Here’s one way to get Gabe Newell talking about Valve’s latest creations: Go wish him happy birthday.

That’s what a group of fans from imageboard website 4chan did last week, walking into the Valve offices in Bellevue to sing Newell happy birthday and give him a few gifts. But it was Newell giving gifts of his own in the form of Valve updates in an hour-long conversation.

A 4chan member got the entire talk recorded in the video above. One of the bigger nuggets from the conversation was Valve’s hardware beta that is floating around right now. We wrote last month of Valve’s requests for beta testers for hardware prototypes, and Newell confirmed that there are three different prototype controllers being tested at the moment.

That certainly goes along with what we’ve been hearing from Valve in the past year, with its plans to move into the console business and its ‘Big Picture’ game mode for the living room.

Newell also talks about a new Valve game engine that the company is working on, one that is entirely new and not just an updated version of Source.

“We’re probably just waiting for a game to roll out with,” he says in the video.

It’s pretty cool that Newell opens up with this group of hardcore fans. The video already had nearly 150,000 views and 1,600 likes.

Previously on GeekWire: Valve designer Greg Coomer: How getting rid of bosses makes for better games

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