valve

Valve's Team Fortress 2 will be the first game to work with the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset.

The game will receive an update over the next few weeks to enable support, dubbed VR Mode, for the Oculus Rift. Users will be able to play in public servers using the headset. The Oculus Rift is only available for the Windows platform, with Mac and Linux support in the pipeline.

The first developer kits for the Oculus Rift -- the product of a very successful Kickstarter campaign -- is expected to ship to backers soon. The $300 headset was initially scheduled to ship by December. … Read more

You can now preorder the first Steam Box, a PC-based gaming console built around Valve's digital game distribution platform. Prices start at $1,000, though there's a $100 discount if you order now.

Manufacturer Xi3 announced the Piston earlier this year at CES. The "grapefruit-size" Piston uses Steam's Big Picture feature to bring console-style PC games to TV screens.

Xi3 is a modular PC vendor that has received funding from Valve, and its Piston console is among a handful of such console-style PCs expected to arrive in 2013. The Piston console is slated to ship in the holiday season at the end of 2013, which also happens to be the estimated launch period for Sony's next-generation PlayStation 4. … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- The Valve Steam Box is coming.

- How HBO will tackle "Game of Thrones" piracy.

- The Last of Us has a unique plotline with clicking mushroom people.… Read more

Valve's highly anticipated Steam Box game console will be ready for testing in a few months time.

Speaking to the BBC in an interview published recently, Valve CEO Gabe Newell said that the console should be ready for testing "in the next three to four months," adding that his company will pass out the device to customers to try out.

"There are noise issues and heat issues and being able to [deal with] that while still offering a powerful enough gaming experience is the challenge in building it," Newell told BBC, adding that Valve still hasn't been able to finalize the device's controller design.… Read more

Microsoft's new Intel-powered tablet isn't being advertised as a gaming platform, but maybe it should.

The Surface Pro handles Diablo III and Portal 2 at near-maximum settings, according to a post by Jason Evangelho at Forbes.com.

Gamers "represent an important -- and arguably sizable -- potential demographic for Microsoft. As the company knows from its wildly successful Xbox platform," he wrote.

At the moment, Microsoft is marketing Surface as a business tool, with no mention of its gaming chops.

The closest it gets is ad copy about Intel's laptop-class Core i5 processor and the … Read more

Watch out, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony: Apple is coming to take you down.

Speaking recently to a class at the University of Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell said that he believes the console market's greatest "threat right now is that Apple has gained a huge amount of market share, and has a relatively obvious pathway towards entering the living room with their platform."

"I think that there's a scenario where we see sort of a dumbed down living room platform emerging -- I think Apple rolls the console guys really … Read more

LAS VEGAS--As reported by Kotaku earlier this evening, modular PC vendor Xi3 announced an new project funded by PC game maker and digital distribution service provider Valve Software. The company says it isn't discussing many details about the project, other than the fact that it's "designed specifically to support both Steam and its Big Picture mode for residential and LAN party computer gaming on larger high-def screens."

Steam, if you're unfamiliar, is Valve Software's dominant PC gaming digital distribution service. Big Picture Mode is Valve's new feature that provides a TV-friendly overlay to … Read more

Way back in March, the Internet sort of exploded when it became apparent that Valve really was working on its own gaming hardware package.

Now, Gabe Newell himself has told Kotaku that Valve will create its own hardware and software solution that is designed to compete directly with next-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft.

Kotaku interviewed Newell at the Video Game Awards in Culver City, Calif., over the weekend. Newell said that the consumer response to Big Picture had been better than expected, and that the next step was to get Steam Linux into alpha and ensure that Big Picture … Read more