Valve has no short-term plans to market the “Steam Box”

Rumours started floating around the internet last week that Valve had plans to launch a gaming console known as the Steam Box. The gaming console was rumoured to have at least an Intel i7 processor, 8 GB of RAM and a Nvidia GPU. Now those fantasising about a powerful next-generation console coming soon have had their dreams shot down.

Any rumours of consoles being built can likely be explaining by Valve preparing Steam's upcoming Big Picture Mode UI that will make it easier to use the gaming service when your PC is connected to a TV. Although Lombardi still kept the embers alight saying that the possibilty of a Steam Box is still there, it just won't happen in the next six months.

“We're prepping the Steam Big Picture Mode UI and getting ready to ship that, so we're building boxes to test that on. We're also doing a bunch of different experiments with biometric feedback and stuff like that, which we've talked about a fair amount. All of that is stuff that we're working on, but it's a long way from Valve shipping any sort of hardware,” Valve's marketing director, Doug Lombardi told Kotaku.

This open ended reply could infer that Valve will merely be building the software with others building the hardware, but Lombardi came back and said that there is no hardware coming from them or associated partners anytime soon.

Kitguru says: I guess it was too good to be true, but a console that is not entirely restricted by its architecture sounds mighty tempting.

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