Valve Announces New Gaming Products in GDC
Renowned game publisher Valve announced a new array of products as well as a next-generation game engine during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, California.
The products include Steam Link, a small device designed to enable users to stream their games from most machines into their home networks. It is now possible to watch video games on a smart TV. As of press time, Valve has indicated that Steam Machines, Windows PCs, Macs and Linux PCs will be able to make use of the new technology.
In addition, Valve has revealed two components of its virtual reality (VR) headset. The first part is a a room scale tracking system codenamed Lighthouse which enables high-speed resolution and tracking. The second part is composed of a VR input system that is integrated with Lighthouse.
Furthermore, the gaming giant gave details on the Steam Machine as well as the Steam Controller, which aims to “bring world-class gaming and graphics to televisions with an open platform true to Valve’s PC gaming roots”, according to Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games.
Most importantly, the company has revealed their latest new engine called Source 2. Valve announced that it will have a Vulkan-compatible version of the engine. According to a post on the GDC official blog, “Vulkan is a cross-platform, cross-vendor 3D graphics API that allows game developers to get the most out of the latest graphics hardware, and ensures hardware developers that there is a consistent, low overhead method of taking advantage of products.”
Here is what Jay Stelly has to say about the new engine:
“The value of a platform like the PC is how much it increases the productivity of those who use the platform. With Source 2, our focus is increasing creator productivity. Given how important user generated content is becoming, Source 2 is designed not for just the professional developer, but enabling gamers themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favorite games,”
He further adds that:
“We will be making Source 2 available for free to content developers. This combined with recent announcements by Epic and Unity will help continue the PCs dominance as the premiere content authoring platform.”
The multi-million dollar enterprise is well-known for publishing games such as Dota 2, Portal and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, among others.
Source: GDC Blog
Featured image taken from Wikimedia Commons.
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