Steam Box: Could Valve Make a Games Console?

March 15th, 2012, 01:33 Posted By: wraggster

Digital Foundry assesses the remarkable rumours surrounding an open games platform
Valve making a games console? That can't be right, surely? The Verge's recent story suggests that the creators of Half-Life and Steam are putting together a hardware spec with "associated software" and creating an open platform that anybody can use to make their own Steam-compatible games machine, an initiative described as being akin to Android for consoles. There's even the suggestion that Alienware's recently released X51 is the first of these "Steam Box" designs, and will be firmware-upgraded to provide support for the new platform once it materialises.
"Does the notion of a Steam Box actually make any sense? How well is Valve positioned to effectively take on Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo? What form could this machine take?"

Backing up its story, the Verge links to a recent Penny Arcade interview with Gabe Newell where he says that, "If we have to sell hardware we will" suggesting that the company would work in tandem with manufacturers if necessary. That interview is well worth a read as it demonstrates that Valve is clearly well up to speed with the latest advances in hardware, and the underlying ethos at the firm is clearly against the closed platforms favoured by the traditional platform holders.
But does the notion of a Steam Box actually make any sense? How well is Valve positioned to effectively take on Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo? What form could this machine take?
There is a sense that the unit being suggested by the Verge article is an "all things to all men" design that perhaps sounds too good to be true. The spec is described as a Core i7 Intel CPU, backed up by an NVIDIA graphics core and 8GB of RAM (which some believe is a mis-understanding derived from a test machine Valve lashed up to showcase its new UI). The Verge article makes mention of a fixed platform architecture as being the key motivator behind this endeavour, but that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for an initiative based on the concept of an open gaming platform - and you have to wonder what the advantage would be for the hardware vendors actually manufacturing the device if there is only very limited potential for competition.
Perhaps more likely is that Valve is developing its own APIs that will allow PC games developers to run their wares on a range of different platforms. Already Valve has its own networking and online systems - why not expand that to include other elements such as graphics rendering, file systems and audio? These could sit on top of any current OS - be it Windows, OSX, or even a custom Linux kernel for a games console - and allow game-makers to gain pretty much instant access for their games across a range of platforms that far exceeds the PC on its own.
"Perhaps more likely is that Valve is developing its own APIs that will allow PC games developers to run their wares on a range of different platforms - which might include a console at a later date."

Moving beyond computers and into the realm of console gaming would obviously be an excellent means to expand the reach of Steam, has enormous benefit to developers, and would undoubtedly be a Good Thing for gamers too. Buy your game on Steam, play it on the Mac in the study, migrate seamlessly to the console in the living room and grab a sneaky lunchtime session or two at the PC at work, with game progress all synchronised via Steam Cloud. Valve's ethos is unashamedly platform agnostic, which should also mean that there would be cross-platform compatibility for online gaming too where appropriate - something we've already seen working in Portal 2 for example, where PC and PS3 owners can tackle co-op in the same game instance.
But is the whole concept of Valve designing an entire platform simply a step too far for the company? Can a software developer seriously take on the likes of Sony and Microsoft? Well it's safe to say that when it comes to talent at least, Valve is aremarkably well-stocked company. There's the perception among developers that the company hires the best people even if there is no clear, distinct position for them - Valve simply wants the best minds it can get. Indeed, one developer described the company to me as the place you end up "if you've been good in a previous life".
Clearly the company has a knack for attracting top-tier engineers and developers, encompassing a range of fields. For example, it's not entirely clear quite what ex-Microsoft engineer Bruce Dawson does day-to-day at Valve (optimisation and bug-fixing is all that's mentioned), but he's well known amongst developers as the man who wrote the book on extracting maximum performance from the Xbox 360's Xenon CPU. Also, as pointed out on Twitter yesterday by Sony Santa Monica's Director of Technology, Christer Ericson, "American entrepreneur and self-taught computer chip designer", Jeri Ellsworth, is also now employed by Valve, but isn't mentioned on the company website.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-games-console

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