14 DAY TRIAL // Valve says that streaming might be a future feature for all Steam machines, but at the moment, the hardware partners that the company is working with are more interested in running games locally, using solid hardware.
Greg Coomer, a product designer working on the new devices, tells PC Gamer that, “lower-spec boxes that are cheap, streaming-only devices” are something that his company is interested in creating.
At the same time, “The ones that have been unveiled this week really are supposed to be, and are, devices that are quite powerful to run games natively under your TV.”
The Steam machines that were unveiled at CES from a range of manufacturers are all designed to run video games locally.
Some users of the digital distribution service have argued that they do not need a new piece of hardware unless it can allow them to stream content from their current computers to the TV.