Valve's Gabe Newell talks about the company's plans for releasing hardware.
Back in February, Gabe Newell got people talking when he said in an interview that his company could end up selling hardware. Newell said that while Valve had no reason to believe it was any good at selling hardware, they had to continue to innovate, and if that meant developing and selling hardware, then so be it. The following months brought more rumors of Valve hardware, specifically a 'Steam Box.' This past weekend, Gaben mentioned his company's gaming hardware once again.
According to Kotaku, Newell said Valve's goal was to figure out how to make PCs work better in the living room. Newell went on to say that Valve will next year release PC packages for the living room. These computers will be designed to be hooked up to gamers' TVs, run Steam out of the box, and compete with next generation offerings from Sony and Microsoft. Newell said that with that the reaction to Steam's 'Big Picture' stronger than expected, the next step is to put Big Picture on Steam Linux in preparation for the development of the company's own hardware.
Newell told Kotaku that we're going to be looking at a very controlled environment and that those looking for a more open experience would do better with a more general PC.
"If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that's what some people are really gonna want for their living room."
Newell reckons Valve won't be the only company producing these PCs packaged specifically for the living room.
If valve make HL3 a steambox exclusive, there will be unforeseen consequences.
If valve make HL3 a steambox exclusive, there will be unforeseen consequences.
+1
ALSO please read the article. He says it is a close environment, but then he also says STEAMBOX isnt the only product, meaning, it will be sort of like Android. Other companies will sell their version of STEAMBOX that runs STEAM.
Sega, you guys care to join the fray again?
I personally will be sticking with my gaming PC, but most of my gamer friends would love one of these. Most of them have gaming PCs, but they would love to just be able to plug and play like a console (no driver headaches, incompatibilities, etc). And the ones that predominantly use consoles do so mainly because they don't want the hassle of using a gaming PC.
This actually makes a lot of sense for Valve and I really hope they succeed.
Now if the Steam Box uses its own OS with games that aren't compatible with either Linux or Windows then they can go fuck themselves.
Ouya is a glorified cellphone that can connect to a TV and use a controller, I don't see it being a huge hit frankly