Valve announces Steam Machines
posted:
9/25/2013 3:25:00 PM
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The second of three announcements came about this morning as Valve announced Steam Machines. These are third party computers that will take advantage of the recently announced SteamOS.
The devices are still in development, but you can try to get into the beta to test one yourself. They will be giving 300 lucky folks a chance to use and give feedback on one of these new Steam Machines, free of charge.
Registration is easy as you have to join a group, agree to the terms, have at least 10 friends, make a Steam profile, and try out one game in Big Screen mode.
The roll out should begin in early 2014. So you're probably thinking, why would I want one of these if I can just build my own, right? For some folks, it's just nicer to have a machine that's pre-built and ready to go. Yes, you can install SteamOS on a current PC and have the same functionality, but ease of setup is there when you just pick a box up. Unfortunately, to play games that aren't Linux compatible, you'll need a Windows or Mac machine to stream the game to these Steam Machines. It's a limitation that I think Valve is trying to rectify by trying to increase market share in Linux with the SteamOS. If developers see a good amount of folks with Linux or SteamOS installed, they will have more incentive to go and make a Linux compatible version game.
That's two announcements down and one more to go. Speculation for the last announcement seems to be leaning towards a controller, but we'll know in 2 days.
The devices are still in development, but you can try to get into the beta to test one yourself. They will be giving 300 lucky folks a chance to use and give feedback on one of these new Steam Machines, free of charge.
Registration is easy as you have to join a group, agree to the terms, have at least 10 friends, make a Steam profile, and try out one game in Big Screen mode.
The roll out should begin in early 2014. So you're probably thinking, why would I want one of these if I can just build my own, right? For some folks, it's just nicer to have a machine that's pre-built and ready to go. Yes, you can install SteamOS on a current PC and have the same functionality, but ease of setup is there when you just pick a box up. Unfortunately, to play games that aren't Linux compatible, you'll need a Windows or Mac machine to stream the game to these Steam Machines. It's a limitation that I think Valve is trying to rectify by trying to increase market share in Linux with the SteamOS. If developers see a good amount of folks with Linux or SteamOS installed, they will have more incentive to go and make a Linux compatible version game.
That's two announcements down and one more to go. Speculation for the last announcement seems to be leaning towards a controller, but we'll know in 2 days.
