>”The threat right now is that Apple has gained a huge amount of market share, and has a relatively obvious pathway towards entering the living room with their platform,” [Valve Software CEO Gabe] Newell said. “I think that there’s a scenario where we see sort of a dumbed down living room platform emerging — I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there, and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room?”
Valve is working on hardware devices to complement their Steam game service, which is available for the Mac. The device will run on Linux and will enable Steam gamers to play games from their TV rather than having to use a Mac or PC.
I’m really rooting for Valve and the Steam Box to be successful. The console market could stand to be disrupted and I’ve had nothing but good experiences using Steam for the PC. Apple doesn’t seem to be focusing on television gaming (yet), so I think there is room in the living room for both Valve and Apple.
I know AMD is targeting the cheap PC game box market with Athlon/Radeon chipsets, and this box is rumored to be very close to the valve box: http://xi3.com/x7a-modular-computer.php
pretty neat.
This is awfully zero sum thinking for a guy in his position.
Besides Apple having no interest in owning a market as has been made clear by their actions and direct statements, most Mac users have a laptop and many run a separate PC rig for gaming. If anything this is a great oppourtunity for steam and I am considering one myself if it turns out as good as it has looked so far.
IPads and iPhones along with the TV and airplay certainly present some very interesting oppourtunities but we are talking about an massive market. The PC gaming market is a fart in the breeze compared to size and potential of console gaming and there are opportunities for great success for companies like Valve. Now if only Mr Newell would realize that this doesn’t mean others in the market have to fail . . . .
AMD also has a competitive line of APUs (CPUs with built in graphics– way better than Intel’s offerings) that could be used in low-cost set-top boxes or consoles. They’re relatively inexpensive and could be suitable for gaming on a television
yup, that’s what I was thinking about — the integrated Trinity/Virgo APU’s : http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-A10-and-A8-Virgo-APU-Experience-and-Gaming/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-08-valves-steam-box-revealed-as-piston-and-made-by-xi3
This is classic Gabe Newell trolling. He’s ex-Microsoft and knows how to play this game better than anyone.
What he’s doing here is gathering nerd-cred by setting up Apple as a tough rival that everyone can hate, while making Steam the plucky underdog who loves OPEN (never mind the Steam DRM) and GAMERS (never mind his random tirades against the PS3 and XBox Live).
Three decades of console wars have conditioned gamers to think that console supremacy is a competition and there can only be one winner.
Valve’s biggest threat is themselves if they think me, a video game lover with plenty of disposable income, would ever spend $500 for an “entry level” console or $1k for a top of the line one (if one were to believe this – http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/18/the-promise-and-potential-pitfalls-of-valves-steam-box) Were they not around for the PS3 intro debacle????
So basically what he is saying is that Linux is afraid to be overrun by Apple and is looking for Support at Windows, which is already used on the xBox?