Monday, 6 January 2014

CES 2014: Valve reveals 12 hardware partners, cheap Steam Machine unveiled

Cyberpower Steam MachineSteam MachineValve assured us that when CES 2014 rolled around, we would all receive much more information regarding the Steam Machine and its third party manufacturers. The trade show is underway, and the Steam Machine news has already begun rolling out. Valve announced its 12 current third party Steam Machine partners, and a new third-party Steam machine has been revealed.
Though the lid has not yet been completely blown off of Valve’s Steam Machine initiative, it has been barely hanging on for a while now. First, we saw iBuyPower’s take on the Steam Machine, an affordable $499 console-like box that was promised to be able to run every available game at 1080p and 60fps. The catch probably being that for the low price, iBuyPower likely meant every game available on Steam OS, which is a Linux-based platform and thus doesn’t have many powerful games to run. Following that, we saw Piixl’s Jetpack Steam Machine — a unique flat case that attaches to the back of your television and supposedly doesn’t get in the way of wall-mounting. The price of this machine starts at $1,000, and can be customized with better hardware to raise the price even higher. Finally, Valve shipped its 300 beta units and prototype controllers, showing off a powerful Machine that would cost around $1,200 to build, not counting the controller. From there, everything has been quiet on the Steam Machine front. Now that CES 2014 has begun, though, a handful of Valve’s third party partners have been revealed, as have the specs of one partner’s two Machine models.

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