Valve announces ‘Steam Machine’ gaming rigs

Part two of Valve’s big announcement week has dropped.

Another day, another announcement from Valve: this time, it’s hardware. Valve have announced plans to release multiple machines optimized for gaming on Steam OS in the living room. These gaming rigs will be fully upgradable and open, right down to their very own operating system, Steam OS.

While further details on the specs are still to come, Valve have also opened up applications to test the machines. If they hit the right criteria, Steam users can sign up before October 25th to potentially be one of 300 lucky people to test out the hardware this year, free of charge. For those who aren’t quite so lucky, there’s hope yet: the testing will be completely open, meaning testers’ experiences will be allowed to be shared with the world.

While the announcement was somewhat vague, there’s a full FAQ and run-down of what to expect over the next few months at Valve’s official announcement hub. A third and final announcement from Valve is due later this week.