" Like the Play store, Steam could check hardware compatibility among all registered devices before even purchasing a game. They just have to be compatible with what they say they will be compatible with"
Hopefully it will be less hit and miss than minimum requirements on PC. Yes, Fall of Cybertron technically runs on a Core2duo, just not at playable framerates.
" Valve can just make a different list of hardware and minimums for a Steam box to be called version 2. That is not unlike the steps with XBox->XBox 360->XBox One, except the Steam box would have complete backwards compatibility."
XB/360/XB one are different consoles, just as PS1/2/3 are. What I'm saying is they are different Steamboxes with different cpus, gpus, RAM, which is a no-no in consoles (the only big difference between a Fat and Slim PS2 is the CPU speed, Fat is 294Mhz, Slim is 300, so technically the same speed. Yes the Slim has the network port, so does my Fat (and a HDD) but *same* performance specs. Valve should set the specs (ie: x-core y-speed cpu/z amount of ram and leave it up to manufacturers to put different capacity hard drives in them. That's the only way to succeed. If they're not all performing the same, they are *not* consoles.
" This will also give PC game makers targets to hit instead of shooting blind: make the game requirements too high and you cannot hope to be Steam box compatible."
That I agree 100%, and will help ditch DirectX, making games easier to port to OS X and Linux and (hopefully) remove the need to run Windows for gaming...