Valve Announces Steam Machines, Beta Sign Up

In Part 2 of an ongoing week of Steam-related reveals, Valve has announced Steam Machines. The company is working with multiple partners to bring you a variety of gaming machines that will run on the recently-announced SteamOS, to be released in 2014.

Valve is currently requesting beta testers for their own prototype device, but numbers are limited (only 300). There are a number of steps required to become a candidate. They include joining the Steam Universe community group, agree to the Terms and Conditions, have at least 10 Steam friends, create a public Steam Community profile and play a game using a gamepad in Big Picture mode. The registration closes on October 25, so if you’re interested in beta testing a Steam Machine, act fast!

Thankfully, Valve has also provided answers to some pertinent questions. For example, Steam WILL NOT be moving to gaming machines and devices only, meaning you can still play your games on PCs of today going forward. Prototypes will ship this year, testers can share their opinions and views online, testers can also hack the device and try to customize any way they want. Additionally, they seem to have a focus on gamepads in specific, providing more details on Steam Machine usability in a future update.

This is an exciting announcement, and it’s only the second of three announcements coming this week from Valve. We’ll be sure to give you the details on the third announcement this Friday around 1PM ET.