Newell: Valve sharing Steam Box prototypes within four months
Valve will give Steam Box prototypes to "customers" within the next three or four months, bossman Gabe Newell told the BBC. Newell didn't specify if these customers were developers, anyone in the gaming public or your cat, but he suggested that Valve is focused on the Steam Box's development.
"We're working with partners, trying to nail down exactly how fast we can make it. We're also working hard on the input side to try to take a step forward in terms of the kinds of games you can play," Newell said. "We'll be giving out some prototypes to customers to get their reactions, I'd guess in the next three or four months."
Valve has a few controller prototypes now and will ship those along with the Steam Box. We've long heard of Valve's love affair with biometrics, and some form of player feedback will be implemented with the hardware.
"What we've found is you can directly measure player state and it turns out to be very useful," Newell said. He continued, "You need to be able to directly measure how aroused the player is, what their heart rate is, things like that, in order to continue to offer them a new experience each time they play."
