I’m not sure I like that “exposed circuitry” design choice.
If you’re eligible to take part in Valve’s beta test of its in-house Steam Machines and controllers, keep an eye out for a potential notification today. According to a post by the company, the 300 fortunate people will be informed today at 2pm (Pacific). That’s just under three hours from when I’m writing this.
The bad news is, only people in the US will be taking part now. Valve cites “regulatory hurdles” as the reason behind this.
We’ve had to make the difficult decision to limit our beta to the U.S. only, because of regulatory hurdles. This was not our original plan, and it means we can’t collect beta feedback from Steam customers world-wide, which is pretty unfortunate. All things considered, we’re sure it was the right decision, because the alternative was to delay the whole beta beyond the point when we’d be able to incorporate any feedback into the 2014 products.
Well, you can see why they didn’t want to do that. Valve never delays anything. They do add that the commercial release of the Steam Machines won’t be affected by any of this stuff; just the beta testing.
If you do manage to make the list of 300, the Steam Machines and controllers are said to be shipping out on 13 December. So they shouldn’t take too long to reach their destinations, unless the delivery vans get trapped in the snow or something.
More details about Valve’s Steam Machines will be revealed at CES on 6 January.
