Tesla is now behind schedule on its integration of Steam, the massive video marketplace and library, but it still plans on having the full video game library available in its electric vehicles as CEO Elon Musk is testing it himself.
Over the last few years, Tesla has been investing heavily into integrating video games into its in-car entertainment system, but it still surprised many when Tesla said earlier this year that it planned to go as far as integrating Valve’s Steam, an online video game store and distribution platform, in its vehicles.
Steam offers a massive library of video games, and integrating it into Tesla’s EVs would result in a massive increase in games playable inside Tesla vehicles.
In July, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla should release a demo of the Steam integration by August. However, Tesla appears behind schedule since the demo never came.
But the Steam integration is still in the plans for Tesla as Musk confirmed that he was testing it yesterday:
The CEO didn’t offer a new timeline for releasing the integration into a Tesla software update.
Tesla is going into the video game business
As we previously reported, Tesla has a team of software engineers working on video games in Seattle, and they recently started building a similar team in Austin. The automaker has been building a video game platform called Tesla Arcade inside its vehicles, and it has been working with video game studios to port games to it.
Right now, it is mainly to create some added value to its ownership experience, but Tesla might have bigger plans for gaming inside its vehicles. Musk has been indicating recently that he believes “entertainment will be critical when cars drive themselves,” which he thinks Tesla can achieve later this year.
In preparation for that, the automaker has been releasing more video games in its Tesla Arcade, and it has indicated that it might turn it into a business. We have seen indications that Tesla plans to offer paid packages of different video games inside its vehicles, which would get the company into the same business as Valve’s Steam, the PlayStation Store, and the Xbox Live store.
But it looks like Tesla is instead betting on Steam integration.
New Tesla gaming computer
With the unveiling of the new Model S and Model X, Tesla has announced a new gaming computer inside the vehicles:
Up to 10 teraflops of processing power enables in-car gaming on-par with today’s newest consoles via Tesla Arcade. Wireless controller compatibility allows gaming from any seat.
A known chip leaker, Patrick Schur, posted a diagram of Tesla’s new gaming computer powered by the AMD Navi 23 GPU:
The system is integrated and connects directly to two touchscreens inside the Model S and Model X to play games, watch entertainment, and perform some other functions.
Musk also revealed that the new computer has more storage space to be able to handle more games on the platform at the same time.
The website videocardz compared the specs with existing consoles from the latest generation – showing that it does indeed match up well based on the specs available:
Tesla is expected to leverage this new hardware to expand its in-car video gaming experience.
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