The long-rumored Steam Box might not be a rumor for too much longer. A member of the Valve R&D team has announced that a proprietary hardware unit is set to enter external beta testing sometime in the next year, according to GameSpot. Details are scarce, other than the item is being designed to solve certain “control barriers” in Steam games, and is said to be tied with Big Picture Mode, a current beta program that allows Steam to be viewed on HDTVs.