Rumor: Valve Working On “Steam Box” Gaming Console

Valve, the company behind the Half Life series, Left 4 Dead and more, hailed by some as having saved PC gaming and used by millions the world over for crazy deals on great games, is now considering the possibility of entering the hardware business. According to The Verge, Valve has secretly been working on gaming hardware for the average home user; they wont be making the hardware themselves however, as Gabe Newell 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.” The company seems to be working on a specific hardware spec with included software that would form a backbone of Valve’s “Steam Box” console, with rumors of the Alienware X51 being designed with that spec in mind. Meetings at CES were also held, where supposedly a system comprised of an Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, along with an NVIDIA GPU were demoed to partners. In an interesting twist, and possibly indicating this will not be a closed system, the “Steam Box” would allow rival services like EA’s Origin, Gamestop’s Impulse etc can be installed as well. The general idea behind this baseline hardware system is to give developers a lifecycle for their products, while allowing changes every three or four years. Its also been said that there will be no required devkit, and no licensing fees for software on the platform. With a plethora of USB peripherals, biometic feedback, and Steam’s “Big Picture mode”, the Steam Box seems rather well thought out for what could be just a rumor. With GDC being just around the corner, more news will hopefully be forthcoming on if this is fact or fiction.