With the delay of the Steam Machines out of 2014, there has been some speculation about the fate of the devices. We reached out to Valve to find out when we might learn more about the hardware.
Yesterday, a report emerged that the term “Steam Machine” is dead. Valve refutes that assertion, which was made by Origin PC CEO Kevin Wasielewski (a Steam Machine partner) in a conversation with GameSpot.
“We're planning a very large presence at GDC with Steam Machines being front and center,” a Valve representative told us via email. Wasielewski also suggests that the Steam Controller is “finalized,” though Valve did not comment directly in response to that part of our inquiry.
The Steam Machines were introduced in three related announcements in September 2013, including a living room console-style PC, the controller, and Steam's own operating system. The devices first went into beta in late 2013. At CES 2014, fourteen different Steam Machine partner devices were introduced.
Our Take
Given that the Steam Controller was announced as modular and customizable, I’m not sure what “finalized” would exactly mean. Regardless, I’m interested to see what Valve has in store and finally give the unconventional input device a try.