Valve has delayed the launch of its Steam Machine consoles until 2015, it’s been announced.
In an official blog post, product designer Eric Hope issued an update on the status of Valve’s much anticipated living room games platform. It seems as if the house of Half-Life is not quite happy with its revolutionary control-pad in its current form.
"We’re now using wireless prototype controllers to conduct live playtests, with everyone from industry professionals to die-hard gamers to casual gamers," reads the blog posting. "It's generating a ton of useful feedback, and it means we'll be able to make the controller a lot better."
Better is good, right? Right. The trouble is, such improvement will take time. "It's also keeping us pretty busy making all those improvements," Valve acknowledges. "Realistically, we're now looking at a release window of 2015, not 2014."
The controller arguably remains Valve’s biggest challenge in producing a living room-ready gaming PC platform. After all, it will need to accurately replace the desktop keyboard and mouse experience for speed, sensitivity, and reliability - something that no console controller has managed to date.
The first wave of Steam Machines were unveiled at CES 2014 back in January. A number of third party PC manufacturers have signed up to the project, including Alienware, Origin PC, and Digital Storm.
While some of these offerings will indeed retail for Xbox One and PS4-like prices, you can expect the truly games-worthy form factors to cost a great deal more.
Read More: Half-Life 3 confirmed
