Meet Steam Machines - new game consoles from Valve

As expected, the second announcement this week was the gaming console. After SteamOS it was not difficult to guess. True Valve and this time managed to take the original and decided to distribute the console for free. You will not get bored with them.

Generally speaking, Steam Machines are not consoles, but their drawings. From the previous words of Gabe Newell it is known that the steam cars will be divided into three categories: “good”, “better” and “coolest”. Different versions of the system will be optimized for different parameters: small size, affordable price, low noise, etc. Cars from the first category will cost about one hundred dollars as OUYA and are designed for playing casual games or broadcasting games from more powerful computers.
')
The device from the second category is closer to the present SteamBox, it will be produced by Valve itself, it will cost about three hundred dollars like other "big" consoles. In the meantime, his prototype is distributed free of charge to Steam users for beta-testing. In total this year will distribute three hundred devices. To get to the betatest and get the coveted console you need to go through the quest:

Until October 25, go to Steam and visit the quest page to check the status of your quest to participate in the beta test.
1. Join the Steam Universe community group
2. Accept the Steam Device Beta Test Agreement
3. Add 10 friends to Steam (if you don’t have them yet)
4. Create a public profile in the Steam community (if you have not already created it)
5. Play any game with the controller in Big Picture mode.

Wishes and feedback during the beta test is recommended to leave on Steam Universe , so if you are not lucky to be among the lucky ones with free consoles, you can read all the details there.

Consoles from the third category will be given to production to everyone, configurations superior to the second category will fall into it, in fact, this will be the usual fancy PC. At the moment, Valve has already agreed with a couple of dozen manufacturers of iron, so that soon you can expect Steam Machines for sale.

Technical specifications of the devices are not yet known, but will be published in the near future. At the beginning of last year, Valve focused on the Core i7 processor, 8 gigabytes of memory and graphics from NVIDIA, as we see they decided to slightly change a number of models, but the characteristics of the second category are unlikely to be very different from Sony and Microsoft consoles. There are no photos of the devices either, maybe they will look like a prototype on the left, walking on the Internet at the beginning of this year.

Inside Steam Machines will be installed SteamOS, but no one bothers to put there something else. Valve remained true to itself and decided to extend the policy of free modifications, which is observed in their games, to new consoles and operating systems. As they say on the site, the device can be hacked, change components, install any programs, even use to create a robot. Or vice versa, you can not buy the device ready, but assemble it according to the drawings and put SteamOS there, which will be especially interesting for open source adherents, because the sources of the new operating system will soon be available.

In principle, the idea of ​​consoles in the form of technical specifications makes sense. In some ways, even brilliant, because Steam Machines will have a wide price range and will be able to compete with all consoles at once: both small and large. Developers will know what hardware they should navigate, but users are not limited in expanding the system. The consoles have always had problems with the upgrade, and it is not known for how many years, for example, 8 gigabytes of RAM in the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 is enough. In addition, there are a lot of examples when craftsmen came up with something cool that the original developers did not foresee. The openness of the system greatly contributes to this. Maybe in the future, SteamOS will even have its own Cyanogenmod.

Let me remind you that all the appearances of the Big Picture mode for Steam began, then Steam was ported to Linux . Also a lot of noise was made this year by Piston from Xi3, which appeared after a short collaboration with Valve. In addition, company representatives have repeatedly stated that they are experimenting with iron and game controllers with biometrics. Finally, on Monday, Valve rolled out SteamOS . At this point anyone will understand what is going on.

Another announcement is expected this week. What surprise was prepared in Valve? Steam Machines has a hint:

Follow the news - we still have something to say on the topic of input devices.

Here are the cunning!