(Note: Published April 2012 for Press2Reset)
The Verge recently published an article claiming that unnamed sources have confirmed that Valve is working on a console. Considering that it’s been a while since a new contender has thrown their hat into the console ring this is huge. Yet, with the frenzy surrounding the rumor of Valve developing a Steam Box console is there any validity to it?
Without a doubt.
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has been talking about hardware and consoles to various outlets. The latest example being his remarks to Penny Arcade saying,
“If we have to sell hardware we will. We have no reason to believe we’re any good at it, it’s more we think that we need to continue to have innovation and if the only way to get these kinds of projects started is by us going and developing and selling the hardware directly then that’s what we’ll do.”
An interesting statement for Newell to say considering that Valve is a developer who also runs Steam, their digital distribution service. So why would a video game developer want to talk about selling hardware? Newell continued on saying,
“It’s definitely not the first thought that crosses our mind, we’d rather hardware people that are good at manufacturing and distributing hardware do that. We think it’s important enough that if that’s what we end up having to do then that’s what we end up having to do.”
Talking about hardware is one thing, but Newell is talking about Valve specifically making hardware themselves or letting others make it for them. Of course, the fact that the developer has filed a patent, published 05/05/2011, for a controller with swappable parts gives credence to the fact that Valve is looking to sell hardware.
Now, the controller could be a standalone piece of hardware that Valve is just looking to sell but in October 2011 Newell spoke at the WTIA TechNW conference about the console scene. During that conference he talked about how consoles, and Apple with their Apple TV products, are adopting a closed model and are going in the wrong direction.
Newell said,
“I worry that the things that traditionally have been the source of a lot of innovation, there’s going to be attempts to close those off, so that somebody will say, ‘I’m tired of competing with Google, I’m tired of competing with Facebook. I’ll apply a console model or mobile model and exclude competitors I don’t like from my world.’ The success that Apple has had, the success that Xbox Live has had, is incorrectly signaling to people what the right strategy is, and they’ll pick exactly the wrong lessons to learn from that.”
Valve’s co-founder went on to talk about the openness of Steam and the free tools and resources it provided but came back to consoles adding,
“I think this notion of consoles as a separate set of APIs, a separate set of services, a separate way of connecting or developing an audience, that’s not going to be there. I think it’s highly likely that we’ll continue to have high-performance graphics capability in living rooms. I’m not sure we’re all going to put down our game controllers and pick up touch screens – which is a reasonable view, I’m just not sure I buy into it.”
Considering what he had to say about consoles, and closed models, it almost sounds as if this is a pitch for something to come along that has adopted an open model; A model which Valve uses for their Steam platform. So Valve developing and selling a controller doesn’t make a whole lot of sense unless there is something bigger going on.
So looking at what has been talked about, one could assume that Valve has already been considering and developing their own console for a while now. Combine all the information from Penny Arcade, the conference, a filed patent, and The Verge’s own article together and the possibilities of a Steam Box are very high.
Personally, I say that the Steam Box rumor is valid. But Valve won’t show it at GDC. This is a reveal that will have to take place at E3 where everyone, the video game industry and consumers, will be watching.
Do you think the Steam Box is real?
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