Steam Console to be Announced Next Week

A new console is to be announced next week, this time from PC giant Steam. Rumours of a Steam Box have been prolific over the last few years and it appears there’s no smoke without fire. A countdown timer went up on the Steam website today, promising a new way of “connecting the dots” for gamers in the living room.

From the Steam website:

Last year, we shipped a software feature called Big Picture, a user-interface tailored for televisions and gamepads. This year we’ve been working on even more ways to connect the dots for customers who want Steam in the living-room. Soon, we’ll be adding you to our design process, so that you can help us shape the future of Steam.

The website shows little else outside of the picture above and the countdown. The title of the page announces that “The Steam Universe is Expanding in 2014,” hinting at a vague release date for the new console.

Whether this will be a ready-made Linux-based PC or something a little more traditionally console-like is yet to be seen, but you can bet Valve will have something exciting to show off when the time runs out over the next few days.

How this will compare to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – and if Valve mean for it to compare – will be very interesting. Can a fourth company enter the ring and make a big splash, or will the Steambox mainly be something for those that already have a Steam account? If it’s Linux-based, will there even be much reason to “upgrade” to a dedicated Big Picture machine?

Watch this space.