Rumor: Valve developing ‘Steam Box’ console

A potential bombshell could be coming from the direction of Valve HQ, followingreports last monththat the company would consider its own hardware.

The PC developer and digital distribution giant is actually well beyond that point The Vergewagers. According to their sources, the company has been working on a hardware spec and applicable software which would make up the major components of the ‘Steam Box.’

The console would be a set-top box that can run PC games and use Steam or even competing services. It would also take advantage of Steam’s thus far unreleased‘Big Picture’ mode, which allowsPCs and Macs to be displayed on any TV or computer monitor in your home.

Game developers wouldn’t have to pay for a licensing fee to Valve for the privilege to make games for the console—unlike Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft’s stance of charging game creators to make games on their platforms.

Additionally it’s rumored the console would support configurable game controllers as well as a bracelet or some other sensor that would incorporate a player’s biometric data to affect games in a major way.

Supposedly meetings were held during CES to demo a hand-built version of the device to potential partners, with basic specs reportedly including a Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GPU.

Valve has yet to confirm any of the report, so for now we have to accept it as rumor until Valve chooses to provide comment.