If you're one of Valve's selected 300 users, you will be receiving a notification sometime soon that your Steam Machine beta, the company's first foray into the world of gaming console hardware, will be shipping to you on Friday Dec. 13.
"SteamOS will be made available when the prototype hardware ships. It will be downloadeable by individual users and commercial OEMs. (But unless you're an intrepid Linux hacker already, we're going to recommend that you wait until later in 2014 to try it out.) We'll post info soon about that," Valve wrote in the Steam Community blog.
While not much is known about the Steam Machine so far other than its controller and some specs, it seems more information will be coming soon as the device rolls out for real world beta testing to a small group of 300.
Earlier this year, Valve announced it was bringing its own operating system and hardware to a living room setting, just in time to get itself swept up with the hype surrounding living-room based entertainment gaming consoles. It later revealed that "Metro Last Light" would come installed on all Steam Machines, which IGN reports will only feature Steam Controllers made by Valve. Hardware partners for other types will be announced at CES 2014. The hope from the indie gaming service is to be the first to take the PC gaming experience and port it over to a living room console. It will adapt games meant for play on a keyboard and mouse to its unique controller and attempt to make integration seamless for developers.
"Each selected user is also being awarded a special badge on their Steam Community profile, indicating that they're a beta participant," said Valve's Greg Coomer "In addition, a number of games that run natively on SteamOS are being added to each selected user's library."
Tell us what you think. Are you interested in a Steam Machine or would you prefer to keep your PC games on your PC? Comment and share your thoughts with us below.
