Videogame developer Valve is best known for the Half Life series, but a job posting for an industrial designer reveals further ambitions for the company-- plans to enter the hardware market.
The job posting says "[Valve is] frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space though, so we’re jumping in... There’s a real void in the marketplace, and opportunities to create compelling user experiences are being overlooked."
What exactly is the company planning? At the August 2012 Casual Connect conference Valve boss Gabe Newell spoke about the future of PC input devices-- with mentions of "post-touch" wearable computing and weird experiments involving tongue-based input.
Then again, at the same event Newell spoke harshly about Windows 8, describing the OS update as nothing less than "kind of a disaster" causing "catastrophy" for PC OEMs. Apart from games, Valve also runs the successful multi-platform online software marketplace Steam. Maybe the company wants to make a console? Newell did express interest in moving PC software development and distribution from Windows to Linux.
If not a full blown console the company can easily make a Valve-branded mini-PC in partnership with a hardware maker, one running on Linux and a modified version of Steam...
As an ex-Microsoft employee, Newell surely knows how a software company can successfully enter the hardware arena. A Valve console might mean good news for hardware sellers... if less so for those who sell software.