While Valve says they are not working on a platform of their own, they do seem to want to promote an open platform for both the living-room and mobile space. It would now seem that Valve is developing this “open platform” to be a blueprint for manufacturers in both the living-room and mobile space.

Moving in this direction would eliminate the problems of proprietary hardware; but it is unknown if manufacturers would actually view this as a good thing or not. It seems to us that eliminating the hardware uniqueness could lead to fewer differences between manufacturers and lessen the amount of innovation on the platforms.

Valve does not see it this way, but they have yet to make a final decision of the design of the hardware or what role Valve would play in these open platform standards. Valve does continue to say that work in this area does not signal that the company is getting into the hardware business.

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