Valve's Steam Machine Prototype Revealed

Following on from Valve’s three-part reveal of SteamOS and its Steam Machine/controller, the company has lifted the curtain on its first prototype; of which only 300 have been made. Don’t get too attached to what you see though, because this batch of consoles have been manufactured purely for existing Steam users who applied for a chance to be a beta tester back when Valve first announced the hardware.

Once this first batch of prototypes has been shipped to its lucky recipients, Valve will be ceasing production, instead handing over manufacturing duties to third-party companies who will presumably be producing the final retail version.

Valve have stated that these third-party consoles will be revealed at CES in 2014, stating further that numerous different versions will be made available; from low-end - and presumably budget price - machines to fully fledged supercomputers. The prototype shipped to beta testers is somewhere in the middle on this scale, containing an Intel i7 CPU and a GTX 780 GPU both of which are swapable.

Both the early prototypes and the final product come with SteamOS, which, according to engadget, looks and feels remarkably similar to the already available Big Picture Mode currently on Steam. The big difference of course is that the big picture mode lookalike is the basis for the entire system rather than just being an optional format.

With this being the case, it seems SteamOS is exactly as expected, an operating system that has been created purely for gaming. Other than simple features such as web browsing, it seems Valve’s OS is basic in what functions it provides, meaning this wont be a replacement for your PC anytime soon.

Valve have confirmed that every Steam Machine will ship with SteamOS and one of its new shiny Steam controllers, which, with its touch sensitive pads, should provide an adequate replacement for your mouse and keyboard. Judging the prototype console on its merits now would be redundant, as they aren’t representative of the final product by a long shot, but it does give us an idea of where Valve and its partners will be heading in the months to come. We can only wait for CES to roll around next year to see what the final verdict will be.