Steam Machines support up to 16 players
Steam Machines will support up to 16 controllers on a single device, according to developers attending Valve's Dev Days.
Steam Machines are Valve's attempt to bring a simpler, console-like experience to the PC landscape. So naturally, they'll need to support some form of couch co-op like console gamers tend to want. Developers attending Valve's Dev Days this week say that it can support up to 16 controllers on one device, which could make for some mighty raucous gaming sessions.
Tweets from Zero and One Computing (via Kotaku) were among the ones talking about the limit. How to make a player count that size manageable is another matter. Though Zero and One's tweets note that split-screen in a 4x4 grid with an appropriate TV setup would result in more pixels per player than N64 launch titles, the N64 isn't exactly the watermark of modern standards.
We learned last week that the Steam controllers would be getting another round of beta testing, and just yesterday Valve revealed that it would be dropping the touch screen for physical buttons.
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replySteve Watts posted a new article, Steam Machines support up to 16 players.
Steam Machines will support up to 16 controllers on a single device, according to developers attending Valve's Dev Days.-
Every steam machine posts becomes less and less interesting at time goes one.
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I think the problem is how half committed Valve is to the project. The main growth valve hopes to achieve from the Steam Box is to convince a large portion of console players that it is indeed easy and convenient to PC game. The biggest hurdle is the uncertainty that the machine you've spent a lot of money on will run the games you want.
The Steam box is a situation where a wide array of choice will work against them when capturing the demographic. People who aren't well versed PC gamers will be uncertain as to which is the right one and provides the best bang for buck.
IMO, Valve should have released their own "definitive" model along side with a system on the Steam platform that says something along the lines of
"This game plays on:
Steam box Gen 1
Steam box Gen 2"
and so on. This doesn't necessarily kick out the other steam box models or stop any one from simply installing steam OS on their existing machines. This is a model that a casual buyer who does not want to worry about managing a PC can default to and use as a metric when regarding what games are available.
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You are making some big assumptions there. I don't think Valve has stated what their plan is at all. I think the only thing we can really be sure of is that they hated Windows 8 and saw the walled garden of the Windows app store as a potential threat so they decided to hedge their bets and make their own OS.
I confess I'm not really sure what the target market is for SteamOS either. Then again when steam came along people were pretty damn unsure of its purpose and years later it dominates PC game sales. Valve plays for the long game. I'm happy to wait and see what happens.
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Sports games, but even that is pushing it.
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I think the thing to take home from this is not that a single box supports 16 players but supports 16 peripherals.
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What about like 16 players on like a 100" 4k tv? That'd be badass.
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$200 Steam Streaming device which also streams media from the streaming PC and Media Centre that also plays multiplayer games would make me happy and make my 360 redundant.
I currently use multiple 360s around the house because I have multiple TVs to which I stream Media Centre from my office PC as well as other media and online services.
This saved me money because it was easier to run a network around the house from my router cabinet and a single TV antenna cable to my office instead of running antenna cables to each room as well as adding an amplifier, I rather one multipurpose cable than multiple single purpose cables. I can also add more TVs to anywhere in the house and run TV signals through the house using my wireless network.
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