According to a report from Josh Topolsky at The Verge, Gabe Newell and Valve are working on a new gaming console for the living room that’s compatible with Steam in addition to the Origin game download service created by Electronic Arts. According to sources within the company, Valve demoed the hardware to a select group of partners while at the Consumer Electronics Show during January 2012. Designed to play current titles released for the personal computer, the “Steam Box” utilizes a NVIDIA GPU, 8GB of RAM and a Core i7 CPU. It’s also likely that the Steam Box will offer a HDMI connection as a standard option due to the popularity of the format on high definition televisions.
In addition, the hardware specifications would be upgraded at a specific date allowing game developers to plan for upcoming releases. According to the source, this life cycle could be as quick as three to four years. Compared to other gaming consoles, the Nintendo Wii is approaching its six year anniversary with the Wii U targeted during the fourth quarter of 2012. If a new version of the Xbox hardware is released during late 2013, that would mark an eight year life of the Xbox 360.
In addition to the speedy life cycle of the Steam Box, developers won’t be charged any licensing fees to create software for the platform and there’s no developer kit required since it’s on the PC platform. However, developers would still be charged a fee to sell the software through the Steam software platform.
Valve is apparently reaching to to partners to develop the new gaming hardware for the living room. According to an interview with Newell, he stated “We’d rather hardware people that are good at manufacturing and distributing hardware do hardware. 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.” However, Valve would build plenty of software to support the Steam platform on the new gaming system.
During May 2011, Valve filed a patent for a video game controller with “swappable control components” that would allow the player to alter parts on the gaming controller based on the type of game. While it’s unclear if this controller will be used with the upcoming Steam Box, the ability to alter parts may help PC gamers transition from the traditional keyboard and mouse control system. However, the keyboard and mouse setup could also be supported easily with the simple inclusion of support for wireless peripherals connected through a USB dongle.
There’s currently no information regarding the inclusion of a hard drive within the Steam Box. This could point to cloud gaming similar to OnLive’s strategic direction that delivers a video and audio feed of the game through a network connection. If a hard drive is included within the Steam Box, the device could branch out beyond gaming and move into the territory of digital video recorders like TiVo. Even without a hard drive, it could easily support Internet video similar to the Boxee Box.
That would also challenge Apple’s upcoming revision of the Apple TV rumored to be discussed during the Apple iPad 3 presentation on March 7. However, Valve would have to work with services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Vudu to enable several media options prior to the release of the Steam Box. According to Topolsky’s sources, the Steam Box may be revealed next week at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, California. However, Valve may also wait until E3 during June to officially release details on the Steam Box.
As a xbox 360 slim owner, and a steam user on my pc, I will pass, and bide my time for the xbox 720. Surely no one truly believes they can compete against Microsoft or Sony? Although as a gamer, I’d Gladly eat those words…. Lol
@Lee – interesting, because steam had the opposite affect on me. I used to pirate games all the time, but since I started using steam, I realy don’t have a need to pirate anymore. Steam has been easy to use and have had no issues. Plus, Valves Games are so good, I don’t mind paying for games that actually deliver solid entertainment…even more so when I get their games on sale.
Jacob has Alzheimer’s
Saw this today, and it reminded me of this post. http://i.imgur.com/HATBU.jpg
Jacob has Alzheimer’s
My instinct is to remind everyone of the Phantom Console, by Infinium Labs, and what an epic failure it was…didn’t even make it to market. Then, I’m reminded that this is Valve, I love them, and the state of gaming is so different that what it was 8-10 years ago. So, I’m all for this. YAY Valve!
Steam console? yucky yuck! No thank you.
Jacob should know that every Call of Duty game since 2009 has used VAC, not Punkbuster… that said, VAC was not created with COD in mind – it was created with CS’s open functionalities (dedi servers, admins) in mind.
Techno2k9 should know that it uses Punkbuster, not VAC…
Good idea.
However being a pc gamer and having to use Steam I think it’s gonna be a bad service provided by them with this supposed console.
1st issue, slow download’s maximum download speed from Steam for me is 25Mb, maximum download speed from Origin 110Mb. They need to include disc’s with it and a large hard drive to install games on to.
2nd issue, VAC it is pathetic and doesn’t stand for Valve Anti Cheat it actually stands for Valve allows cheats because just look at all the Call Of Duty games since VAC was started to be used on the pc, and you will see that they are the most cheat infected games going on the pc platform, which is why I have all but occasionally stopped playing them, and instead stick to Battlefield 3.
I remember hearing about the Phantom console with upgradable hardware and was thinking it would be a great idea but it didn’t come to light, simply because I don’t think they could make it cheap enough for people to actually buy it.
Valve need to concentrate on getting VAC working and making Half Life Episode 3, and Half Life 3 before they start thinking about making a console, and then when they are going to make to make a console they need to allow a keyboard and mouse to be used for those of us, that cannot use a controller because if they sort out those issues with downlaod speeds and VAC and allow a keyboard and mouse to be used for playing games then I will buy it, deffo if they allow the hardware upgrades as well.
I honestly don’t see any game console being able to compete with Sony or Microsoft for a very long time. I’d like to see another gaming system break out and compete tho.
I have a horrible problem with Steam, I finally had to uninstall it and not play the games I’ve purchased. I can’t take screenshots, games don’t update completely, games crash and it just doesn’t want to launch anything I want to play. Takes forever! I’ll just double-click the link on my wall.
Ehhhh I wouldn’t go as far to say their games are “solid” a lot of their games tend to get repetitive fast. TF2 and Portal were good, but Half-Life which is the crown jewl of valve got old fast. Plus they never released episode 3 and there for never finished a story arc which I find irritating.
I’m not sure how I feel about valve making a console. They have some good games but I don’t feel they are at the point to where they can make a system and then expect it to sell well “just because it runs steam”.
if it is always on… it would potentially solve the download issues. I’d give it a shot. be darn easier then the pc connection