Speaking to Engadget, Jeri Ellsworth has revealed a few vague details about the illusive hardware currently being worked on by her team at Valve’s prototyping facility. The purpose of this first piece of hardware will be to “make Steam games more fun to play in your living room.” Whatever it is, it’s being designed with Valve’s recently launched (in beta at least) Steam Big Picture mode in mind.
We should find out what it is soon enough as Ellsworth is hoping to have some sort of public beta test in the coming year. Internal testing is already under way, with several prototypes being available for Valve employees to play around with. It’s a fair bet that the hardware is some sort of controller, but it’s anyone’s guess what kind of form it will end up coming in. We’ll most likely find out more about the hardware before it enters the public beta phase, so watch this space.