlayStation going into boring and greedy mode, Valve going full on Steam Console/living room PC would be the best thing to happen for gaming. Would seriously shake up the console landscape and put some genuine pressure on both MS and Sony.
 

twilo99

Member
I just bought an iPad Pro 13" with the M4. I only have Infinite Niki to play. Where are all the other games?

There are no games :/ That M4 chip is a monster tho

I have an m3 air and I just use the gamepass cloud thing to play on it ... it pulls like 5-6w during gameplay, which is great for thermals and battery health.

Maybe one day Apple will do the gaming thing but I dunno, they certainly have the hardware for it now.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
Apple already have the perfect console in the mac mini M4 ... they just need to get serious about brining some game devs on board
Yeah, and with Thunderbolt 4/5 don’t need to pay Apple’s stupid upgrade prices on SSDs. Still have to pony up on RAM and to increase GPU core counts though.

Edit: There are some games and pretty good ones that are native. And there is Crossfire as well.

Native we have BG3, most of Paradox strategy games, Owlcat games, selection of Capcom’s titles, Cyberpunk is coming next year, Death Standing, etc…
 
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Magic Carpet

Gold Member
There are no games :/ That M4 chip is a monster tho

I have an m3 air and I just use the gamepass cloud thing to play on it ... it pulls like 5-6w during gameplay, which is great for thermals and battery health.

Maybe one day Apple will do the gaming thing but I dunno, they certainly have the hardware for it now.
Yea it is indeed a monster, I sprung for the 'magic' keyboard and it does everything I could ever want in a laptop Except games. :(
 
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demigod

Member
Stick to lurking and dropping LOL emojis
damn right walter white GIF by Breaking Bad
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Apple already have the perfect console in the mac mini M4 ... they just need to get serious about brining some game devs on board
tenor.gif

To just upgrade to 2TB of SSD storage from the paltry 256 GB is more than a PS5 Pro. You could buy a 7900XTX and still have money left over for a half decent CPU just for the upgrade price for a 2TB SSD from Apple.
 
No, the last attempt was shit because they were overpriced pieces of shit. You could build a better PC for cheaper.
It was a combination of price and Software optimization or OS. Had SteamOS been there day 1 we might have seen a different outcome.
I also was a bit confused by the rollout. It seemed like a non-event in the long-run.
 

phant0m

Member
The key to Valve's hardware success is SteamOS.

I wish we could move PC gaming away from Windows. So I hope Valve succeeds.

This is an Xbox my ass.
One Hundred Sgn GIF by SomeGoodNews


Though to be fair, this isn't out of any dislike for MS. I've said it before, if they are serious about "this is an Xbox" then an "XboxOS" that runs x86 Windows, strips out all of the excess bullshit, has a default UI operated 100% by controller and let you install any Windows app you wanted would be *chefs kiss*. The OS should be free and installable on any x86 hardware.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
Well, this just confirms that the Steam Controller 2 is 100% going to be a thing- they'll need another one of those for this new device.

Don't really care about the Steam Machine 2, we already have PCs for the ideal Steam experience. If you wanted to *really* push boundaries, try getting SteamOS on a PS5.
 

twilo99

Member
tenor.gif

To just upgrade to 2TB of SSD storage from the paltry 256 GB is more than a PS5 Pro. You could buy a 7900XTX and still have money left over for a half decent CPU just for the upgrade price for a 2TB SSD from Apple.

Sure, but that doesn't take away from how capable the M4 mac mini is at that base price point
 
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Dr.D00p

Member
FFS, stop all this data mining shit.

I like surprises, I want to wake up one morning and find Valve has unveiled a new toy for me to play with.
 

demigod

Member
It was a combination of price and Software optimization or OS. Had SteamOS been there day 1 we might have seen a different outcome.
I also was a bit confused by the rollout. It seemed like a non-event in the long-run.
No we wouldn’t. The pricetag was 100% why it failed. PC gamers dont want to pay more for an inferior product.

Look at the Steam Deck, the software is fine yet it’s still niche.
 

twilo99

Member
Yeah, and with Thunderbolt 4/5 don’t need to pay Apple’s stupid upgrade prices on SSDs. Still have to pony up on RAM and to increase GPU core counts though.

Edit: There are some games and pretty good ones that are native. And there is Crossfire as well.

Native we have BG3, most of Paradox strategy games, Owlcat games, selection of Capcom’s titles, Cyberpunk is coming next year, Death Standing, etc…

Yeah, there are a few games but still no where near for it to be considered viable for gamers..

I think if Microsoft or Sony eventually decide to move away from x86 and start using ARM for their consoles, we might see Apple benefit as well.

Valve have a real opportunity to get ahead of the game and go straight to ARM, but I don't think they can do it
 

Kacho

Gold Member
Perhaps I got unlucky, but I went through 2 units in a month that simply died.
Didn't realize the quality was so poor. I never bought one because the amount of playable games was so limited. Like, "oh boy I can play Towerfall and various other indies on my TV!"

Valve's work with the Steam Deck gives me hope. That's a solid piece of hardware. Just need a beefier box to plug into the living room TV and I can ditch consoles forever.
 

BigBeauford

Member
Didn't realize the quality was so poor. I never bought one because the amount of playable games was so limited. Like, "oh boy I can play Towerfall and various other indies on my TV!"

Valve's work with the Steam Deck gives me hope. That's a solid piece of hardware. Just need a beefier box to plug into the living room TV and I can ditch consoles forever.
Yeah the deck has been great for PC gaming (even though I ended up moving from a deck to Ally X). I can't imagine Steam not learning from their mistakes (I guess there was probably a good reason these were fire-saled through GameStop).

Edit: found the thread from way back when they were dirt cheap!

 
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