Valve: We are "a long way" from launching a game console

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Valve's marketing director has answered rumors about the company developing a "Steam Box" PC based game console, saying that Valve is "a long way from ... shipping any sort of hardware."

Last weekend, rumors hit the Internet that Valve was talking with hardware makers on creating what was termed a "Steam Box." The hardware would basically be a PC with specifications that would be able to run games such as the ones that Valve sells on its very popular Steam download service. The article also claimed that an official announcement might come during this week's GDC event or at June's E3 trade show.

Now Kotaku reports that Valve has shot down at least some of these rumors. Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi did confirm that Valve is still working on Steam's Big Picture mode, which was announced at GDC 2011 and which is designed to use Steam's user interface on big screen televisions while connected to a PC.

Lombardi said that Valve is building PCs boxes to test the Big Picture mode along with working on biometric experiments. However, he added, "All of that is stuff that we're working on, but it's a long way from Valve shipping any sort of hardware."

While Lombardi said that Valve would not be making any hardware announcements at GDC this week or at E3 in June, he stopped short of saying that Valve would never release a hardware product.

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