‘Steam was broken’ without a route to the living room, says Valve’s Greg Coomer

In an interview with Polygon’s Christopher Grant, Valve product designer Greg Coomer elaborates on the rationale behind Steam’s push into the living room, first with Big Picture and now with the Steam Box. Gamers on Valve’s platform wanted to play on their television sets using gaming controllers, and weren’t able to realize the full value of a cloud delivery platform like Steam without that piece. Once there, Valve bumped up against the limitations of PC machines, from noisy fans to crufty code. Eventually that led to the current vision: a broad spec for manufacturers plus a Valve-branded, dedicated Linux box.