Valve's Gabe Newell expects living room PCs to compete with next-gen consoles

Valve's Gabe Newell is of the opinion that PC companies will release living room friendly packages next year which will ultimately compete with next-gen consoles.

Speaking with Kotaku at the VGAs last night, Newell said Valve is looking into ways in which PCs can work better in the living room now that Steam's Big Picture mode interest has been "stronger than expected."

Newell said PC packages for the living room could be systems designed to plug into users' television sets which could ultimately run Steam out of the box.

"I think in general that most customers and most developers are gonna find that [the PC is] a better environment for them," he said. "Cause they won't have to split the world into thinking about 'why are my friends in the living room, why are my video sources in the living room different from everyone else?' So in a sense we hopefully are gonna unify those environments.

"[Valve will ] do it but we also think other people will as well. Certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment. If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that's what some people are really gonna want for their living room.

"The nice thing about a PC is a lot of different people can try out different solutions, and customers can find the ones that work best for them."

Newell said Valve is currently working on its next-gen engine, which will provide the firm with "interesting opportunities" for both PC and next-gen consoles.