Valve’s keeping quiet on an official Steam Box, already denying relation to one manufacturer who claimed they were working on the PC designed to unseat the console’s location in the living room, but Alienware’s general manager Frank Azor told us that if “you think about what the objectives of the steam box program are” then their own small form factor pc, the X51, fits the bill: “the X51 is a steam box.”

Speaking to us at E3, we asked Azor whether the Alienware would make Steam Boxes. “Well I get asked that question a lot, and my answer is that the X51 is a steam box,” Azor replied. “You think about what the objectives of the steam box program are, it’s to take PC gaming and put it into the living room. It’s to look at and explore not only windows but maybe other operating systems like to help reduce costs and and help preserve the openness of what the PC has had over the years.

“You look at everything that Gabe has spoken about publicly and you look at the X51 and you think ‘Wow, today that’s probably the best steam box solution that’s out there.’ It’s not branded the steam box, but there is no product that is branded the steam box right now.”

Azor went on to point out that you can even buy an X51 pre-booted with Linux, allowing you to “experiment with steam linux.”

Alienware were at E3 showing off their new lineup of laptops. The new machines are built to look like stealth bombers.