Valve boss Gabe Newell has been living in New Zealand for over a year now, and he's starting to think he might be getting bored. A few months ago, he appeared on NZ television to talk about brain interfaces that can create games that are "better" than reality. More recently, he trucked out to a high school in Auckland for a Q&A session, where he suggested that Valve could bring Steam games to consoles.

"Will Steam bring games to consoles or will they stay on PC?" a student asked during the Q&A session.

"We'll know more about that by the end of the year," Newell replied. This answer drew "oohs" and laughter from the audience, to which Newell added, "And it won't be the kind of answer you expect."

Not a very useful answer, to say the least: we could end the year with no movement at all to bring Steam games to consoles, and if that happens, as promised, we'll have a much better idea: the answer is "no." We also don't know what Newell thinks we expect. Perhaps we are leaning toward "yes." Very confusing.

What is most interesting to me is not the tease itself, but Newell's decision to divulge all this not at a large exhibition or promotional live stream, but in a high school gymnasium, especially Sancta Maria College. Specifically, Sancta Maria College! All students at the school are required to wear jackets and ties to class, but Newell showed up looking like he woke up on the beach three minutes earlier.

As for Newell's teaser, if Valve is indeed planning any moves on the console front, it could be any number of things: maybe a port of "Half-Life:Alyx" to PSVR, or "Half-Life 3" to Xbox Series X. Maybe it will be a timed exclusive. Or it could be something else entirely, such as a re-release of Orange Box.

To be fair to Newell, the original question was not very clear. It is possible that the student got Steam and Valve confused, or maybe he really just wants to know if Dota is playable on PS5. Either way, we will find out (or not) in the next 6 months or so.

According to Redditor Odysseic, who recorded Newell's appearance (and apologized for the bad audio), Newell also said that CS:GO will get a new anti-cheat update, and Team Fortress 2 will get more updates You can watch the whole thing on YouTube: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.