Steam OS, Steam Machines and Some Lucky Beta Testers

The long awaited SteamOS will be available to download from Friday, 13th December. The SteamOS is an operating system designed for the much hyped Steam Machine. It will also be installable on PCs. It is designed to be used by PCs being utilised as media and gaming centres, usually hooked up to TVs.

Anyone thinking of rushing out to install does need to bear in mind that it won't be plug and play. Steam themselves have warned users this first release requires a technical touch...

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.

Valve are also busy shipping out 300 Steam Machines and Steam controllers to lucky beta testers in the US. Feedback from these users will be consolidated and used to improve the machines ahead of their 2014 release.