Ahead of the BAFTA awards, in an interview with BBC Gabe Newell confirmed that prototypes of their upcoming Steam Box will start getting circulated to testers in the next three to four months. He also mentioned that the team is striving to deliver a powerful console while still keeping noise and heat at bay.
“We’re working with partners trying to nail down how fast we can make it. We’ll be giving out some prototypes to customers to gauge their reactions, I guess, in the next three to four months,” he said.
“There are noise issues and heat issues and being able to [deal with] that while still offering a powerful enough gaming experience is the challenge in building it.”
Gabe also hinted at the possibility of biometric sensors or something of the like to further enhance the game experience and immersion.
“If you think of a game like Left For Dead – which was trying to put you into a sort of horror movie – if you don’t change the experience of what the player is actually feeling then it stops being a horror game,” he said.“So you need to actually be able to directly measure how aroused the player is – what their heart rate is, things like that – in order to offer them a new experience each time they play.”
The Steam Box is still shrouded in mystery, and knowing Valve we probably won’t hear much about it till it’s nearing the final stages of development.