Tesla appears to be aiming to increase its library of in-car games… by integrating Steam. Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to a tweet by saying the company is “making progress with Steam integration” and that we can expect a demo “probably next month.”
Tesla already provides a variety of games through the built-in Tesla Arcade, such as Cuphead and Sonic the Hedgehog 1, but integrating Steam’s digital marketplace might provide customers with a lot more. We don’t know if the integration will go so far as to allow consumers to make Steam purchases while sitting in their cars, or if certain games will be incompatible with Teslas.
Musk has yet to fulfill pledges to introduce Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher to newer Model S and X vehicles equipped with an AMD Ryzen processor and a discrete AMD RDNA 2 GPU. However, a prospective Steam integration could indicate that Tesla is getting closer to this aim.
Musk tweeted in February that Tesla is “getting through the general case of having Steam games operate on a Tesla vs specific titles.” This suggests that Musk intends to make high-end titles available through a Steam integration rather than as individual games.
Tesla was chastised last year for changing its regulations, first allowing drivers to play games only while the vehicle was in park, and then allowing drivers to play games while the vehicle was in motion by skipping a safety confirmation. Following a protest from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Tesla reversed its decision and reinstated games while driving.
