After this week’s earlier announcement that Valve where releasing their own operating system fans began to wonder about the long rumoured – and kind of confirmed – Steam Box. Today those rumours have been officially and properly confirmed for a 2014 release.
Dubbed as Steam Machines, these pieces of hardware will come in many flavours from multiple manufacturers. What will remain consistent throughout the range is that all boxes will be designed to run SteamOS in your living room.
In a somewhat more exciting piece of news, Valve also announced a hardware beta program, with prototype boxes going out to 300 Steam users later this year. While the specs of the prototype boxes have yet to be revealed, the eligibility requirements have been. Basically if you sign up for a Steam group, have a public Steam profile with 10 friends, and play a game in big screen mode with a gamepad then you’ll be eligible for what is essentially a prize draw.
If the hardware that comes out next year is reasonably priced then Valve and Steam may very well become competition for the otherwise console dominated couch gaming sector.
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