If you thought the Steam Box was going to become a vapor ware dream, think again. Valve's head honcho Gabe Newell recently revealed how far along they are with the Steam Box and that they plan on consumer testing a series of prototypes within the next three or four months. It looks like the next-gen console race just got a little more interesting.
BBC News managed to get in some talk time with Gabe Newell ahead of the BAFTA awards where Mr. Newell was honored with an Academy Fellowship award.
But it wasn't about achievements in technical advancement for video game design and engineering that had the BBC's interest piqued. They were gunning for more information on the Steam Box...gamers after my own heart.
According to Newell...
"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."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."
With that time span of testing the prototypes within a few months, we can expect to see a Steam Box boxed and ready for consumption by the end of this year perhaps?
Anyway, the real hold-up is actually with the controller...yes, the controller. According to Newell, they're trying to finalize a biometrics controller that reads reactions from gamers and feeds it back to the Steam Box to create reactionary instances or events within the game based on user feedback. Yes folks, Valve is getting into the Deus Ex territory. I'm not sure if we should be afraid or happy.
For now, gamers at least know that Xi3 has a prototype nearly ready and I can't wait to see what the other prototypes look like. Something sized around the Xbox 360 Slim would be perfect on the high-end scale, while the Xi3 model would probably be perfectly suited for the smaller, lower-end price points.
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