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Ok so yesterday I might have jumped the gun a bit saying we were looking at “Valve's console.” It isn't. Still, it will be part of a new lineup of Steam compatible hardware that are designed as small form factor PCs for gaming in your lounge.
Yes I also said that Valve were unlikely to compete with their own third party hardware and I was wrong on that count too. Valve head honcho, Game Newell said as much in his interview with The Verge, explaining that there would be several third party Steam box manufacturers, but that Valve would also produce its own, cool and quiet console with a small foot print.
“We'll come out with our own and we'll sell it to consumers by ourselves,” Newell said. “That'll be a Linux box, [and] if you want to install Windows you can. We're not going to make it hard. This is not some locked box by any stretch of the imagination.”
Some might wonder why Valve is allowing other manufacturers to get in on the market that Valve itself is looking to enter. Newell explained that it was opting for an open system, not the closed setup offered by the major console manufacturers.
Newell also mentioned the idea that Valve will enter the mobile sphere of gaming at some point. He said that the Steam Box project was internally called “Bigfoot,” and that the company was also working on “Littlefoot,” which is the mobile audience – not a talking dinosaur.
Of course Valve isn't the only one pushing for a little home console to compete with the next generation offerings from Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. Nvidia is planning to release a Shield mobile console that hooks up to your TV. Then there's Game Stick and of course the soon to be released Ouya.
KitGuru Says: Considering many people have claimed the console market is dying, it seems like a lot of business leaders disagree and want to get in on it. Why do you guys think that is?
The console market IS dying. This, however, isn’t the console market. At least, not the Piston.
Valve aren’t foolish. They know they lead the PC gaming world. They know wherever they go, it will follow, and if they move fast, there will be dire consequences. What Valve are really introducing is their own line of Linux PCs, in a friendly form we can adapt to the idea of. They’re marketing this SFF PC as a great way to play games optimised for a controller in your living room. It’s a friendly, half-console mask hat introduces a lot of Windows using gamers to Linux.
Gabe lead in the productions of early copies of Windows. He left for the gaming industry. He knows this touch oriented, closed-platform Windows 8 is poisonous for PC gaming’s previously open structure. Like a technology-based Noah, he’s leading PC gamers slowly into the safe haven of a guaranteed open platform, even producing hardware upgrades for what really is just a SFF PC, to get people used to running this.
It’s a brilliant tactic, and will be interesting to see how much Linux grows over the next ten to twenty years.
Assuming Windows 9 will be windows 8 with a facelift. I doubt Microsoft are oblivious to the dissatisfaction. However, Windows for gaming may be irrelevant if Steam dares to be bold, and goes toe to toe.