The DeanBeat: Does Valve know what it's doing with Steam Machines?

Valve is normally a company with many secrets. But company CEO Gabe Newell held a press conference this week at the 2014 International CES and then appeared on stage at the keynote speech of Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich — all to talk about Steam Machines, living room machines for gamers.

The announcement was impressive, but it exposed a lot of contradictions that arise when you create a new gaming platform at a time when it is very hard to break away from other ecosystems and create something from scratch.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.