it appears that the Steam Box is a thing
https://www.theverge.com/2012/12/8/3744314/gabe-newell-valve-console-living-room-steam-box
They’re clearly working on their own gaming focused Linux build for that.
Half Life 3?
With the release of big picture mode, this isn’t really that much of a surprise.
Hopefully it’s not exclusive to their system.
God, I hope not. I’ll be lucky if I can even find enough money to buy the game.
It will be osx, windblows, linux, sex box and playstation and their steam box
They might have a Linux OS that comes with the system, but it ain’t gonna be locked to that, and Half-Life 3 certainly won’t be exclusive to any platform. Valve has shown a very concrete strategy of making their software available on more and more platforms. They aren’t going to do a 180 just to try to give their new living room toy a leg up. That would just be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Gabe has stated that valves method of fighting piracy has been simultaneous release over as many platforms as possible with no regional restrictions. This would only add to that, while giving them potential profit beginning to end of the game cycle. Software development, digital distribution and end hardware. All they would need after that would be a TV business 
chances are the pc/mac/linux and steambox version of hl3 will be superior compared to sexbox and gaystation triple
I just hope that they won’ t neglect the pc gaming creating another closed system.
knowing Valve, I think it won’t happen and finally we’ll have a console that accepts mods.
I see the hardware thing+ Big picture as parts of the same project.
wink wink
Custom PC =/= Console.
That’s getting dangerously close to being a monopoly, isn’t it?
It’s only a monopoly if they’re the only company in the business. It’s like people calling Steam a monopoly or something. There’s plenty of alternatives.
“Monopoly” isn’t a term that should just be thrown around vaguely when you’re talking about market share.
According to most estimates about Valve’s revenue (1-2 billion per year), they make up about 1-2 percent of the gaming industry. Say Valve quadruples their size over the next 5 years. Still not even close to a monopoly.
Valve makes a lot of money compared to other studios of similar or bigger size but their annual net revenue doesn’t even get close to that of EA or Activision.
They have been far more committed to multi platform releases than any other game maker in history. If they pull a microshaft and try to lock down os and hardware then there will be an issue. Their move to OSX and playstation and their recent love of nerdux show otherwise
You can’t call it a monopoly if one of the 2 major publisher sells its games and alllows to play online only through Origin(even if this platform sucks badly).
Isn’t it exactly the opposite of that? Consoles are just Personal Computers customized to work specifically with games.