Im calling it, Steam Console is the "PC" gamers console. We shall see just how many exist, willing to put the money where their mouth is. I know people love Valve, but thats just the vocal internet.....what about the millions of gamers that don't care about developers and just buy what their friends play.

You bring PS3 up in almost every conversation.....

Microsoft is completely right about this.  Valve doesn't have the same kind of money as MSFT and I expect this thing to have little success.  Steam is a big hit with the PC market but I highly doubt that it will be with the console market.  Consoles need great first party exclusives.  XBOX has brought in Halo, Forza, Fable, and Gears to xbox which is popular with console gamers.  Nintendo has Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and Pokemon .  Sony has Gran turismo and Uncharted to bring gamers in. Those are thie biggest titles from  consoles that really attract gamers.  

Valve has games such as Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Dota, but all these titles are way more popular with PC gamers than console gamers.  I listed games above because they are all system sellers that has the ptential of selling near 5 million games.  Half-life may be the only real system seller for consoles and we dont even  know that.  PC gamers are not going to drop built PC's for a console experience of games they can already buy.  This is a competely different strategy than what Microsoft as used in the past.  Release first on console then later release on PC.  This is release on PC first and then release on console.  Now tell me, which will be the better experience?

I like Valve but I see this as being a niche product unless they have something in store for us that we are unaware of at the moment.

I doubt it. PC gamers are non existent compared to console gamers. considering that not every PC gamer will buy the SteamBox. So how in the blue hell can VALVe make money off of it ...........No offence to pc gamers.

Basically what I'm saying.  I game on PC and Consoles for different experiences but if I could get every experience on PC then I'd just stick with PCC.  A lot of PC gamers have this mindset so I can't see something that will be exactly the same as a PC but consolized working out.  Their is nothing that sepearates it from a PC while X360, WiiU, PS3 all have things that do seperate them from the PC market.

Only time will tell. I'll comeback 1 year from now to say congratulations or hardluck.

They have the diehards that are willing to pay for a system and their games, may not be enough to support a full fledged console but they can get it started with a good userbase. I doubt that the Steambox wouldn't be crosscompatible with Steam on the PC, and will feature more games like Portal 2 for PS3 with crossplay. Their first party lineup may be small, and nstem from user-generated content, but thats not a bad thing at all, the big test for them is to see how relevent HL3 can be in an entirely different gaming landscape.

I doubt they are figuring that they will sell upwards of 10 million consoles, but this is a way for them to extend their Steam service which is their bread and butter. They've shown they can create good console games, with Portal and Left for Dead. Their games seem to catch on with the public and even people that I know don't play videogames can understand a Portal reference. I don't expect them to do as well as the big three but its because their platform is Steam, and they are diversifying the ways people can connect to it and spend money on their storefront. They have the infrasturcture to do it and they have the programming expertise to pull it off, capital is their weakness in comparison to the big 3.

I'm not sure the support they are getting for their Linux versions of games, but Valve was heading in that direction, which I believe is because of Win8 which Gabe already critized, can't remember why i just remember reading the article. That may be their biggest hurdle.

My reaction to Microsoft,