Valve Software has revolutionized the world of PC video games with its Steam game distribution service around a decade ago. Since then, the company has been working hard to expand the market of PC games in general, but with moderate success. But the things should get better. Thanks to new wireless technologies the PCs will gain ability to stream video games to TVs, thus providing premium experience on big screen.

While the cloud streaming of video games is a popular idea that has yet to take off, it features a number of drawbacks, such as latency. Meanwhile, PC gamers usually have rather powerful computers that will gain ability to stream video games to TVs over time and thus provide big screen experience without significant investments into large PC displays, game consoles or home-theater personal computers with powerful graphics cards capable of running the latest games.

"The good news is that it is going to start at about $100 and eventually go down to zero. This will just become a standard feature of every television [...] the latency is basically nonexistent, so we really believe it is a very low-cost pathway [to PC games in the living room] and also a high-quality path,” said Game Newell the head of Valve, during his DICE presentation, reports CVG web-site.

Mr. Newell is a strong believer that the PC will finally enter the living rooms after years of not being able to thanks to new streaming technologies and structural changes of the market. Keeping in mind that personal computers have always been the first to introduce new types of games and new technologies, the appeal of the PC in general is quite high.

Technically, streaming video games wirelessly to TVs is not a problem. Intel Corp. has been offering proprietary wireless display technology for quite some time and industry-standard technologies, such as wireless HDMI, are around the corner. Controllers to play games on TVs will most likely become a challenge. TV-sets do not come with gamepads, mice or keyboards, hence either Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets designed for gaming should emerge or TVs will need to gain ability to interact with such devices via Bluetooth, infrared or similar wireless technologies. At present, Mr. Newell does not seem to have an answer regarding the controllers for games that will stream from PCs to TVs.

Tags: Valve Software, Steam