DirectX is a Microsoft product/patent - so in order for Valve to use it in a console, wouldn't they have to pay license fees to Microsoft to use it? Would seem counter-productive to Valve to pay out to another company in order to use their assets.

Is not only Valve in trouble, sony and ouya is also, the OS Ubuntu its an open source, expect hacking to the greatest its ever been, just look at androids and you see what im talking about. The more open the OS the more hacking, they just gave a free pass to hackers.

I see it already another congretional hearing over security issues and credit cards stolen. Mark my word PS4 will be hack in its first 6 month in the market and expect to see corruption of data and missing-hack acounts. Like I said, I wait 2 years before jumping to ps4 cause they will have issues.

Hopefully since it's a start of a new gen open gl can squeeze it's way in. Or will ps4 use dx11?

Ideally it would just do what a PC does, but in a console form-factor.

The market isn't going to change to:

720
PS4
"Steam-Box"
PC
etc.

Based on what Gabe has been saying it just doesn't sound like he intends the Steam-Box to be anything more than an extension of the PC and a way too push Linux for gaming.

When you think of in terms of the current consoles, yea, its an incredibly stupid idea. Which is precisely why I don't think that is going to happen.

My guess it will be something small which won't directly compete with the PS4 and 720, but will find its place over time. Which is really the only thing you can do to compete against Windows as a gaming platform on PC.

The end result being PC gaming having an actual choice of OSs and a mini PC that works like a console. This is years away mind, and certainly not going to happen over night.