The HTC Vive has proved to be quite a formidable piece of kit. Not only did it surprise when it stole much of Oculus' pre-release thunder with roomscale and hand tracked controllers, but it surprised post launch by being more widely available. Where it does not surprise us though is …
Read More »Valve has sold over 500,000 Steam Controllers
Valve's journey into producing its own hardware started all the way back in 2013, when it first revealed the Steam Machines and Steam Controller. The controller itself went through many changes in the two years leading up to release but it seems that quite a few were interested enough to …
Read More »Valve employee claims Oculus Rift is ‘direct copy’ of Valve prototype
Although Oculus might have been the first company to really get the world thinking about virtual reality as a viable future, it might not be as impactful as you think. In-fact Valve may have overtaken it so much in developing VR gear, that Oculus' Rift CV1 is to some, just a …
Read More »Steam Summer Sale simulator lets you buy games forever
Although Valve might spend much of the year offering big sales at discounted prices, with all of the gamification that goes along with that, for some people it's still not often enough. Fortunately, you may soon be able to play a game, about buying games. Summer Sale is currently in …
Read More »DotA 2 International Compendium wants to break $18.5 million
With the DotA 2 International competition kicking off at the end of June, that means it's time to generate some prize money. In what has become a tradition, Valve plans to build that with gamer dollars, by offering them prizes, upgrades and unlocks for DotA 2 through the sale of …
Read More »Steam updated to prioritise more recent user reviews
These days, games often change quite a bit over time, somebody's experience with a title at launch may not accurately reflect the state of things a few months down the line. In keeping with that logic, Valve updated Steam this week, so that user reviews now prioritise more recent opinions …
Read More »170 Team Fortress 2 pro players banned after VAC update
Team Fortress 2 should now be a fairer place to play, whether competitively or just for fun, as Valve's latest update to its Valve-Anti-Cheat (VAC) defence system has been detecting users of the LMAOBOX software all weekend. It's led to many players being banned from the game, including almost 170 professional players …
Read More »You can now buy games on Steam using Bitcoin
While the fanfare surrounding digital currencies like Bitcoin seems to have settled down a bit over the last year, plenty of people still have some left over to use and now, you can use your Bitcoins on Steam. We first heard that Valve may roll out Bitcoin payments on the Steam …
Read More »The HTC Vive to get new features with future firmware updates
Virtual Reality has finally arrived in the hands of consumers but it looks like Valve and HTC have plans for the Vive headset to evolve a bit over time as future firmware update plans aim to add in “real, new functionality”. Speaking on the RoadToVR podcast, Valve developer, Jeremy Selan, …
Read More »Valve rejects indie game store from Steam Greenlight
It turns out that Valve does pay attention to what goes on in Greenlight from time to time. This week, the creators of indie game store, ‘Itch.io', were trying to get an app for the store pushed through Steam Greenlight but they were stopped in their tracks last night after …
Read More »A Steam Controller hardware revision could be in the works
Valve first announced the Steam Controller way back at the end of 2013 and after plenty of revisions, tweaks and even feature changes, we finally saw it launch last year. However, it looks like Valve isn't quite finished refining its gamepad yet as reports are suggesting that another hardware revision …
Read More »BMW to use HTC Vive for developing prototype cars
With the age of consumer virtual reality finally upon is, it's no surprise that everyone is enjoying certain games and experiences with their brand new headsets. But uses outside of the gaming world have some exciting potential too, like BMW using the HTC Vive to demo prototypes of its vehicles, …
Read More »Spectating DotA 2 in VR could be a lot of fun in itself
As much as playing games in virtual reality might be wonderfully fun and immersive, VR might actually be a great place to watch games too. In a recent teaser trailer for Valve's theatre mode for the HTC Vive, it also showed off a spectator mode for DotA 2, which has …
Read More »SteamVR has officially launched, Valve VR compilation game available
The HTC Vive began shipping out to customers today and alongside that, Valve has officially launched SteamVR, which has around 120 games and experiences listed already for early virtual reality headset adopters at varying price points. Similar to other areas of Steam, the SteamVR pages showcase dozens of titles and …
Read More »First HTC Vives arrive in the hands of consumers
Amidst the news that Oculus has run into some difficulties with its shipping, the first HTC Vive virtual reality headsets have started arriving on the doorsteps of consumers all over the world. From Tokyo, to California, to New Zealand, Vives have been showing up over the last 12 hours, with …
Read More »Valve found guilty of breaking Australian law with old refund policy
For years, Valve got away with having lackluster customer support and a ‘no refund policy' on Steam, despite laws in certain parts of the world where Steam is available. However, some governing authorities began noticing and back in 2014, Australia's consumer watchdog took Valve to court over its lack of …
Read More »Oculus doubts that consumers will have space for room-scale VR
There are two major virtual reality headsets releasing this year for the PC market, the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. Both may seem fairly similar if you look at certain specs like screen resolution and refresh rate but the two devices actually take very different approaches, with Oculus focussing …
Read More »Valve wants to get VR running on 2012-era graphics cards
One of the bigger challenges with virtual reality is getting a PC capable of running it. Right now, VR is developed to run on GPUs like the GTX 970 and R9 290 but not everyone likes to upgrade every generation, which is why Valve is working on lowering the barrier …
Read More »Valve introduces ‘custom game pass’ for Dota 2
While Valve's brief paid mods stint with Skyrim didn't last long, Valve hasn't given up on coming up with ways to support custom content creators. Today, Valve announced the ‘Custom Game Pass' for Dota 2, which will allow those who enjoy custom game modes to support the creators directly. Custom Game …
Read More »JJ Abrams developing Portal and Half Life movies
As much as there are still a lot of people with their fingers crossed that one day Valve will release an update to its Half Life and Portal Universes, it may be that the stories are expanded through movies next. There's been rumours of both hitting the big screen at …
Read More »New Steam Controller update brings new features
Valve began rolling out a new Steam Controller update over the weekend, bringing along some welcome additions to functionality with new features as well as some bug fixes. Valve's Steam Controller was first announced way back in 2013 and finally made its way to market in October last year, bringing …
Read More »Valve to show off a compilation of Portal VR experiments next week
The Games Developers Conference is set to kick off next week and Valve will once again have a presence there. This year, Valve will be holding a virtual reality demonstration that will bring us all back to the world of Portal and the labs of Aperture Science. Valve is going …
Read More »Valve finally sends emails to those affected by Steam Christmas error
Back over Christmas, Valve's Steam Store suffered from a bug that allowed users on the Steam Store to see the details of other user accounts. During this, those affected had their personal emails, names, addresses, phone numbers and more revealed to total strangers and now, months later, Valve has finally …
Read More »Steam making more security changes for trading
Late last year Valve implemented a trade hold system for the Steam marketplace with the aim of providing better security for users and help minimize the amount of trading scams taking place. A three-day hold was placed on all trades between nonlong-term Steam friends to allow potential scam victims to …
Read More »Overclockers UK and HTC team up for VR hardware bundles
HTC opened up pre-orders for The Vive today, its Valve-backed virtual reality headset that makes use of room-scale technology. It is a pricey bit of kit, coming with a £689.99 price tag so you will want to make sure that your PC is up to scratch for VR and to …
Read More »HTC Vive’s recommended system requirements are here
The HTC Vive is set to arrive at the start of April, with pre-orders for the $800 virtual reality headset set to go live next Monday. While we have known about recommended PC specifications for the Oculus Rift for some time, we haven't heard much on the Vive side of things …
Read More »Valve launches SteamVR Portal performance test demo
Remember last year when screenshots and videos of Valve's Aperture Science/Portal virtual reality demo started popping up on the web? Well, now you can download that demo for yourself as Valve has just released it as a SteamVR performance testing tool. The tool is obviously designed to rate your system …
Read More »HTC Vive to ship on 1st April, price to be announced Monday
It looks like HTC and Valve are currently preparing to dish out the last few details on the HTC Vive next week. We already knew that pre-orders were planned to go live on the 29th of February but as it turns out, HTC is apparently planning to announce the price and …
Read More »HTC to announce Vive price tag at MWC
It looks like we could be learning the official price tag of the Valve-backed HTC Vive virtual reality headset very soon. We already know that pre-orders are due to go live at the end of the month but apparently the price tag will be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress …
Read More »Unity engine now natively supports SteamVR
Virtual reality technology is set to finally hit the consumer market this year and as you would imagine, a lot of work is being done on the software side to ensure that there will actually be games to play when the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive hit this year. Now …
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