It's not only that, but look at all the steps they have taken in the last 12 months:
1) Convince Nvidia and AMD to improve their Linux graphic drivers - probably by promising them additional revenue from Steambox sales - to lay the groundwork
2) Port Steam to Linux, start porting their own games
3) Build a Steam-based Linux distribution and make it available to everyone
4) Find partners that build custom hardware to run SteamOS
IMO Valve is trying to achieve two goals with this. The first goal seems to be to hedge their bets OS-wise. Gabe Newell was quite explicit in his criticism of the road MS has taken with Windows 8. Valve may very well view this as an existential threat to their business model if MS for instance takes the Apple route of promoting app store downloads over the old way of installing software. Thus, it makes sense to work towards an alternative platform that is not entirely controlled by one company. The second goal would be to introduce a new competitor in the console market by leveraging the existing Steam ecosystem and game catalogue. The beauty of this strategy is that each step adds value on its own even if the ultimate goal of establishing Steamboxes should fail
1) Convince Nvidia and AMD to improve their Linux graphic drivers - probably by promising them additional revenue from Steambox sales - to lay the groundwork 2) Port Steam to Linux, start porting their own games 3) Build a Steam-based Linux distribution and make it available to everyone 4) Find partners that build custom hardware to run SteamOS
IMO Valve is trying to achieve two goals with this. The first goal seems to be to hedge their bets OS-wise. Gabe Newell was quite explicit in his criticism of the road MS has taken with Windows 8. Valve may very well view this as an existential threat to their business model if MS for instance takes the Apple route of promoting app store downloads over the old way of installing software. Thus, it makes sense to work towards an alternative platform that is not entirely controlled by one company. The second goal would be to introduce a new competitor in the console market by leveraging the existing Steam ecosystem and game catalogue. The beauty of this strategy is that each step adds value on its own even if the ultimate goal of establishing Steamboxes should fail