A variety of Valve’s Steam Machines will be unveiled in January at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Valve initially did not want to overhaul the entertainment PC business, but after some time the company felt it was necessary to enter the living room of gaming. Initially announced in a series of announcements in September, Valve revealed it was working on hardware called the Steam Machine along with a new controller. Pictures of the prototype and Valve employees were published in The Seattle Times this morning.
A variety of Steam Machines and entertainment applications for the platform will be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and go on sale by the middle of next year. In the meantime, 300 beta testers will get to try out the Steam Machine.
In the first photo, Valve employees (from left to right) Eric Hope, Anna Sweet, Greg Coomer, and D.J. Powers stand with the Steam Machine prototype. In the second photo, Hope uses Valve’s new controller. The third picture illustrates the many controller prototypes Valve built. One controller had a trackball on the underside of the controller. Controllers were built partly with tools from Valve co-founder Gabe Newell’s garage.
With the SteamOS, Valve hopes others will build their own Steam Machines. The company wants to “advance the stagnant PC hardware platform” and allow others to further innovate the platform, according to The Seattle Times.
“It isn’t until this coming year when there are going to be enough of those pieces that all work together that we can say in a credible way to all of our customers,” Coomer said, ” ‘Hey, if you’re one of the people who likes to play games in the living room, and we know there are a lot of you – now we have enough dots connected that we think you should try this.’ “
Source: Seattle Times via CVG
