Gaming – Paul's Notepad

Wii U: Teardown

Paul Darr / 2012-10-12 / Leave a Comment

In a new addition of Iwata Asks a pictoral hardware tear down is conducted and discussed. I found the discussion concerning power consumption, performance and design to be very interesting.

I purchased a Wii after it’s launch but due to hardware shortages it took several weeks of searching. In this environment of increaing numbers of iOS and Android gadgets, I wonder what is the outlook for console makers like Nintendo. I find myself wanting to wait and see. As a new father I find I have little time for games and the bit of time I do have is used primarily on my desktop or Andoid phone. I have only broken out my NES and Wii since moving in for a quick test to see that both work… well and a few levels of SMB.

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Valve to test Steam on Linux next week

Paul Darr / 2012-09-27 / Leave a Comment

According to the Valve Blog, Steam for Linux will be released next week… kinda.

On the negative side it is planned to be an internal beta but here is hoping for a leak. For those not familiar with Steam, it is a games marketplace application for Windows, Macintosh, PS3 (kinda) and soon Linux. The marketplace manages customers digital rights and downloads of games and also provides an online community.

Sometime in October, Valve will release a closed beta for 1,000 external players. Next month’s external beta will support Ubuntu 12.04 and include one game along with the steam client.

From the official Valve Blog:

“For existing Linux users, the external private beta is a good release for seeing where we are in running our games on Linux,” reads the blog entry. “We will be using a sign up page for the external beta. Information about the sign up will be announced in a future post.

“For those new to Linux, we recommend waiting for a subsequent release where more features are implemented along with improvements to the user install experience.”

Earlier this month Valve also launched the beta for Steam Big Picture Mode, which brings PC gaming into the living room and gives a controller-friendly makeover. While Big Picture Mode will not be supported on the initial Linux Beta, it does make me wonder if they are building on Linux as a potential future platform for a console.

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