The mass amount of information surrounds topics Valve has already discussed or hinted at, but the overview of the platform makes it all the more real and close. Looking at the comments made by several journalists on the Steam Controller shows promise for Valve, the only major problem being the need to adapt.
One of the most exciting bits of information on the article was about the third party Steam Machines being built by Valve’s secret hardware partners. No official hardware partner has been named by Valve yet, but they hinted at more than one coming to CES next year in January.
Valve will also not bundle Half Life 3 and other first party games onto Steam exclusively. We may see Valve announce their next line of video games when the Steam Machines are released, but they have said the games will not be exclusive and will be available on other platforms.
This may make the Steam Machines less valuable in terms of exclusive games but Valve already has 65 million Steam users and plenty of people begging to be an early adopter of the platform, its not as if the company is desperate for buyers and needs to resort to making games exclusive.
Overall the Steam Machine looks well on its way to becoming a contender in the TV space. Valve’s co-founder Gabe Newell has often talked about Steam entering the TV space and how to get PC gamers onto the platform, this is their big move.
Challenges do face them but Valve is pushing new ideas and features to compete against the PS4, Xbox One and other possible TV/gaming projects coming in the next year, including something from Apple and Google.