Valve announced the Steam Controller and Steam Machines will be delayed into the year 2015 after being targeted for a 2014 date. This news is from a blog post on their Steam Community website. Eric Hope made the announcement in addition to speaking about some of the progress the controller is making.
“We’ve been getting emails from the Steam community asking us how our in-development Steam Machines are coming along,” Hope starts off saying. He says the Valve team is excited to be bringing the new product to gamers and notes that people asking about the production lets Valve “know you appreciate it when we keep you in the loop on stuff like this.”
“We’re now using wireless prototype controllers to conduct live playtests, with everyone from industry professionals to die-hard gamers to casual gamers,” Hope says. “It’s generating a ton of useful feedback, and it means we’ll be able to make the controller a lot better.”
Taking into consideration the feedback from these industry professionals and gamers from different play levels, Valve is trying to keep up with the feedback by transitioning it into the final product.
“Realistically, we’re now looking at a release window of 2015, not 2014,” Hope says. “Obviously we’re just as eager as you are to get a Steam Machine in your hands. But our number one priority is making sure that when you do, you’ll be getting the best gaming experience possible.”
The end of the post makes clear that the Steam community is one that Valve wants to make happy. Added time used to push the potential of a new product can be a great thing for gamers. Still, this can be upsetting to those looking to play a new console that was expected to be part of 2014. This announcement has not been said to apply to the Steam Machines in development by multiple third-party companies.
Already, 14 third-party companies announced their own versions of Steam Machines running Valves “SteamOS, a custom OS built atop Linux” during CES 2014 earlier this year. These companies include Alienware and Origin PC.
Steam Machines are gaming consoles that will utilize Valve’s Linux based operating system to create a PC gaming experience without the need for an actual PC. When finally sold in stores, competition between Valve and the dominating game companies (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) looks to be an interesting one for the future of games.
Valve is know for multiple highly acclaimed video game titles, including the Half-Life series and Counter-Strike. Their recent game, Dota 2, is popular among eSports and has generated a prize pool of $6 million for a competition, run by Valve, called The International 2014. Their games have become household names. Their creation of an online video game download service called Steam is popular as well. Accounts are tied to Steam and will be main part of the Steam Machines when they are in the market. There are “over 65 million accounts” buying from the service and over “3,000 games” to download.
Check out the videos below for info on the Steam Machines and Steam Controllers.