[freehunter]

Not really. If they came out with a PC that boots to Steam (obviously with Windows behind it) and has solid hardware with a stable configuration, I imagine they could leverage some publishers to build games that would run on that hardware. These same games would run on regular PC hardware without modification to the code just like a normal PC game. The "Steam Box" or whatever they call it would just serve as a "here's what to aim for" for developers and as a stable platform for less hardcore PC gamers.

There'd be no way they would make a traditional console, considering they have no games ready to launch a console yet have a huge library of PC-ready games. This mythical Steam Box I've described would sit between Alienware and Xbox 360.