Valve’s hardware experiments are focused on the living room first, cyberpunk later
Ben Gilbert, interviewing Valve's Jeri Ellsworth[1] for Engadget:
When asked what the team's immediate goals are, she obliquely states, “To make Steam games more fun to play in your living room.” That's the team's one-year goal, at least. The challenge is making games that require a mouse and keyboard palatable to people who are used to a controller, or to people who just don't want to migrate PC controls to the comfort of their living room. Working in tandem with Steam's newly beta'd “Big Picture Mode,” Ellsworth's team is creating a hardware solution to the control barriers found in many Steam games. She wouldn't give any hints as to what that solution is exactly, but she left no options off the table – from Phantom Lapboard-esque solutions to hybrid controllers.
[1] A hardware hacker perhaps best known for making the best-selling “64 Games In One” joystick that you plugged right into your TV a few years back.