Valve considering making console?

[Rangers]

http://www.develop-online.net/news/39870/Valve-We-could-create-our-own-game-hardware

Half-Life developer ponders 'hardware as a service'

Valve may build and release its own game platforms if the hardware market fails to meet the developer’s expectations, the company’s president Gabe Newell has said.

Newell said his team is currently facing the conundrum of applying its service model – of constant incremental updates – to physical hardware.

“We’re thinking of trying to figure out how to do the equivalent of the incremental approach in software design and try to figure out how would you get something similar to that in the hardware space as well,” he told Penny Arcade.

“The sort of old method of, you know, let’s go make a giant pile of inventory and hope that some set of applications emerge to justify this giant hardware investment doesn’t seem to be very consistent with what we’ve seen to be the fastest ways to move stuff forward,” he said.

“So we’re trying to come up with an alternative to that that gives us the ability to iterate more rapidly.”

Interesting stuff, I dont expect this to actually happen. however it sounds I guess like he would like to do more of an iPad yearly iteration model?

 

[hoho]

I'd say Valve-branded PC would be the most logical outcome, not a small box with non-changeable HW.

 

[Rangers]

I'd say Valve-branded PC would be the most logical outcome, not a small box with non-changeable HW.

What's the point of that, though? One can buy a PC anywhere.

I do agree some sort of PC/console hybrid seems the most likely thought to me.

I also think they'd find it tough sledding, they certainly have a lot of rabid fanboys though.

 

[Ethatron]

“We’re thinking of trying to figure out how to do the equivalent of the incremental approach in software design and try to figure out how would you get something similar to that in the hardware space as well,” he told Penny Arcade.

He talks about the concept of an upgradable console [hardware]. They only need to make the skeleton, and the customers/market fill it up. A revival of the amiga design would be a possibility - CPU was upgradable, even though the deployed CPU was soldered in, GFX was upgradable, even though the deployed GFX was soldered in. Put a big cross-bar on a PCB, norm the bus-interface(s), and go.

Sounds interesting.

 

[hoho]

What's the point of that, though? One can buy a PC anywhere

What else can they really do? If they intend to earn money by having the device play stuff hat's available on Steam some kind of a PC is pretty much mandatory. Making it closed-box will just make things more expensive for themselves.

They could do something like a local ISP did here in Estonia a few years ago, though I haven't heard what happened to their project. Basically for an annual fee they rented you a PC + software + internet connection. It cost around twice as much as just the connection. They promised to keep the machine and it's software relatively up-do-date. Though as it was more targeted to offices it wasn't a gaming box.

They could throw in an option to rent games on Steam or have free couple of days with some games. Kinda like a premium subscription. I'm sure there would be tons of people that would like something like that.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Let's hope it's not a console.
I love Steam for everything that makes it PC-centric, and I'd hate to see Steam turn into a console with exclusive console titles that I cannot play in my desktop, laptop and future x86 Windows 8 tablet (and smartphone?).

I'd find something like an OnLive "console" quite interesting, though.

 

[BRiT]

Valve may build and release its own game platforms if the hardware market fails to meet the developer’s expectations, the company’s president Gabe Newell has said.

They're slow enough on the software side, how the hell will they remain relevant on the hardware side? Seriously, who needs Valve releasing hardware 5 years later after everyone else has moved on?

 

[TheChefO]

It'll be funny if MS and Sony try and lowball the NG spec and Valve responds with an alternate PC/Console.

That would certainly leave the door wide open for such a move by Valve and I'm sure if the NG spec is as weak as rumored, Valve will not have a problem luring customers...

What's the point of that, though? One can buy a PC anywhere.

It'd likely be a branded baseline spec for PC with nothing proprietary, but it would help establish a baseline for developers to target instead of waiting for integrated graphics to approach an appealing target.

X factor might be the lack of Windows which would bring the BOM down and release them from the influence of MS ...


If Sony and MS leave this door cracked long enough, the wolves are bound to start coming in ...

 

[HellFire_]

Those quotes of him are taken out of context by develop-online. Those quotes are not about consoles, but about wearable computing.

See the original interview he gave to pennyarcade. http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...e-computers-rewarding-players-and-whether-w/1

 

[Gubbi]

What's the point of that, though? One can buy a PC anywhere.

The point would be that Valve defines a single hardware specification developers can target. They could also base their design on a securish platform, cutting down on piracy.

They could upgrade the specification every year, new titles could target older, weaker, specs for a wider market or a new spec for higher performance. It would make minimum requirements super simple: "This game require Valve platform 2012 to run".

I like the idea, developers get a stable platform similar to consoles, and end-users can upgrade more frequently to take advantage of the fast evolving PC market.

They just provide the specs, and let white-box makers (Asus, Acer, etc) supply the hardware directly.

Cheers

 

[AzBat]

I'd find something like an OnLive "console" quite interesting, though.

That is what I was thinking. They just need a terminal device. They can put all the expensive hardware on the cloud.

Tommy McClain

 

[MfA]

What's the point of that, though? One can buy a PC anywhere.

Known good configurations would allow Valve to QA a subset of their catalogue to guarantee a console like experience.

That said, he seems to be talking about stuff like Lumus Optical.

 

[BRiT]

Known good configurations would allow Valve to QA a subset of their catalogue to guarantee a console like experience.

Not until Valve replaces all of the OS layer with their own software.

 

[MfA]

Not until Valve replaces all of the OS layer with their own software.

If it boots into a locked down windows which only runs games and maybe stuff like Chrome apps then it can still have a known good configuration.

 

[Mobius1aic]

Hell yeah another Steambox discussion!

Even with an open service model in terms of supported hardware (that is you know, a PC), with a closed system, they could optimize their own titles for a specific system configuration. Assuming AMD didn't charge an arm and a leg for it, a 1 GB Radeon 7770 would make a great GPU for a size limited Steambox coupled with one of Intel's i5 quad cores and 2 x 4 GB of DDR3.

 

[Rodéric]

I thought he meant controller more than anything.

 

[Rotmm]

He talks about the concept of an upgradable console....

The problem with Valve doing this is that you'd get the base model, then you'd get the first upgrade fairly quickly, the second promised upgrade would take much longer than originally stated and the third would launguise in development hell, Valve would release no information and it would never arrive to market.

 

[BoardBonobo]

He talks about the concept of an upgradable console [hardware]. They only need to make the skeleton, and the customers/market fill it up. A revival of the amiga design would be a possibility - CPU was upgradable, even though the deployed CPU was soldered in, GFX was upgradable, even though the deployed GFX was soldered in. Put a big cross-bar on a PCB, norm the bus-interface(s), and go.

Sounds interesting.

That would be so cool!! Especially if it was Amiga branded, it would be like the logical outcome of Jay Miners original design philosophy.

 

[NRP]

LOL @ Valve talking about "iterating quickly".

 

[TheChefO]

LOL @ Valve talking about "iterating quickly".

By that, they mean less than 7 years between hardware updates ... Hello 2005