An image Tweeted by Valve employee Greg Coomer back in November is getting a lot of attention today. The image is of a small PC box with the accompanying text “Built this tiny PC. i7 quad core, 8GB ram, Zotac Z-68 mobo w/ onnboard Nvidia mobile gfx. Runs Portal 2 FAST.”

You know where this is going right?

Yesterday, Website The Verge, reported that Valve is indeed making a console named Steam Box (read more about that here), and the specs of the rumored console are incredibly similar to what Coomer was using back in November — “We’re told that the basic specs of the Steam Box include a Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GPU.”

Coincidence? Of course it could be, but as reported by Kotaku [via a tipster] Coomer is “one Valve veteran who was definitively too chatty in the past”. The tipster then sent Kotaku, well, tips, ending with “That’s just a snippet of all the information I’ve gathered about this project. However, I think these tweets pretty much confirm that Valve is actually working on a console (-like PC)..”

There’s this one Valve veteran who was definitively too chatty in the past. His name is Greg Coomer (http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/people.html), he’s a product designer and leading the SteamBox-team, which is pretty unspectacular in size with just 5-10 people working on it. Now, Greg sometimes tweets interesting stuff:

(in a non-chronological order)

Date: 22 Oct 2011
Link: https://twitter.com/#!/gregcoomer/status/127560965821693952
Tweet: “What I’m working on: http://t.co/jDLQnxvl”
Note: Read the article and especially Gabe’s statements. It’s obviously about a possible Valve console.

Date: 14 Oct 2011
Link: https://twitter.com/#!/gregcoomer/status/124651468501434371
Tweet: “Building a mini-ITX form factor PC is hard. Even things like wiring the power supply are not standard or straightforward.”
Note: Well …

Date: 3 Nov 2011
Link: https://twitter.com/#!/gregcoomer/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitter.com%2FuVdGOtZq

Tweet: “Built this tiny PC. i7 quad core, 8GB ram, Zotac Z-68 mobo w/ onnboard Nvidia mobile gfx. Runs Portal 2 FAST.”

Note: This is the demo unit they used to demo the Big-Picture-Mode to possible hardware partners at CES 2012. This specification DOES NOT necessarily reflect what’s going to be used as the “baseline” specification for the final product(s). (contrary to Joshes’ story)

That’s just a snippet of all the information I’ve gathered about this project. However, I think these tweets pretty much confirm that Valve is actually working on a console (-like PC).

You may take screenshots of the tweets – just in case they get pulled.

Valve has yet to comment on any Steam Box rumor, but we’ll let you know when and if they do.

Source: Kotaku

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