Gabe Newell has expounded a little on what he thinks Steam’s Big Picture Mode may mean for the next generation of consoles, that the PC is going to be a much more living room friendly machine, one which manufacturers are going to start catering for.
More on this after the break.
Speaking to Kotaku, Newell said that after the better-than-expected reception for Steam Big Picture Mode had led Valve to think that PC manufacturers are going to step up and begin developing machines designed for the living room.
We saw something of what a living room PC would be with the Alienware X-51, a smaller computer with a powerful graphics card and processor that can handle games quickly if not making them look their absolute tip-top best.
Somewhat surprisingly, Newell told Kotaku that a Steam-built machine, which the company are working on developing, wouldn’t be wholly open-source and changeable, “Well certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment,” he said. “If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that’s what some people are really gonna want for their living room.
Moving the Valve computer into a halfway state between the desktop and a console.
He also said that he “think[s] in general that most customers and most developers are gonna find that [the PC is] a better environment for them.Cause they won’t have to split the world into thinking about ‘why are my friends in the living room, why are my video sources in the living room different from everyone else?’ So in a sense we hopefully are gonna unify those environments.”