Sony UK boss Fergal Gara has said that Sony "can't afford to ignore" Valve's recent Steam Machine and SteamOS announcements.
Valve stole the spotlight last week with a trio of announcements related to its grand plan for bringing Steam games to the living room. The firm revealed its television-focussed operating system SteamOS and Steam Machines, alongside a new controller designed to offer innovative new input mechanics.
Valve has essentially launched a direct assault on the living room space currently dominated by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft consoles. While Gara remains confident of PlayStation's position, he does admit that Steam could pose a credible threat.
"In this market you've always got to expect some broadside disruptive technologies to come along, and it seems like a potentially good example of that," Gara told Eurogamer.
"I haven't had a chance to study it in much detail. What I would say is, I don't think anything about it is significantly rattling our confidence at this point in time and what we're doing as PlayStation. We have to keep an eye on Valve and many other competitors.
He added, "We can't afford to ignore it. Steam is arguably the pre-eminent digital download service for gaming. So we'll watch it."
Sony has confirmed a PS4 launch date of November 15 in US and November 29 in Europe and Latin America. 'Launch window' titles would typically be expected to fall in the three months following.
The platform holder has also confirmed a list of 15 PS4 launch games, promising that 33 retail games will be out by the end of December 2013.

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