Head honcho at Valve, Gabe Newell, has told how PC gaming hasn’t noticeably been affected by the often quoted mamrket statistics illustrating the decline of PCs. While he observes PC makers struggling, and anticipates more such companies going to the wall, game sales via Steam are up by an impressive 76 per cent year-on-year. Newell also took time at the ongoing LinuxCon convention in the US to drop hints that the Steam Box would be revealed “next week”.
PC gaming is immune from wider market decline
Talking about the state of the PC market Valve’s Gabe Newell told Linuxcon attendees in New Orleans about the woe of the PC industry, experiencing steady declines year over year. “I think we'll see significant restructurings, or market exits, by top-five companies in the PC space. It's looking pretty grim,” he said to the crowds.
Contrasting the Valve business experience Newell showed some statistics which suggest that the PC gaming market not only seems “immune” to that PC system market downturn but is growing. “Steam is going up 76 per cent year-on-year while PCs are going through double-digit declines,” Newell informed us.
The Valve CEO also said that the future of PCs as a gaming platform is secure, mainly because of its openness encouraging innovation. “PC gaming is where innovation is occurring. It's not on the consoles, it's not on the closed systems, it's happening to the extent to which a games platform is open.” He concluded that “most interesting topics are really coming out of the PC.”
Full Steam Box ahead
It seems like an age since we last heard anything about the upcoming Steam Box, following the unveiling of the Piston at the CES in January. A few weeks after that event we learnt that the $1000 Xi3 Piston wasn’t THE official Steam Box but a Steam Box compatible machine. It was too expensive anyway.
So, are we about to now catch a glimpse at or see more details of the official Valve Piston? It seems so as Gabe Newell told LinuxCon attendees “Next week we're going to be rolling out more information about how we get there and what are the hardware opportunities we see for bringing Linux into the living room.” Who knows, it might also be released in time for Xmas. We hope to find out next week.
