Valve Announces SteamVR, Teases Steam Controller and SteamOS For GDC

News
By Rexly Peñaflorida
published

Back in January, rumors surfaced that Valve was finally going to launch SteamOS as well as show a new version of the Steam controller at the Game Developers Conference. With exactly one week until GDC, the rumors are taking form again as the company announced the another addition to the Steam family.

The hardware is called SteamVR, and given the popularity of Oculus and the recent rise of Razer’s OSVR, it makes sense that Valve is joining the party. Steam is already one of the biggest PC gaming marketplaces, and adding VR to its arsenal only strengthens the company’s position in the gaming industry.

GDC is the best place to show it off, not only to lure existing VR developers into the fold, but also to introduce new developers to the idea of using VR for their games.

Even with this new product, Valve is still focused on delivering the SteamOS and controller. In addition to SteamVR, the company will show off the latest version of the Steam controller and what it calls "living room devices," which indicates a high probability that we'll get a first glance at the brand new operating system.

Information is still slim at this point, with Valve keeping the juicy details very close to the chest. We’ll find out more about what the company has up its sleeve next week when we sit down to talk to them during our week-long coverage of GDC from San Francisco.

Follow Rexly Peñaflorida II @Heirdeux. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Rexly Peñaflorida
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Ning3n
    Seems like Valve is trying to garner more e-support for their previous failure of the Steam Machine, and SteamOS. The addition of "Steam VR" just tops the cake with 10,000 "spacebook" likes.

    I'm not interested.
    Reply
  • neon neophyte
    Considering Valve got Oculus rolling with patent releases and tech, I was hoping valve would come out with its own VR after Oculus sold its soul to facebook.
    Reply
  • ykki
    Valve announced 3 new things....you know where I am going with this ;) (HL3 confirmed!)
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    Well, if there's any company with all the resources and interest to do it and do it well, it's Valve. I say go mad!
    Reply
  • kenjitamura
    Seems like Valve is trying to garner more e-support for their previous failure of the Steam Machine, and SteamOS.

    7/10 Troll bait, I replied.

    Anyway, I'm most excited about Valve's talks concerning their new game engine presentations using glNext. I hope its Source 2 they're talking about and it's near ready for release. It'd be awesome to see the Source 2 engine released with glNext support from the beginning. And I'm drooling over the thought of them porting some of their older games over to the Source 2 engine.... mmm, Team Fortress 2 utilizing glNext on the Source 2 engine. :drool:
    Reply
  • rokit
    "popularity of Oculus"
    Popularity on something that doesn't exist outside of developers' world mind you with no real games outside of godawful looking ones that have its support.

    And now its yet another company with more promises.... oh wait, it is the company that consists of promises, so nothing changed here.
    Reply
  • Vorador2
    What i really want is an industry standard for VR. To ensure that no matter what manufacturer your device is, games will be compatible. And hopefully, it will also include options for controllers like gloves, lightguns...etc

    Because as it stands now, games are either programmed with support of a VR device in mind, or require to use a hack that doesn't always work well (ask the owners of the Oculus Rift dev kit)
    Reply
  • tastyKake
    I really hope Valve doesn't come out at GDC saying we've just come out with support for VR. I understand they are now releasing hardware kits, but Valve has had VR support since the release of SDK 2013. Every developer knows that, so I really hope they don't try to insult people looking to use their engine just to gain some hype to sling back to advertise their new OS or controller and never actually develop anything.

    I don't exactly understand why 2 years ago they implemented VR into their engine, and never actually updated one of their games to showcase it. According to the laws of Valve Time, if it took them 2 years to announce a timetable for development, we might not see it for a while... See Valve Time
    https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time
    Reply
  • Alec Mowat
    SteamOS was a counter to the rumor that Microsoft was going to lockdown Windows 8 with their market place. That seems to be false in Windows 10, and I think that's why interest in weaning in the need for a Steam OS.
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    Yep, the fake rumour that Windows would marginalise Steam has never proved true and never will. SteamOS promised a lot, but has been promising for 2 years. Time to deliver on that vaporware promise.
    Reply