Valve has no plans to bring its own Steam Machine to market, at least not yet
Valve brought 13 Steam machine models to CES 2014, but one was missing: its own. This is because Valve has no plans to release its own version of the machine, at least not yet.
Speaking during session at CES 2014 attended by RPS, Valve head Gabe Newell said the studio will make the decision whether to release its own machine "as we go along."
“We have plans to build more machines, but we also expect that users will be really happy with the range of offerings from these hardware manufacturers," he said.
“I mean, we’ve made 300 [of them], which is very tiny stuff. You know, we’ll make what we need to. We really view our role in this as enabling. So we’ll do whatever is going to be helpful to other hardware manufacturers – whether that’s with controller design or something specifically tied to boxes. It’s very much about how we can collaborate with the chip-makers and the system integrators. What’s the most useful thing for us to do? Part of the reason for holding events like this is to get feedback from them about what are the next problems they’d like us to take on.”
SteamOS and Steam Machine designer Kassidy Gerber told RPS Valve is working with manufacturers because "they know their customers and they know hardware better than us right now.”
“Right now we’re not planning to bring the prototype to market,” she said. “It doesn’t mean we never will, but right now we’re really working with third-party hardware to build their own Steam Machines. We think they know their customers and they know hardware better than us right now.
“In the first year of Steam Machines, our main audience is people telling us they want to bring their Steam library into the living room. Right now, there’s no way for people to really do that well.”
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