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Valve teases hardware announcement for Monday

Valve has setup a new teaser site to drive interest ahead of an announcement that will be made on Monday.

"The Steam Universe is expanding in 2014," we are told, with most expectations being that Valve is likely to announce the Steam Box, which is hardware the company has been working on for the living room.



"Last year, we shipped a software feature called Big Picture, a user-interface tailored for televisions and gamepads. This year we've been working on even more ways to connect the dots for customers who want Steam in the living-room. Soon, we'll be adding you to our design process, so that you can help us shape the future of Steam," the teaser website states.

A countdown clock is set to expire on Monday afternoon (Eastern Time, US).

Either this will be a Valve-branded Steam Box (Valve co-founder Gabe Newell did reveal already that the Steam Box will be distributed entirely by Valve) or perhaps its the announcement of partnerships with hardware manufacturers to make PCs that are more living-room/TV friendly?

What do you think Valve will reveal?

Written by: James Delahunty @ 20 Sep 2013 23:20

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• 3 comments

• Xian

  How are they going to handle multiple users? That brings up a couple issues.
  
  Currently they just allow a single user per account, so any achievements and such are under the one account. The PS3/360 have multiple profiles, so each user can get their own achievements - this would be a big deal with my kids. With Steam you currently need separate accounts, and separate game purchases under each account to do that.
  
  Are they going to permit multiple logins? If the wife wants to play Bejeweled in the living room on the Steam Box, and I want to play Civ 5 on my PC, the only way you could do that under the current system is to set one to offline mode as only one can be logged in online at once. What if both of you want to play a game online at the same time?

  21.9.2013 10:57 #1

• defgod

  Originally posted by Xian: How are they going to handle multiple users? That brings up a couple issues.
  
  Currently they just allow a single user per account, so any achievements and such are under the one account. The PS3/360 have multiple profiles, so each user can get their own achievements - this would be a big deal with my kids. With Steam you currently need separate accounts, and separate game purchases under each account to do that.
  
  Are they going to permit multiple logins? If the wife wants to play Bejeweled in the living room on the Steam Box, and I want to play Civ 5 on my PC, the only way you could do that under the current system is to set one to offline mode as only one can be logged in online at once. What if both of you want to play a game online at the same time?
  Unfortunately from a company like this you have to deal with the digital distribution model. Where it is generally accepted that you will more than likely have to have separate accounts with their own game profiles and purchases. This is one f the biggest issues with the digital "era". We are too quickly moving away from physical media. It now make it easier for the "so called" rights owners for more control.
  

  21.9.2013 15:50 #2

• Qliphah

  This likely plays into the new "Friends & Family" beta Steam just started. Everyone will have their own Steam account, but will have access to any copies friends or families have shared with them. So instead of 4 or 5 accounts each family will have 1 with multiple users. If steam keeps it open an free, and doesn't try to bilk money for every multiplayer licence this could signal a revolution in not just video games but media as a whole.
  

  23.9.2013 16:56 #3