Valve teases hardware announcement for Monday

How are they going to handle multiple users? That brings up a couple issues.

Currently they just allow a single user per account, so any achievements and such are under the one account. The PS3/360 have multiple profiles, so each user can get their own achievements - this would be a big deal with my kids. With Steam you currently need separate accounts, and separate game purchases under each account to do that.

Are they going to permit multiple logins? If the wife wants to play Bejeweled in the living room on the Steam Box, and I want to play Civ 5 on my PC, the only way you could do that under the current system is to set one to offline mode as only one can be logged in online at once. What if both of you want to play a game online at the same time?

Originally posted by Xian:

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How are they going to handle multiple users? That brings up a couple issues.

Currently they just allow a single user per account, so any achievements and such are under the one account. The PS3/360 have multiple profiles, so each user can get their own achievements - this would be a big deal with my kids. With Steam you currently need separate accounts, and separate game purchases under each account to do that.

Are they going to permit multiple logins? If the wife wants to play Bejeweled in the living room on the Steam Box, and I want to play Civ 5 on my PC, the only way you could do that under the current system is to set one to offline mode as only one can be logged in online at once. What if both of you want to play a game online at the same time?

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This likely plays into the new "Friends & Family" beta Steam just started. Everyone will have their own Steam account, but will have access to any copies friends or families have shared with them. So instead of 4 or 5 accounts each family will have 1 with multiple users. If steam keeps it open an free, and doesn't try to bilk money for every multiplayer licence this could signal a revolution in not just video games but media as a whole.