That's what will ultimately happen. the home Pc,Internet,Gaming,communication and television will eventually merge into one system. That my friend will be the next evolution!

As much as you dont like it consoles arent going away anytime soon. Like I said if its done right it will be awesome. Take my case. Lets say I buy Skyrim on steam the steam box. I want to play but my wife is watching her stupid TV shows and is just starting so it will be a couple of hours before I get the chance to play. I log on to my computer and there is Skyrim! I get to play on whichever medium I prefer and with all my saves stored on the cloud I dont have to have 2 separate characters that I play on each system. That is what is appealing to me. I personally dont care about apps or shit like that on my console, if I want something like that all I have to do is flip open my laptop. Like I said if its done right it will force Microsoft and Sony to change the way they operate.

i dont understand, why make a console specificlally for games you can already play? that would be like makinga Nintendo box just so i could play Mario cart, waste of time and money, noone will buy and they will end up like sega

Not really bad guy. It gives devs a single unit of hardware to produce a game for. They know exactly what they have to work with and can program accordingly.

it will also be nice for people who don't want to dump money into a system that has no customer service. It reduces the risk of a user building something and it not working by giving them something out of a box that will run. I think it's a great idea to give PC users a base line for their games.

This would be the ONLY reason feasible for this console to exist. Unfortunately, there's still no point for a consumer to buy it. Just because it benefits the guys making the game doesn't really make it successful. It's about the same as running Wine or Parallels on a different OS.

"honestly?" just pointed out how he's a basic consumer, willing to shell out hundreds and hundreds of dollars just so he has his games saved on a cloud. If you've got money to shit on, shit on it, breh...

I won't be shitting on my $500-$600. I'll buy some more audio equipment.

I think Valve's selling point is going to be the single unified library. From what I've seen, they are planning to make this box compatible their library and ensure everything sold on Steam is playable on it.

Another thing Valve might have is a re-configurable controller, they've patented it a while ago and it'll definitely be something that can set them apart from the other consoles.

I know people that pretty much refuse to get into PC gaming. There exists a 'core' audience for consoles and Valve is smart to tap into it.

Forget everything in the thread, this is how Valve is gonna make money with the Valve box.

http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20120305

I came to this thread to post this link and you beat me to it.

The 1st two boxes sum up my philosophy on it entirely..

That's the thing though, you don't have to buy it. They are happy you are playing on Steam on your computer. You throw up a chart comparing SC2, which was a wet dream for many gamers for years before it came out to a game that comes out yearly. Those yearly games that come out for consoles like Madden and the other 50 games that people buy religiously for console are going to continue buying them. Console gaming is different than PC gaming. You aren't going to have friends over and play CS or 99% of the other PC games together without them also bringing their PCs over and it turning into a nerdfest. Right now, you can bring a disk to your friends house and 4 people can play Madden or whatever together. There is no Wii or Kinect to be an idiot and jump around like a retard with friends. Consoles are more social gaming than actual gaming. After all of that, you have the under 19 market. The kids that can't be on the PC for more than an hour and can't give that hour up for gaming because of facebook or Twitter. They don't have a credit card to buy games so they shop at GameStop with holiday money. Some parents are afraid of what their kids are doing on the computer and consoles ease their minds because they don't really know what goes on.

I love PC gaming and I'm going to stay with PC, but as much as I love it, I will always enjoy the console more for racing, fighting, and sports games. Other people will only buy CoD or Halo on a console.

I would like to know how they are going to market it to people that aren't as familiar with Steam against the new generation of consoles. Even though I'd buy it over the PS4, Xbox720, or the Wii 3000, many other people aren't because of brand familiarity and loyalty.

I don't think any new console now you have to buy a wireless card for because they come with them inside. Xbox 360 also comes with a free headset and a mic and possibly the PS3, so that was a bad argument.

The picture really had nothing to do with anything other than the fact of how many people are actually using PC's to game. That's all that was for.

The Xbox360 only includes one controller, no hdmi cable, and no wireless connectivity. That's about $160 bones alone. You can add to that cost if you choose to get a bigger HD, same with Blu-Ray and extra HD space for PS3. PS3 really has a decent business model compared to Microsoft, but again..

Another thing that really blows with consoles is split-screen. Yuck!
What makes you think that these next-gen consoles are going to be safe? You can already browse the web with PS3, the new Xbox will probably be doing the same to compete, and god knows what Valve will want to do...

Omg thank you!!!

I didn't read all of this, but I know the PS3 fully supports mouse adn keyboard and the developers are the ones locking it out.
They provide regular patches all the time.
They have a storefront that provides sales and demos.
Oh, and they already have a steam platform partially integrated (Valve hinted at full integration almost 2 years ago, nto sure what happened)

Unless you guys believe that this box would eliminate the other console platforms, then you are also wrong that this would eliminate the need for developers to account for multiple platforms.
Valve is better off going back to what they had planned, which was Steam integration into existing consoles to create a cross-platform client and charging a monthly premium for a "plus" service.

Consoles are so useless. I hate playing on them. When I bought counterstrike I stopped using my PS forever. Theres an xbox right under my desk, only use it for netflix cuz it's hooked up to the projector.

BLAMO!

That's the older version that doesn't include wireless. All the newer slim ones have it. But for $160 to play games, that's a hell of a lot better than spending upwards of $600 at the cheapest for a PC worth gaming on.

If they think they can produce a console that can compete and will be successful, I hope they make it and put it out there. I'm probably not going to get it within a year or two unless it has something crazy if I even get it at all.

Maybe this is what the Steam Box thing is going to do. Introduce cross-platform gaming. For any FPS it's going to be dumb since PC gamers are going to have a huge advantage and has been proven a few times, but the desire for it is out there. I don't see them charging anything for a service for it.

Hey, I don't mind one bit that the Xbox'ers and the PS3'ers out there wanna brawl. Gonna' get dat ass whooped but it's K.

Helped me understand what is meant by an open gaming platform:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/03/rumor-valve-potentially-working-on-a-steam-box-console-with-partners.ars

The game controller patent:
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20110105231#b

Acid, I know you didn't create the picture you posted, but I think the data used in that could have been a bit off. For example, it states NCAA 2011 as the best selling console game with just under 700,000 copies (data from July 2011 for a PS3 game). This is far off base, because MW3 outsold that by far. "Within 24 hours of going on sale, the game sold 6.5 million copies in the US and UK alone and grossed $400 million, making it the biggest entertainment launch of all time." (Wiki link w/ references) Also, "As of January 9, 2012, 66 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide." (Another Wiki link) Compare that to the number of current STEAM users today at 5.1 million. Link

Not trying to be a dick here, just trying to point out the market share that consoles have in the video game industry. STEAM has a lot of catching up to do. I know we are all partial to computer games, because we love them so much, but most of the world loves their consoles more. Simple toys for simple minded people...