The first Steam Box prototypes are expected to be ready for customer testing within four months, Valve has announced.

Speaking with the BBC, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell said that his company was working with partners to “nail down how fast we can make it".

"We'll be giving out some prototypes to customers to gauge their reactions, I guess, in the next three to four months,” he said.

"There are noise issues and heat issues and being able to [deal with] that while still offering a powerful enough gaming experience is the challenge in building it."

Valve is still finalising controller designs and exploring the possibility of incorporating biometric feedback into the system, said Newell.

"If you think of a game like Left 4 Dead – which was trying to put you into a sort of horror movie – if you don't change the experience of what the player is actually feeling then it stops being a horror game," he said.

"So you need to actually be able to directly measure how aroused the player is – what their heart rate is, things like that – in order to offer them a new experience each time they play."

Newell was in London to receive an Academy Fellowship at the British Academy Games Awards.