Steam OS Update

With the announcement of the Steam OS, there's been a lot of speculation (and there still is) on what exactly this new product will do. Today, on the steam group, an update was sent out with the hardware specs. These new systems that they're working could easily be built from home and are fully customizable should you feel the need to buy the bits and pieces.

For those of you not so hardware savvy who won't be changing out the entire machine as soon as they get it, here are the beta specs:

More to come on the controller later, but for now this is enough to get me as excited as a little kid on Christmas.

~ Ametis

Steam Box Announcement

Yesterday: the Steam OS and now today: the Steam Box. Rather than releasing one machine, Valve is apparently releasing multiple.

Entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all world. We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you, so we are working with multiple partners to bring a variety of Steam gaming machines to market during 2014, all of them running SteamOS.

Not only that, but before these machines are released, you could be eligible for testing one of them. Only 300 people will get this lucky chance and the way to do it is as follows:

THE HARDWARE BETA ELIGIBILITY QUEST:

Before October 25, log in to Steam and then visit your quest page to track your current status towards beta test eligibility

1. Join the Steam Universe community group

2. Agree to the Steam Hardware Beta Terms and Conditions

3. Make 10 Steam friends (if you haven't already)

4. Create a public Steam Community profile (if you haven't already)

5. Play a game using a gamepad in Big Picture mode

This will then apparently give you a badge and you'll be in the running for the beta testing of the new system.

Aside from the beta, you should expect these new systems in stores (all with different specs depending on what experience they plan to provide) in 2014.

~ Ametis