Tag Archives: Gabe Newell
Oh Steam, you never let me down (except when you do)
As you all know, I gave up consoles a few years ago, and use Steam exclusively. If you’re not familiar with steam, it’s Valve’s digital distribution platform, the one that set the standard for the market and made founder and former Microsoft engineer Gabe Newell a billionaire. And not just any billionaire – he’s #307 on the “Forbes 400” list of richest people in the country.
But I digress. I have a powerful PC connected to a beautiful 4K (UHD, actually, they’re not the same) TV, a thingy that lets me connect a 360 controller and I use Steam’s Big Picture Mode.
It’s pretty nice, generally, and they’ve made significant improvements to the interface that make it even more usable with a controller. There is much easier access to game specifics, and more options from the Store page that bring it closer to the desktop client, not to mention they have really improved the input methods (hello, QWERTY keyboard!). The individual game screens offer easier access to game information, and the library has a nice, tiles look to it. The following picture shows the current, controller-friendly library interface taken from my very own machine.
Steam’s library interface
Alienware releases their Steam Machine
That headline requires more explanation than you might think. You see, this is a tale of three separate companies all coming together to make PC gaming more accessible. I don’t know how well they’ve succeeded, but let me give you some background, some opinion, and you can make your own decisions about whether or not this is a step in the right direction or not.
The first company we’ll mention is the well-known PC builder Dell, formed by Michael Dell who built PCs in his dorm room, sometimes going so far as to scrounge components from dumpsters. The company had huge success in the 90s, making its founder one of the richest men in the world, however they have since fallen somewhat from that high point although they still do very well. I personally only used Dells for many years, and for the price they’re good machines.
