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@ 2012/03/05Valve is not short of competition in game development, publishing, or even providing digital distribution and DRM services of games made by various publishers, which went on to become an arm-shot for indie game developers. The next frontier for Valve backing up the potent open game distribution platform that Steam is, with a potent hardware platform, its very own gaming hardware platform.
The only difference here is that unlike Xbox, PlayStation or Wii, which are close-ended hardware platforms manufactured solely by the people behind them, that's Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, respectively, Valve's console will will be open-ended. The physical consoles will be made by various partners (just like NVIDIA GeForce is sold by various NVIDIA partners, such as EVGA, ASUS and ZOTAC). Valve will govern and mandate baseline hardware specifications, which partners have to meet, to ensure the platform delivers a consistent gaming experience to players.
The only difference here is that unlike Xbox, PlayStation or Wii, which are close-ended hardware platforms manufactured solely by the people behind them, that's Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, respectively, Valve's console will will be open-ended. The physical consoles will be made by various partners (just like NVIDIA GeForce is sold by various NVIDIA partners, such as EVGA, ASUS and ZOTAC). Valve will govern and mandate baseline hardware specifications, which partners have to meet, to ensure the platform delivers a consistent gaming experience to players.
