Valve hints at Steambox reveal during Linuxcon talk
Valve's Gabe Newell used his Linuxcon speech to drop serious hints towards a linux-powered Steambox, which could arrive as early as next week
Valve software may be finally ready to make the jump to hardware. Company co-founder Gabe Newell used his keynote speech at the Linuxcon conference to praise the open-source operating system and promised to reveal more information on the long-awaited Steambox next week.
Describing Linux as “the future of gaming”, Newell pointed out that the Linux version of Steam, which is still technically in beta, already supports almost 200 games. Having already tested the waters with Big Picture mode earlier in the year, the company now believes that its next step will be on the hardware side.
According to Newell, “None of the proprietary closed platforms are going to be able to provide that grand unification between mobile, the living room and the desktop.
“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”.
Valve made around 30 employees working on the Steambox project redundant earlier in the year, leaving it unclear whether the project had been shelved, but these revelations suggest that development has continued in secret.
We’ll know more when the company comes clean next week. In the meantime, you can see Newell’s Linuxcon speech below.