The Steam Box has been picking up a lot of steam lately, no pun intended, and it looks like Valve will start to distribute prototypes to “customers” within the next coming months. Gabe Newell discussed the announcement during an interview with BBC, and he didn’t specify what “customers” actually meant. It will most likely be handed out to certain developers, and not the general public. Valve will also be distributing prototype controllers along with the box itself, and they will be looking for developer feedback. There have been reports regarding some type of player feedback that will be implemented with the hardware, but details have been scarce.
Valve Founder Gabe Newell told BBC the following, ”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. We’ll be giving out some prototypes to customers to get their reactions, I’d guess in the next three or four months. 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.”
Source: Joystiq
