More living room PCs on the way, says Valve's Newell

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell believes that home consoles will soon be competing for your living room space with special purpose-built PCs that are set up with sofa-play in mind. He told Kotaku that the reaction to Steam's Big Picture mode has been "stronger than expected," and as a result the company is looking into how best to approach developing its own hardware that is suitable for the living room. But he senses that Valve won't be the only company trying to get in on the act, as competition to sell special PC packages for the living room will no doubt begin to appear. "I think in general that most customers and most developers are gonna find that [the PC is] a better environment for them," he noted, "because 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 gonna unify those environments." "We'll do it but we also think other people will as well," he added. "Our hardware will be a very controlled environment. 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 gonna want for their living room."