This week marked the start of CES 2014—the most important international consumer electronics fair in the world—in Las Vegas. One of the most anticipated conferences was the one from Valve, fathers of the Steam platform, who have finally revealed the features and the manufacturers that will market the so-called Steam Machines, which are simply computers certified by the company to be compliant with a set of technical specifications to suit gameplay with titles from Valve’s digital platform. These are the 13 Steam Machines that have been introduced.
The one and only Gabe Newell, father of the company, was the one charged with publicly unveiling the look of the new machines, 13 devices assembled by different brands such as Gigabyte, Falcom, Alienware, or Zotac, all of them varying both in appearance and internal features, not to mention prices (which range from $400 to $6,000).
Another interesting tidbit Valve revealed is that although they presented their own gamepad prototype to be used with its Steam Machines, no limits whatsoever are imposed on third-party manufacturers with regard to developing their own game controls. This flexibility extends to the rest of the features of the machines, meaning that the launch date of each will depend entirely on the manufacturer and not on Valve themselves. Nevertheless, it’s expected that most of the will go to market this 2014.
