As has been talked about for quite awhile, Valve made their second big announcement of the week by unveiling the Steam Box, kind of. It was expected that Valve would announce a standalone Steam powered system, but they have chosen to go another route.
Instead of the standalone device approach, Valve has decided to work with several manufacturers to make a series of Steam machines. Valve showed off prototypes that they created themselves. At this time, 300 of these prototypes will be made and sent to beta testers. They will then move to the next step at that point.
Valve says that they will be “an array of specifications, price, and performance” when it comes to the eventual Steam Boxes. This allows for different tiers so the gamer can choose what would be the best fit for them. The hardware built in will also be hackable to allow for you to change operating systems from the installed Linux OS.
The goal is to launch multiple Steam machines in 2014.
