This is easily the most groundbreaking news I've heard as a gamer (and from the point of view of an engineer/business geek) in the past four years or so. This w

This is easily the most groundbreaking news I've heard as a gamer (and from the point of view of an engineer/business geek) in the past four years or so. This will be a really tough blow for the windows platform since the gamer demographic drives a lot of spending. Also it points to a very deep strategic move by valve, vertically integrating the distribution channel and controlling a la Apple which and how games are experienced. I wouldn't be surprised if valve built strong partnerships with hardware providers to provide a fully vertically integrated, key-in-hand gaming platform experience. It is worth mentioning that valve also sells other types of programs through steam... and that it seems this will eventually mutate into it's application store, centralizing the money management for steamOS in general and fully capturing the platform value. A new apple but instead of "think different", the idea will be "play different"