Valve Co-Founder Gabe Newell Bringing Steam to Console Video Game Box

Valve, the software company behind the popular video game series Half-Life, Team Fortress, Portal, Left 4 Dead and the game distribution platform Steam announced it would begin producing its own gaming hardware.

In an interview with Kotaku at the 2012 Video Game Awards, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell said the company was putting together a stand-alone console running Steam for use in gamers' living rooms.

"I think in general that most customers and most developers are going to find that it's a better environment for them," said Newell.

"Beause 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 going to unify those environments."

The new console looks like it will be a stripped-down PC, with hardware controls and an operating system fully-contained. While Valve has parted ways in-house with Windows, focusing on Linux porting Steam to that operating system, the new console won't be as moddable as a regular Linux box.

Well certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment," Newell said. "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 going to 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."

And customers might have plenty of options. Valve plans to release their console next year (though the company is notorious for plowing through deadline), but Newell said he expects many hardware companies will be making PCs meant to connect to a large television, and of course, gamers can build their own rigs to do the same thing.

Valve began its push into the living room with its Big Picture version of Steam, which is built to work on large screens not usually intended to be computer monitors.