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Interestingly, Steam’s first hardware product was a Steam Box: a little computer brick that could boot Steam on linux and let you play all your games on your TV

Interestingly, Steam’s first hardware product was a Steam Box: a little computer brick that could boot Steam on linux and let you play all your games on your TV (with a Steam controller or game controller of your choice). The cycle is now complete.

SteveNuts 2y ago
They really did a good job slowly experimenting with hardware working their way up to the Deck. First the steam box then the controller, I’m sure they learned a lot from both of those before they released the deck.
- Jolter 2y ago
  There were many years between the Steam Controller (2015) and the Deck(2022). I’m not sure how much of those learnings could still be applied, considering changing technology as well as staff changes. Maybe Valve has such excellent staff retention that this would be a non-issue. At my previous employers, two years would have been enough to have to start over from 0.
geoffpado 2y ago
The history is a bit more complicated than that. Valve themselves never released a “Steam Box” that could run games on Linux. They partnered with a few different companies (Alienware, Gigabyte, etc.), who released co-branded “Steam Machines” which were just those companies’s normal hardware design, but with a common set of specs ideal for running SteamOS. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_%28computer%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_%28computer%29 You might instead be thinking of the Steam Link, which *was* produced by Valve, and *was* a tiny little brick that let you play games on your TV. But the Link wasn’t running the games itself, it was streaming them from a dedicated PC (which may itself have been a third-party Steam Machine) elsewhere in your home. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link
- swores 2y ago
  > "which were just those companies’s normal hardware design" For Alienware (not sure about the others, but AW was Valve's lead partner on it anyway) you're right in that it was a computer designed by Alienware not Valve, however it was a) very different to other Alienware PCs, and b) Valve were genuinely part of the development process, they didn't just say "hey make a small computer". They also shipped with the first gen of Steam controllers, which were created by Valve themselves. (Unfortunately, due to delays with SteamOS, the first version of the AW "Steam Machine" actually launched running Windows only, but with the Steam Controller, because Alienware weren't willing to delay their launch further and instead developed their own controller-based UI for Windows in a rush job...) (Source: me, I was in the loop on those goings on at the time.) To this day, I think the Alienware Alpha (as the Windows version got called) was one of the nicest machines Dell ever made and one of the best small PCs I've ever seen.
  - ok_dad 2y ago
    > first gen of Steam controllers, which were created by Valve themselves The best goddamn controllers ever made, too, I still have one in a box somewhere around here and I won't use it because it's so awesome I don't want it to break. Pretty dumb eh? The two touchpads were the absolute best, I've never had control like that in an FPS and to this day I can't play any FPS with a stick because I was ruined on the Steam Controller.
    - swores 2y ago
      100% agree. I still can't believe it didn't become a long running product that everyone uses. I've never been a console/controller gamer, but I remember the first time I saw it - it was an early fake, that looked and felt very similar to the end product but inside it just had a metal weight and no actual electronics, and it seemed like such an exciting product, it was genuinely hard to keep that secret... (And come to think of it, I think I misremembered when writing my last comment - I might be wrong, but I think the Alienware Alpha that launched with Windows actually shipped with an Xbox controller, and the steam controller was only available once the proper Steam Machine version was out. Not 100% sure, maybe we just needed the Xbox controllers for the press sessions before launch...)

SteveNuts 2y ago

They really did a good job slowly experimenting with hardware working their way up to the Deck. First the steam box then the controller, I’m sure they learned a lot from both of those before they released the deck.

Jolter 2y ago
There were many years between the Steam Controller (2015) and the Deck(2022). I’m not sure how much of those learnings could still be applied, considering changing technology as well as staff changes. Maybe Valve has such excellent staff retention that this would be a non-issue. At my previous employers, two years would have been enough to have to start over from 0.

geoffpado 2y ago

The history is a bit more complicated than that. Valve themselves never released a “Steam Box” that could run games on Linux. They partnered with a few different companies (Alienware, Gigabyte, etc.), who released co-branded “Steam Machines” which were just those companies’s normal hardware design, but with a common set of specs ideal for running SteamOS. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_%28computer%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_%28computer%29 You might instead be thinking of the Steam Link, which *was* produced by Valve, and *was* a tiny little brick that let you play games on your TV. But the Link wasn’t running the games itself, it was streaming them from a dedicated PC (which may itself have been a third-party Steam Machine) elsewhere in your home. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link

swores 2y ago
> "which were just those companies’s normal hardware design" For Alienware (not sure about the others, but AW was Valve's lead partner on it anyway) you're right in that it was a computer designed by Alienware not Valve, however it was a) very different to other Alienware PCs, and b) Valve were genuinely part of the development process, they didn't just say "hey make a small computer". They also shipped with the first gen of Steam controllers, which were created by Valve themselves. (Unfortunately, due to delays with SteamOS, the first version of the AW "Steam Machine" actually launched running Windows only, but with the Steam Controller, because Alienware weren't willing to delay their launch further and instead developed their own controller-based UI for Windows in a rush job...) (Source: me, I was in the loop on those goings on at the time.) To this day, I think the Alienware Alpha (as the Windows version got called) was one of the nicest machines Dell ever made and one of the best small PCs I've ever seen.
- ok_dad 2y ago
  > first gen of Steam controllers, which were created by Valve themselves The best goddamn controllers ever made, too, I still have one in a box somewhere around here and I won't use it because it's so awesome I don't want it to break. Pretty dumb eh? The two touchpads were the absolute best, I've never had control like that in an FPS and to this day I can't play any FPS with a stick because I was ruined on the Steam Controller.
  - swores 2y ago
    100% agree. I still can't believe it didn't become a long running product that everyone uses. I've never been a console/controller gamer, but I remember the first time I saw it - it was an early fake, that looked and felt very similar to the end product but inside it just had a metal weight and no actual electronics, and it seemed like such an exciting product, it was genuinely hard to keep that secret... (And come to think of it, I think I misremembered when writing my last comment - I might be wrong, but I think the Alienware Alpha that launched with Windows actually shipped with an Xbox controller, and the steam controller was only available once the proper Steam Machine version was out. Not 100% sure, maybe we just needed the Xbox controllers for the press sessions before launch...)