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Apple is launching its own home console by the end of 2012, say sources. Following news that Apple CEO Tim Cook paid a low-profile visit to Valve's offices in Bellevue, Washington, insiders with the Cult of Mac implied Cook's trip was connected to the development of an Apple-branded video game hardware that is predicted to roll out later this year.
Insiders at the site said the “Kinect-like” console will ship with Apple's upcoming television set and include an interface that will “rely heavily on motion and touch controls”. The television set itself will allegedly ship with an iTunes-integrated touchscreen remote and Siri-esque voice controls.
So why the meeting with Valve? The theory is Tim Cook and company are interested in implementing Valve's (also rumored) Steam Box for its home console invasion, be it through a licensing agreement or full-on partnership.
For now, both projects are still unconfirmed and exist primarily in the magical land of rumors and dreams. We did, however, uncover a job ad for Valve's secret machine last week in Still want Valve's Steam Box console? New job ad details make it sound really rather likely, and spent some time last month ruminating on the impact of such a device in Valve's Steam Box: Why it would change gaming as drastically as the PS1 did. But could just tank. So the more we talk about it, the more it becomes true. That is how it works, right?
