It has been an exciting few days for people looking for new SteamOS hardware. Only yesterday did we see Valve add new logo design standards for a "powered by SteamOS" product range, and now there are hints that the company is working on new hardware. And while it's tempting to mark this as a sign that the Steam Deck 2 is on the horizon, it's more likely that the company is working on a competitor for the Nvidia Shield.

Valve may be working on a "Steam Box" powered by SteamOS

As spotted by u/coolbho3k on the Steam Deck subreddit, Valve changed the Steam Deck's kernel to support HDMI CEC. This code refers to a CPU going under the codename "AMD Lilac," which means that Valve is likely working on some new hardware. The user noted that the hardware the code is designed around shares some similarities with ChromeOS devices.

So, is this a reference to the much-fabled Steam Deck 2? Probably not. As pointed out by u/coolbho3k, some of the code doesn't make sense for a portable console:

Pure speculation: I'm guessing it's a console, set top box, or something similar that is supposed to connect to a TV and not a handheld or VR headset, given that HDMI CEC seems to be an important feature. The inclusion of ChromeOS hardware is confusing.

The original poster believes all the signs point to a device that works similarly to an Nvidia Shield where you can stream games to a small, inexpensive console that plugs into a TV. Given that Nvidia's offering added Android TV support for its Shield TV service, that would explain why Valve added some ChromeOS hardware to its own box. Either way, it's exciting times for fans of Valve's hardware; who knows what this new device could be if it even releases?