I, like many people, love games from Valve. And I, again, like many people, love Steam, which is the best way to buy PC games. But, with the popularity of Steam, many have contemplated the idea of a console that runs Steam, which is where the name Steam Box comes from. But, will we get a Steam Box? This is my answer, along with some other things that I feel about the Steam Box. This is just my opinion, so please don't take this for a fact. Enjoy!
Will the Steam Box be a real thing? I think so, although when is a better question. With the popularity of Steam, Valve would have to be idiots to not have at least thought about making the now infamous and hopefully existent Steam Box(and Valve aren't made of idiots). But, there are many other questions that have to be answered when thinking about the Steam Box, like how it will control, how much it will cost, and how it will even work.
The Steam Box would be able to easily compete with any consoles that it was up against, and it would maybe even win, so no problems there. But, how much would it cost? More than consoles would. A Steam Box would probably go anywhere from $600 to $1300. But, the difference between a Steam Box costing this much and a regular console costing this much is that the Steam Box would already have all of these amazing deals on Steam, along with the Steam Summer Sale, and daily sales on games, on top of the countless games that said buyer probably already bought on Steam on their PC right at their fingertips. The consoles(whatever they may be called) more than likely won't do things the way Steam does it with sales, and they definitely won't let you bring games you've already bought from a PC platform on their site over to console.
It's easy to assume that Valve will have the Steam Box controlled with a mouse/keyboard, but a controller isn't out of the reach of possibility. Games on Steam would just have to make a control scheme for the Valve controller if there were to be one. But, it's safe to say that the controller will be a mouse/keyboard. That way, they don't have to go through a lot of hassle to get those games on Steam ready to play on the Steam Box.
The best question, which I don't think has been asked by many, is also the one that I figured would have been asked immediately. What exclusives would the Steam Box have? Obviously Valve would have some of their games on it(hopefully something with a 3 in the title?), but what other exclusives would Valve be able to secure. Strategy games would probably be easiest, because RTS games are dominantly on PCs, and the Steam Box would still be like a gaming PC(only smaller and cheaper and shaped like a console). After that would be shooters, more due to the abundance of shooters on the market than anything else. But after that, there's no telling what there would be for exclusives.
It would probably work like a gaming PC, only it would be easier to plug into a TV and use as a gigantic computer monitor. But, on top of that, there isn't much that can be told as truth. We don't know what graphics card would be in it, how much RAM it would have, or the size of hard drive it would have. That part of this mysterious future console that is the most unknown. But, it's easy to say that it won't be disappointing, to say the least.
The last question is the best. When will it release? I would say that it will release either really closely after the next generation of consoles hits, or at the generation of consoles after next. Anything else would put the Steam Box at a disadvantage. But, that still proves that it will take a while to get what will easily be the winner of whichever generation of the console war it enters.
I hope you've enjoyed my look into everything that I could possibly think of to talk about for the much anticipated Steam Box. Tomorrow, I will write a blog on some of my favorite movies of all time, along with who I would want working on a good game for those movies. Have a nice day!