I'm very interested to see where this idea goes. I do hope we hear more about it soon because I think it could easily beat all the other consoles for a large variety of reasons:
1: You know the issue that PS3's had after newer models came out and you couldn't play your old PS2 games anymore? If this console has steam, any old game you had on Steam will still, likely, be accessible without problem.
2: Valve is a PC gaming company and knows that people will probably want to be able to upgrade the hardware at any given point in time. I'm sure they'd also be smart enough to allow people to do just that.
3: The price would likely be lower than the average gaming PC, meaning that it would be a much cheaper investment than normal PC gaming. But if it is also running steam, my bet is that it would be like if PS3 was capable of using the PC-version of steam, i.e. free and constant updates to games without any of the SOE or XBL bullshit that would normally slow them down. These problems might not exist in the next generation of consoles, but rather than hope it isn't an issue (because it's probably still going to be with XBL) Valve may want to avoid it being a problem entirely, to which I say, "right on"
4: It would already have a massive library of games thanks to all the stuff Steam has on it. Not to mention that you would be able to free up a lot of space on your PC by moving the bulk of your games (if not all) off the PC and keep most of them installed on the console. Because, honestly, I'm running out of space and my PC is 4 years old now (going on 5 soon) so this would be a great alternative as opposed to getting a new PC or upgrading (because upgrading laptops doesn't seem as easy or fun).
5: Lastly, to PC gamers (me included), don't think that this will be the end. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe Valve is just trying to get both markets rather than focus on just ours? I mean, if anything, we were probably like their first test/hurdles to see if they could get people to like their products and service. Doubling profits for about three years proves people like them and they know what they're doing. They obviously won't drop support or service quality towards their PC crowd if this happens. If anything, they'll probably give us the updates first still to make sure they work before implementing them on their consoles. I could be wrong on any of these points, but whatever. I think this could be an interesting and worthwhile idea. Sign me up.
