Here’s What the Steam Machine Prototype Looks Like

<p>At first glance&comma; Valve&&num;8217&semi;s prototype Steam Machine resembles Microsoft&&num;8217&semi;s Xbox One&comma; but then you get a good long look at it and realize that&comma; hey&comma; it also looks like it&&num;8217&semi;s own thing&period; Valve only announced <a title&equals;"Valve’s Second Announcement is for Steam Machines that Run SteamOS" href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;valves-second-announcement-steam-machines-run-steamos&sol;">Steam Machines<&sol;a> in September&comma; but now we have a detailed look at the system&comma; courtesy of a <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;theverge&period;com&sol;2013&sol;11&sol;4&sol;5063760&sol;we-try-the-steam-machine-valves-video-game-console-of-the-future">hands-on report from The Verge<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The machine itself is only slightly larger than the Xbox 360&comma; but manages to fit into it everything you&&num;8217&semi;d find inside a decent gaming PC&period; The parts inside all vent out of different areas of the box to prevent overheating and other nasty situations&colon; the CPU vents out of the top&comma; the power supply has the side to itself&comma; and the graphics card takes the back&period; Of course&comma; this is Valve&&num;8217&semi;s version of the Steam Machine&comma; so who knows what other manufacturers will come up with&period; Incidentally&comma; that&&num;8217&semi;s not something that we&&num;8217&semi;ll have long to wonder about&comma; as Valve&&num;8217&semi;s hardware&sol;software partners will reveal their Steam Machines early next year&period; More specifically&comma; in January during the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Meanwhile&comma; when it comes to the games on the machine&comma; not only will the Linux-based platform have quite a few&comma; but it will also have a system designed to tell you which games can run on your Steam Machine and what parts you&&num;8217&semi;ll need to play the games it currently can&&num;8217&semi;t&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;It&&num;8217&semi;s one of these places where Steam is particularly and perhaps uniquely positioned to be able to actually help customers… we&&num;8217&semi;re sitting at the nexus of these hardware specs&comma; so we can harvest data about what&&num;8217&semi;s going on&comma; and repeat it back in a digestible form to every Steam user who cares&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Greg Coomer&comma; one of Valve&&num;8217&semi;s designers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But you can &&num;8216&semi;t talk about Valve and games without bringing up <em>Half-Life 3<&sol;em>&period; No&comma; the game hasn&&num;8217&semi;t been announced or anything &lpar;you&&num;8217&semi;d know by now&rpar;&comma; but Valve isn&&num;8217&semi;t going to make it a SteamOS exclusive either&period; Said Valve&&num;8217&semi;s Doug Lombardi&comma; &&num;8220&semi;It&&num;8217&semi;s against our philosophy to put a game in jail and say it only works on Steam Machines&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Steam Machines are expected to arrive in mid-2014&comma; and they&&num;8217&semi;ll come in various sizes&comma; specs and prices&period; 300 prototype boxes will be sent out to beta testers before this year is out&comma; so we&&num;8217&semi;re sure to get some more information on the system before next year&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;