Valve is going to start making hardware!

It's what Kamisma said and what I didn't take into consideration, and you buy consoles precisely because of the OS. However, you buy a PC to install stuff onto it and to use whatever you want.

 

It's absurd to consider it a criminal offense. That said, if you DO violate the EULA/agreement, and your device (XBox, Smartphone, etc.) becomes bricked, you may find yourself with no legal recourse, and out the cost of the device.

 

Monopoly is a matter of the % of the market share you own.

Microsoft had 99% of the OS market share and 90% of the web browser market share, and was shipping both Windows and IE in the same package, with no way to uninstall IE from your computer. That's why they were cracking down on MS.
When you have >90% of a given market, that's a monopoly, and when you are tying two products you have a monopoly on, together, you're really abusing your monopoly, well at least government think that way.

Valve is not yet a 99% market share of the games' distribution, and will be nowhere near 90% of hardware market as well. So even if they did link 2 products together, no one would care. Just like apple did all their shenanigans scot-free.

 

It was more like Microsoft used one monopoly to build another, because from any rational point of view, IE 6 (the once this concerned afaik) was the crappiest browser ever. It was so bad that MS has trouble getting any enthusiasts using their browsers ever again.
The first Internet Explorers were pretty good I think, Microsoft "deserved" their market share back then.
But Internet Explorer 6 came up when the masses started to use the Internet, all the people who had no idea what they were doing and that there were any alternatives at all. Well, Microsoft did sure like it that way.
I'm not sure they ever had to remove it in the US though, I hazily remember this being an EU judgement.

 

There are so much anti-trust scandals involving Microsoft i can't tell anymore which was where and when.