Can Valve's Steam Machines Roll Over The Living Room?

Steve Anderson : End Game
Steve Anderson
The Video Store Guy
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Can Valve's Steam Machines Roll Over The Living Room?

Today was the big day for the second of three announcements from Valve, and the news today was focused distinctly on hardware. From the SteamOS that would power such hardware to the hardware itself, Valve is really opening up some exciting possibilities, and it may well have substantial implications for gaming as a whole.

Valve has, at last report, developed a new prototype for the Steam Machine line, and plans to offer up free Steam Machines for 300 Steam users who apply for the beta test, so that any issues can be winnowed out before the devices go live. Valve is already, according to the earlier announcement, working to pull in several hardware manufacturers to get several different Steam gaming systems up and on the market in 2014, backed up by the SteamOS package. The different machines will emphasize different points, at last report, with some devices focusing on lower price, while other devices focus on ambient noise levels generated and others even focus on being of the smallest size possible.

Those interest in getting in on the prototype, meanwhile, will only be able to qualify after completing what Valve is calling an “eligibility quest” that stars with joining Steam Universe, agreeing to the company's beta terms and conditions, making a total of 10 friends or more on Steam—those with 10 friends already have passed that part of the quest—and then setting up a Steam Community profile and playing a game using a gamepad and Steam's Big Picture mode. Completing these parts of the quest in question—and doing so by October 25--will allow users to be considered for the beta test.

It's an exciting concept, make no mistake on this one; as we noted previously, one of the biggest issues when it comes to computer gaming was the issues of compatibility with a current PC and then issues of ergonomics when it comes to taking said games to the living room. If Valve has found a way to essentially make a PC gaming platform the size of a set-top box that will work as handily with released games as a console will, then that's the kind of thing that may well destabilize the gaming industry as we know it. Why? Because the launch of the Steam Machine, assuming it's compatible with all current Steam releases, will come with a little over 500 launch titles as of now, anyway. By the time it hits shelves in 2014, that number may be all the higher, and that could give this platform a very solid launch indeed.

While only time will tell just what kind of impact the Steam Machine has on the gaming market—especially since, in 2014, there's likely to be quite a bit of next-gen gaming coming out for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 as well as the Wii U—it's a safe bet that it will have quite a bit of impact indeed...especially when the next Steam sale comes around.
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