SteamBoy Machine Wants To Make PC Gaming Portable

[exfileme]

SteamBoy Machine is working on a portable PC gaming "console."

SteamBoy Machine Wants To Make PC Gaming Portable : Read more

 

[M0j0jojo]

Didnt Nvidia Shield a;ready make pc gaming portable?

 

[eklipz330]

all together now

VAPORWARE

 

[Mike Friesen]

How about a laptop? Or do we have to literally be walking and gaming?

 

[Alec Mowat]

It's cool if it works with Steam games. Full PC games on portable? I'm interested.

 

[ferooxidan]

How about a laptop? Or do we have to literally be walking and gaming?

can a laptop do nicely without adapter pulgged in? powerful enough to be playing on a plane/train w/o adapter? nope, i don't think so. plugging your laptop while traveling on your car? such hassle. waiting for someone on the cafe for just about 30 mins then have to open laptop first, waiting it to boot (or not if it is sleep mode), then playing games just for 15 mins literally, the person you wait come, then all those hassle putting it back on your bag and go. portable? yeah, right. got a long time waiting on the cafe, playing with laptop on battery, not powerful enough then set performance to be 100%, battery dies forgot to bring adapter, while this thing/ vita/ ds just need powerbank. portable enough? meh.

On a side note, the only thing that makes me curious is whether Valve can put real pc components on that, or it's just another compact notebook components. if it is as powerful as PS4 or even more, then I'm interested.

 

[RoxasForTheWin]

I'm curious to how this performs. Will we be able to play this on the go without having to worry about battery life.

 

[Conrad Pinto]

SteamBoy! Thought I heard this somewhere....Oh wait, that's the name of a Japanese Animated film.

 

[outlw6669]

If I had to venture a guess; it will either have an A10 Micro-6700T or A4 Micro-6400T and it will be able to play the vast majority of (controller supported) Steam games...... if you are streaming them locally from your gaming build.

While an interesting idea, it is definitely vaporware and not really practical for serious gaming.

 

[Greg Williams]

I think they mean 'A majority of the linux PC games on steam', not the actual majority

 

[UVB076]

Remember this is like a 5" sscreen, meaning the device will be small and incapable of holding either a powerful battery or powerful components

 

[airborne11b]

Ya, SHIELD has the right idea. Stream PC games from your home PC steam and origin library. Then also have access to Tegra games, android play store games AND android emulators of all your favorite classic systems (NES, SNES, Gensis, PS, N64, PS2, etc, etc) all on one handheld.

SteamBoy seems irrelevant in comparison to the SHIELD, which should be getting a Gen 2 soon.

 

[TeamColeINC]

Why not just buy a USB controller, get an adapter for USB micro B, and Steam Stream to your smart phone? I saw this dude playing BF4 on his phone and it looked like it was running great and very responsive (i.e. minimal input lag).

 

[Geekavenger]

"If the specs are decent enough to play Skyrim on the default medium settings, would you purchase this device?"

Skyrim does not run on SteamOS, it is not Linux compatible, truly one of my biggest disappointments with my home built steam machine. Streaming works okay but wireless congestion in my apartment building (40+ visible SSIDs on the 2.4GHz spectrum) makes streaming graphically intense games pretty pointless.

 

[Durandul]

If I can install my own linux, count me in. I like KDE, and gnome 3 is just... the worst.

 

[Llisandur]

If I can install Windows 8 and the real Steam on this I might actually consider it.

 

[LostAlone]

I can see they have a good idea, but I'm not sold on this.

The question I'm wondering about is this: Are PC games really designed to be played on the go? Yes, there are a lot of indie games that maybe fit that niche, or at least you wouldn't be heart broken to switch off at a moments notice, but almost all higher profile games (ie games most people know about) are supposed to be played in at least hour long chunks. I almost never see people playing games on laptops as I commute, but I see plenty enough playing on phones and tablets. That pick up/put down thing is really important to how people use devices.

It seems like it's a device that would be best for the younger generations (ie, people who get dragged along to family gatherings, have to wait around to get a lift and/or who's parents refuse to get them an actual PC because the internet is big and scary). And that's fine. I don't have a problem with that at all. But it seems pretty likely that this will cost more than a new 3DS, and well within the laptop price range.

I guess we'll see how things go.

 

[hixbot]

Didnt Nvidia Shield a;ready make pc gaming portable?

Not really, Nvidia Shield runs Android on Arm, so it's not a mobile PC platform. Yes it does stream PC games, which I suppose you could consider portable, as long as you're in WIFI range of a gaming PC.

The Steamboy will be running SteamOS on x86/64, which is a true portable PC. I bet you could install Windows on it if you wanted.

I'd be very interested in it if it used real analogue sticks and not those touch pads.