Gabe Newell tells Penny Arcade that, “If there comes a time when Valve needs to manufacture and sell hardware it will do it, but they would rather leave this in the hands of those in the video game industry that know what they are doing.”

This bombshell dropped by Newell could be nothing more than posturing on how big Steam is these days. However, it could be that Newell is dipping his toe in the water in a calculated manner, so to speak, to see how the legions of Steam fans react.

The reality is it would not cost that much these days for a company the size of Valve to produce some sort of a gaming console, and it already has developed Steam which would serve as the backbone of the sales of software for the console and the social aspects necessary to connect the gamers with each other both to play games and interact. When you think about it that way, it almost seems that Valve should think about moving forward.

While Newell plays it off as if he really doesn’t have any interest in making or building hardware, we would not be so sure. With a number of off-the-shelf solutions, it could almost be done fairly quickly; and they could be very competitive right out of the gate because of the use of Steam to market the product. Maybe Newell doesn’t think that it is a good idea, but we have to admit that since it brought up the idea it is rather interesting to consider what Valve could do if they were to get in the hardware game.

Read more here in the Penny Arcade Interview.