Gabe Newell Denies Valve Apple Meeting

Over the past two weeks we had been reporting, and speculating, that Apple CEO Tim Cook was meeting with prolific developer Valve to discuss some sort of video game related partnership. Reports of an Apple game console suggested that the meeting might have involved incorporating Valve software like Steamworks into the project, but apparently we had it all wrong. That is, of course, if Gabe Newell is telling the truth.

According to Newell, who participated in an hour-long interview with Seven-Day Cooldown, no such meeting took place — not between Tim Cook and any member of Valve's staff. In fact, Newell was surprised that the story received so much attention, especially since, according to him, not a single person actually met with Cook.

The original report of Cook's visit to the Valve offices in Washington came from Apple Insider who seems to have a pretty firm grasp on all things pad, phone, and Mac, but apparently they were misinformed on this one. Newell does acknowledge that he would love to sit down with anyone at Apple and discuss them supporting games in a stronger capacity, but nobody met with Tim Cook recently.

"We actually, we all sent mail to each other, going, 'Who's Tim Cook meeting with? Is he meeting with you? I'm not meeting with Tim Cook.' So we're... it's one of those rumors that was stated so factually that we were actually confused."

Newell hasn't always been known to tell the truth, he once made it pretty clear he wasn't a fan of the PS3 and then appeared during Sony's E3 Press Conference, but until further notice it's best to put this rumor to bed. No Apple/Valve collaboration is happening in the near future.

Regardless of whether or not a representative from Apple has met with Valve, though, that shouldn't discount the rumors that Apple is working on a TV/game console. Evidence has been mounting that suggests the company would love to enter the market in some fashion, perhaps with a more PC-esque device than an independent console, and maybe Valve could have benefited from giving their two cents on that project.

Do you think that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Gabe Newell did have a meeting, but Newell is just being coy about it? Should Apple stay out of the video game console business?

Source: Seven-Day Cooldown (via Kotaku)