14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has officially confirmed that the first 300 Steam Machines and controllers will be shipped from its factory to the lucky beta participants tomorrow, December 13.
Valve revealed the Steam Machines initiative earlier this year and invited all Steam users worldwide to take a survey for a chance to receive a prototypes of the first Steam Machines and controllers for free.
Now, that time has finally arrived as the studio has revealed on its Steam Universe page that the first 300 computers and gamepads will be shipped to 300 beta participants on Friday, December 13.
"The 300 selected beta testers are being notified today that they’ll soon receive Steam hardware and SteamOS for testing. Each selected user is also being awarded a special badge on their Steam Community profile, indicating that they’re a beta participant. In addition, a number of games that run natively on SteamOS are being added to each selected user’s library," the studio said.
Unfortunately, due to certain regulations and restrictions, Valve was forced to select the 300 beta participants from Steam users in the U.S., not from the whole world, as was originally planned.
"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."
"This decision only affects Valve’s 300 prototype units; the commercial versions of Steam Machines that are for sale in 2014 won’t be affected by this. More information on those will be announced at CES on January 6."
Tomorrow will also mark the release of the first SteamOS operating system build for individual users and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Valve notes, however, that the system is still quite early in development so it won't offer a full-fledged experience.