Valve’s retail presence involves GameStop, EB Games and Game UK

Valve partnered with these leading retailers earlier this year to launch the pre-order for the Steam Hardware devices, offering gamers the chance to receive their gear 30 days prior to launch.

Today, Valve announced that GameStop in the U.S. and Canada, as well as GAME in the United Kingdom will have dedicated Steam sections for various hardware.

With the rise of e-tail, traditional retail game sales have plummeted.

There’s plenty of Steam goodness from Valve this year, who are transitioning to the hardware side after pretty much conquering the digital part of gaming. It’s kind of ironic, Steam is an online PC game distribution service which intends to cut out the likes of GameStop, but that’s not going to stop the retailer from offering Steam hardware in the near future.

Steam Machines, the official ones at least, will be coming out later this year, along with the Steam Link and Steam Controller.

The video you’ll see below showcases the “Steam Controller” and effectively communicates what the SteamOS universe is all about.

Finally, there’s the Steam Machine. Valve didn’t say if Steam Machines would be unveiled at stores when it lifts the curtain but did peg the physical Steam Machine stores-within-a-store as launching this “fall”.

Valve and GameStop thus look to have an up-mountain extreme sports climb ahead, convincing a demographic that already skews do-it-yourself and bargain-hunter that paying the inexorable retail markup is worth it.