On December 13th, Valve will ship a Beta Steam Machine to 300 lucky fans, including an upgradable chassis, a Steam Controller, and the SteamOS. The company announced that rest of us still get a consolation prize for all the dedicated fans: Valve will also make SteamOS available for everyone when the prototypes ship on December 13th.
While the company suggests that the SteamOS won’t necessarily be easy to install — “unless you’re an intrepid Linux hacker already, we’re going to recommend that you wait until later in 2014 to try it out,” says Valve — it still means that we will get a better look at just how it works and possibly see videos from the people who are these ‘hackers’ that Valve is speaking of.
If you aren’t one of the very lucky 300 people to pick up a Beta box, then you will have to wait about a month before Valve’s grand reveal at CES 2014 to see more of the Steam Machine. The company will unveil next year’s commercial Steam Machines on January 6th.