"I Think Apple Rolls The Console Guys Really Easily"

Valve CEO Gabe Newell believes that their Steam Box living room PC will face its fiercest competition from Apple rather than the likes of Microsoft and Sony.

As reported by Polygon, Newell outlined his thoughts regarding the increasing competition for the living room gaming space during a lecture at the University Of Texas. Apparently Apple will be the most dangerous threat to the Steam Box, partly because the dedicated Linux hardware doesn't directly compete with traditional home consoles on a number of levels, but also because Apple will be storming into the lounge sooner or later... sweeping the "console guys" before them. The race is on.

"The threat right now is that Apple has gained a huge amount of market share, and has a relatively obvious pathway towards entering the living room with their platform," said Newell. "I think that there's a scenario where we see sort of a dumbing down living room platform emerging - I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there, and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room?"

"There are going to be a huge set of products that say, 'If you want something that's incredibly cheap, at a price point well below anything that consoles will be able to reach, you're going to take advantage of the PC that's running somewhere in your house.'"

"It's like one of those things where afterwards it will seem like it was very simple, when beforehand, everyone sort of denied that it was possible."

Though several third party PCs designed specifically for use with Steam Big Picture mode will release this year, we won't see Valve's official Steam Box until 2014. You can read Matt's take on the situation for more details and commentary.