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Do you think Valve would do well in the console industry?

How do you feel Valve would do, in the console industry?


  • Total voters
    107

Ozzie666

Member
I keep thinking they might have another go with a steambox again, they may have learned from their previous failure. More mature steam OS with better windows layer, refine that controller.
If they really went for it, sold the box at a loss and used steam sales to support it, maybe increased their software output a little. Valve is a sleeping giant.
But seems like too much work for Valve and the easy money they get.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Success is always relative I guess, but assuming you mean success anywhere close to the big three that’s a definitive ‘no’ from me.

The Steambox came and went (do we even know sales numbers for it?), the Steam controller seemed to be a failure, the SteamDeck is selling next to nothing relative to Sony/MS/Nintendo..
 

Dr.D00p

Gold Member
They'd, or anyone else who has the resources, to do it if MS exits the console business, that would leave a nice gap in the market for someone to exploit, if done correctly.
 
giphy.webp


OP…they’re already doing wonderfully. Aside from a bumpy start, the Steam Deck is a great 1st console and I’m looking forward to their next one.

We currently have 4 competitors in the console space.
 

Midn1ght

Member
I'd be day one for a new Plug and Play Steam Box. If they do release one, I think this time they have to follow what they did with the Steam Deck, do everything themself, not allowing third party brand to release their own Steam Box and offer say 3 different version with 3 different prices (one mid range GPU with Sata SSD, another with slightly better GPU and NVME and one big boy with high end GPU and NVME). Could be 499.99, 649.99, 749.99.

Obviously they would let people upgrade on their own but not as easy as just your regular custom small factor PC, make the hardware fixed and optimal for shadder cache, etc... The OS and Proton is already there. Release a new version every 4-5 years. Done.

I would be all over this.
 
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Wildebeest

Member
Consoles are a sort of boring legacy product. They are not exciting unless you can think of some way to disrupt the model and drag them into the future.
 

Paasei

Member
A Valve console is a PC. Why would you buy a console from them? Which means regardless of the size, you are just running PC ports of whatever game, instead of being optimised for the actual hardware.
 
if they can get pc games to run on their console, develop a competent controller, and have a handful of exclusives (HL3)... yeah maybe.

cant see them committing though.
 

Crayon

Member
Steam Deck is already a console basically.

Pretty much as close as they can get. One of the first thing I realized testing out a machine dedicated to a tv with the old steamos brewmaster, was that you can make the computer into a console but you can't make pc games into console games. You are eventually going to come across some annoying snag or get distracted setting up a game that your gpu struggles with. Sporadically dipping into steam's controller config for the first 10 hours of a game with no controller support. Like most pc gamers, I obviously take that as the bad with the good, but I did realize it was more difficult than I expected to complete the console illusion.
 

ScHlAuChi

Member
Valve has terrible customer service for over a decade now!
They promised to get better in 2015, its 2023 now and nothing has changed.
There is no way they would be able to run a console and deal with a mass market.
 

dacuk

Member
Nope... They are not even able to have distribution channels in emerging regions like Latin America.
 

Ev1L AuRoN

Member
They receive Microsoft and Sony games, why they would want to compete with them?

They are the de facto option for PC gaming, they won, what they really need is keep pushing Linux gaming, so they won't be at mercy of Microsoft or Windows, and for that Steam Deck is perfect.
 
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