14 DAY TRIAL // Gabe Newell, the leader of Valve, says that his company sees the coming Steam machine hardware as an extension of the digital distribution service that will allow users to experience the same quality of gaming in new spaces, with more control options.
He explains in an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit that “We see Steam Machines (along with SteamOS and the Steam Controller) as a service update to Steam, porting the experience to a new room in the house. As we’ve been working on it, we’ve focused first on the customers who already love Steam and its games.”
The executive adds, “They’ve told us they’re tired of giving up all the stuff they love when they sit in the living room, so it seemed valuable to fix that.”
Newell says that he wants to have an entirely new PC gaming ecosystem centered around Steam, which will allow players to get access to their favorite titles anywhere in their home and, possibly in the near future, even outside their homes.
The Steam machines are being developed in partnership with a variety of partners, ranging from Alienware to iSupply.
Valve is only offering general guidance on their design and features and that means they can range widely in terms of offered hardware power and price.
Newell has suggested that the company is exploring new ways to bring down the costs of a Steam machine in the future, so that a wider array of gamers can afford to pick up one even if they already own a gaming PC.
Official launch dates for them have not yet been confirmed, but they should be available in stores in the fall of this year.
Alongside the new machines, gamers will also be able to get and play using an entirely new haptic feedback controller, which is specifically designed to support all PC-based genres, including strategy and role-playing titles.
All the new hardware will be integrated with the SteamOS, which Valve is positioning as a way to unify gaming on the PC and make it a strong rival to the solutions that Sony and Microsoft are offering using their own PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Just as it is expanding its reach towards the living room, the company continues to add more features to the core Steam service, including a way for gamers to use tags to identify content and more streaming options for groups of players.