Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has revealed new details about the Steam-based gaming device commonly referred to as the ‘Steam Box’.
One prototype for the Steam Box, codenamed ‘Piston’, was revealed at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from PC manufacturer Xi3. However, in an interview with The Verge, Newell has since clarified that Valve will ultimately create its own gaming hardware.
“We’ll come out with our own and we’ll sell it to consumers by ourselves,” Newell said. “That’ll be a Linux box, [and] if you want to install Windows you can. We’re not going to make it hard. This is not some locked box by any stretch of the imagination.”
While Valve will release its own system, it is also interested in having multiple Steam Boxes on the market. The company has been in talks with multiple PC manufacturers, including Xi3, to help them design their own Steam-optimized hardware.
“It’s much more like herding cats, so we try to take the pieces where we’re going to add the best value and then encourage other people to do it. So it tends to mean that a lot of people get involved. We’re not imposing a lot of restrictions on people on how they’re getting involved,” he said.
“It’s been surprisingly difficult when we say to people, ‘Don’t put an optical media drive in there’, and they put an optical media drive in there and you’re like, ‘That makes it hotter, that makes it more expensive, and it makes the box bigger. Go ahead’.”
