Steam-based Gaming Console?

[OtisGlicker]

Many of you know what I'm talking about when I say Steam. Steam is, more or less, a program owned by Valve that brings you the means of downloading digital copies of popular games, eliminating your need to get a physical copy at your local gaming store. If you get bored of that game, you can delete it and it will forever be available to you through your Steam account. It's a great idea and it's helped push PC gaming back into the mainstream.

I've read in a few places that Valve is making plans to release a console with a Steam-based console, meaning that one could sync up to their Steam accounts and possibly eliminate the use for a game store completely. They've patented plans on a gaming controller, which only seems to solidify these rumors. What are your thoughts? Seem likely? Would it be a good thing? What problems might come of it?

Also, this is my first thread so try and go easy on me

 

[Norm]

If Valve really did something like that, I would buy it. My family firmly believes that I killed our last computer with Minecraft, so this would be awesome to have, as I would be able to play Team Fortress 2 without getting my computer privileges revoked.

 

[Ventus]

It'd be a great idea, personally speaking, because it means Counter Strike Source and CZ day in and day out without the cumbersome of asking others to give me their PC (I don't have a PC of my own).

 

[Emma]

Don't mean to spoil anyone's hopes, but... if Valve did this... it wouldn't mean that everything you get on the PC version you could also get on the console version. To be able to play every single PC game that Valve has right now, the console would need to be more expensive and more powerful than any of the others out there, and more powerful than the Wii U, and more powerful than the claims of what the next-gen Xbox and PS will be. And that'd only be that way for a couple of years, after that, there'll be PC games that wouldn't play on the console without being watered-down.
The idea isn't bad. I just find it unlikely that they'd be willing to commit to the expense, or be willing to to have it powerful enough at the cost of reduced sales. It'd be a mixed bag. In the end, it wouldn't be a whole lot different from the Xbox 360 along with its Windows gaming counterpart. You'd have a set of games for console, and a set of games for PC. Older, or less demanding ones, would be on both. Or there'd be games that would be purposefully be dumbed down for the console and released as that on PC.