Valve Reportedly Working On 'Steam Box' Gaming Console

An anonymous reader writes "This article at the Verge claims that Valve is currently working on a way to bring Steam to the living room with its own gaming console. Quoting: 'According to sources, the company has been working on a hardware spec and associated software which would make up the backbone of a "Steam Box." The actual devices may be made by a variety of partners, and the software would be readily available to any company that wants to get in the game. Adding fuel to that fire is a rumor that the Alienware X51 may have been designed with an early spec of the system in mind, and will be retroactively upgradable to the software. Apparently meetings were held during CES to demo a hand-built version of the device to potential partners. We're told that the basic specs of the Steam Box include a Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GPU. The devices will be able to run any standard PC titles, and will also allow for rival gaming services (like EA's Origin) to be loaded up. Part of the goal of establishing a baseline for hardware, we're told, is that it will give developers a clear lifecycle for their products, with changes possibly coming every three to four years. Additionally, there won't be a required devkit, and there will be no licensing fees to create software for the platform.'"

Comments

It better play the games I already own

[tedgyz]

I think this would be a great addition to the market, but if I can't carry over my PC catalog then it will be stillborn.

Multiple logins and players on a single account

[Xian97]

What if I want to play a game on my Steam account on the PC and the kids want to play a different game at the same time on the Steam Console? Since the majority of my gaming is done on Steam on the PC these days, we would never be able to play different games on two devices at the same time since Steam only allows a single active login.

What about multiple players on the same console? They are going to have to come up with a family setting, because if it is just a single login allowed then my kids will be complaining about who gets the achievements and such, and I am not going to buy multiple versions of the same game for each account on the console.

Let me know when the Apple TV has games

[tepples]

Right now all I have is my apple tv and TV.

Let me know when the Apple TV has games like the other iOS devices. If games aren't "worth it" to you, then you aren't the target audience. Next story.