Skip to footer

Valve to launch line of 'Steam Machines' in 2014

Valve has already unveiled a new operating system, SteamOS. Next up? An array of consoles called 'Steam Machines.' 

|
Valve
Valve will soon launch a line of video game hardware called the Steam Machines.
  • By Matthew Shaer

It's the week of high-profile Valve announcements: On Monday, we got news of a new Linux-powered operating system called SteamOS. And on Friday, we're likely to see either a new game or a new peripheral. In the meantime, we've got the Steam Machines, a line of devices that Valve says comprises a "powerful new category of living-room hardware." 

On a landing page for the Steam Machines, Valve said the consoles – the emphasis is very much on a line of devices, rather than a single machine – would launch in 2014, and would run the SteamOS.

In the meantime, consumers can sign up for a chance to be one of 300 beta testers of the devices; details are here, if you're interested (although the odds are not particularly good). 

"While these products are still in development, we need your help," Valve wrote on the Steam Machines landing page. "As always, we believe the best way to ensure that the right products are getting made is to let people try them out and then make changes as we go. We have designed a high-performance prototype that’s optimized for gaming, for the living room, and for Steam. Of course, it’s also completely upgradable and open." 

So who will actually manufacture these Steam Machines? Well, the only thing we really have to go on is the 'Steam Box' prototype teased a few months back. But over at TechCrunch, Romain Dillet has some ideas as to how the product line might shake out. 

"It could be pretty similar to the Chromebook lineup," he writes. "Customers will be presented with multiple performance tiers – it should make it easier to buy a traditional gaming computer. Hardware will be hackable and you will be able to install another operating system for example." 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Valve to launch line of 'Steam Machines' in 2014
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2013/0925/Valve-to-launch-line-of-Steam-Machines-in-2014
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe