The End Of Auto-Aim
Valve says
its extensive testing indicates that a Steam controller could make you a better
gamer. “There’s something inherent about it,” says Greg, “that teaches you how
to hold it right from the start. It’s not your larger muscle groups you’re
using; it’s your fine motor skills. Thumbsticks have made it so that
first-person shooters are mostly developed with a certain amount of auto-aim
turned on, but with the Steam controller, it’s no longer necessary to have
auto-aim because of the fidelity and resolution of the trackpad. By the time
people get used to it, they report – and the data shows – that they quickly
surpass what they would have been able to achieve with a thumbstick
controller.”
It’s
no longer necessary to have auto-aim because of
the fidelity and resolution of the trackpad
What’s Next For Steam
For one
thing, while the Xbox One and PS4 won’t support 4K for some time (if at all),
Steam Machines can do it already: “A number of different Steam Machines are
going to do extremely well with 4K. A lot of the PC gaming experience already
happens with super-high-resolution displays. Our prototype machine can handle
it no problem.
“It’s already
working, but this year you’re going to see some purveyors of machines really
optimising for it. Developers are increasingly offering optional downloads of
super-high-res texture packs if you can really crank the settings up, and Steam
takes care of the install for that. When commercial products come out, you’re
going to see some people really touting the fact that 4K is part of their
setup. A lot of the more powerful Steam Machines are going far exceed vanilla
HD.”
Spectacular
4K Ultra HD Picture Quality
And while
Valve CEO Gabe Newell has stated they won’t be making cloud gaming the backbone
of Steam, you’ll be able to play demos through cloud services. “We’ve looked at
it pretty hard,” says Greg, “and we’ve talked to OnLive and the other people
who are building services like that. There are scenarios in which it makes
sense, like game demos and Twitch TV – we want to deliver services like that,
and we’re working on it now.”
Perhaps most
exciting of all, though, is Valve’s commitment to virtual reality. If you plan
to make an Oculus Rift part of your gaming future, Steam is definitely the way
to go.
Thousands
of games, millions of users. Everything you love about Steam.
Available soon as a free operating system designed for the TV and the living
room.
“We think VR
is going to be really important, starting this year. Valve has believed for a
long time that VR is going to be meaningful. We have a set of goals around the
open PC being the place where innovation is going to happen. So we think Oculus
is great — we’ve been working with them for a while. We have been putting a
bunch of effort into developing technology in that direction, and some of
that’s going to become public this year.”
