First Valve hardware to go into beta next year

Valve in-house hardware hacker Jeri Ellsworth told Engadget that she hopes to hold an external beta test, tied to Steam, for the company's first hardware product next year. Internal beta tests within Valve are already ongoing.

She wasn't clear on what the device would be, but the stated goal is "to make Steam games more fun to play in your living room." The new hardware is some kind of input method to improve playability of PC games using Big Picture Mode. It could be a controller, or it could be some kind of keyboard/mouse combination.

Or it could be maracas. Maracas have proven perfect for every game we've tried them with, including Samba De Amigo, and ...