The Seattle region is already a nexus for the video-game console industry, as the home of both Microsoft’s Xbox division and Nintendo of America, located within a few blocks of one another in Redmond. And it sounds like we might soon be getting a third console company.
Quoting anonymous sources, The Verge reports tonight that Valve is developing a new “Steam Box” platform that would do for living room consoles what Android has done for mobile phones — creating an open environment for a variety of manufacturers to build living room devices based on Valve’s specs, with the company’s Steam distribution platform in the middle of the whole thing.
See the story by Joshua Topolsky for more details, including the possibility of controllers with swappable components, and realtime biometric feedback incorporated into gameplay.
Gabe Newell, who heads up the Bellevue-based company, recently hinted at the possibility of such a project in an interview with Penny Arcade.
“Well, if we have to sell hardware we will,” Newell said in that piece. ”We have no reason to believe we’re any good at it, it’s more we think that we need to continue to have innovation and if the only way to get these kind of projects started is by us going and developing and selling the hardware directly then that’s what we’ll do.”
Previously on GeekWire: How Valve experiments with the economics of video games.
