Steam Machines Ship Friday, SteamOS Images Coming

[Jodell88]

Valve has just revealed their first 300 beta units of Steam Machines and their Steam Controllers are shipping this week, Friday the 13th. Also available at this time will be the first public SteamOS images!

Valve is shipping the first 300 units to selected beta participants living within the United States. Accepted beta participants are being announced this afternoon. Valve also shared that their Linux-based SteamOS images will be available when the prototype hardware shipps -- Friday. It will be available to download by individual users and commercial OEMs.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU0MTE

 

[WiseUp216]

Notifications start going out at 2PM PST.

SteamOS will be available for download (individuals & OEMs) when the hardware ships!

The 300 selected beta testers are being notified today (at about 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time) that they’ll soon receive Steam hardware and SteamOS for testing. Each selected user is also being awarded a special badge on their Steam Community profile, indicating that they’re a beta participant. In addition, a number of games that run natively on SteamOS are being added to each selected user’s library.

We’ve had to make the difficult decision to limit our beta to the U.S. only, because of regulatory hurdles. This was not our original plan, and it means we can’t collect beta feedback from Steam customers world-wide, which is pretty unfortunate. All things considered, we’re sure it was the right decision, because the alternative was to delay the whole beta beyond the point when we’d be able to incorporate any feedback into the 2014 products. This decision only affects Valve’s 300 prototype units; the commercial versions of Steam Machines that are for sale in 2014 won’t be affected by this. More information on those will be announced at CES on January 6.

SteamOS will be made available when the prototype hardware ships. It will be downloadable 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. Oh, and stay tuned for the in-home streaming beta to begin soon, too!

Happy holidays. And happy unboxing to our beta testers. See you on Steam.

 

[robvp]

US only, i'm out

 

[mizzou]

wonder what one of those will go for on black market ebay (pretty sure you can't sell those on ebay legally)

 

[robvp]

i'm sure there would be a clause on the NDA about not selling the hardware

 

[Dankk]

So... are they actually notifying the lucky 300 participants that they are chosen in 5 minutes?

I hope I'm one of them.

 

[cyphilis]

I didnt qualify to be a beta tester,. but hoping it all goes good. Can't wait to buy one.

 

[blastingcap]

Been waitin' a long time for this day. Thanks OP!

 

[NickelPlate]

According to the announcement those selected will be notified around 2PM pacific time. The raging going on in the Steam Universe group is just hilarious.

 

[Jodell88]

According to the announcement those selected will be notified around 2PM pacific time. The raging going on in the Steam Universe group is just hilarious.

The Steam OS images will turn any computer into a "Steam Box" so to speak.

I wonder how much the controller will be. I'm in the market for a controller with XInput support so I'm interested in what Valve has to offer.

 

[NickelPlate]

The Steam OS images will turn any computer into a "Steam Box" so to speak.

I wonder how much the controller will be. I'm in the market for a controller with XInput support so I'm interested in what Valve has to offer.

Exactly. It's just a SFF PC running SteamOS. The controller is the more interesting piece. But I'm more interested in the game streaming feature tbh.

 

[kia75]

Will the Friday release allow streaming? That's what I'm most interested in.

 

[KaOTiK]

Bummer, doesn't look like I was chosen
Even checked the spam folder and all I got was masturbation crap

EDIT:
Damn someone on my friends list got lucky and was picked!

 

[ImpulsE69]

I already sold mine on CL. I'm in da mooneyy!

 

[gorcorps]

Would be cool if SOMEBODY from AT got in so we could get some opinions

 

[futurefields]

I wonder what kind of warranty service those Steamboxes are coming with?