It's been a long time courtship between Valve and the console market, but very soon the two shall meet. Earlier this year we heard first rumblings of Valve's plan for an open source, Linux-based console, and now things are hitting an important turning point.
Very soon, Valve will begin rolling out the first prototypes of its new Steam Machines to developers and industry people alike. The hope is that, after seeing the open source console and controller, developers will begin to craft experiences catered toward their machine.
In a big post detailing Valve's development of the Steam Machine, the Seattle Times provides our first look at the "console" out in the wild and in the hands of several Valve employees. This, of course, is not the final design of the Steam Machine, nor is it the only one, but provides some idea as to what type of dimensions Valve might be shooting for.
Surprisingly, the Steam Machine prototype doesn't look that much different than the Xbox One, with a mostly black finish and a solid rectangular shape. The console's guts might be extremely different from Microsoft's next-gen console, but it appears Valve wants to deliver a relatively inoffensive looking device. Click the image below for a closer look at the prototype.
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In other Valve-related news, it appears the dates for Steam's Autumn and Holiday Sale have leaked thanks to a Russian developer. The dates have yet to be confirmed by Valve, but the unnamed Russian developer does have a game on the Steam store, which further suggests the dates' legitimacy. So, gamers better start saving their cash as the Autumn Sale will allegedly run from November 27th to December 3rd and the Holiday Sale will follow shortly thereafter, from December 19th until January 2nd.
The developer in question posted an internal, and confidential, e-mail to Reddit, which features a little bit of "inside baseball" information regarding how Steam sales work, specifically with regards to discounts.
Essentially, discounts come in several forms during a sale, but are primarily regulated to the 'Duration Discount' and 'Promo Discount' categories. A duration discount is the amount a game is sold at during the, you guessed it, duration of the Steam sale, while the promo discount is the amount a game is sold at if it gets the Flash Sale, Daily Deal, or Voting Promotion treatment.
While we don't know which games will be making their way into the Autumn or Holiday Steam Sales, there have been quite a few high profile titles (BioShock Infinite, Batman: Arkham Origins, Assassin's Creed 4) released for PC over the past year. And while many gamers have to pick up the games on day 1, others are perfectly happy waiting to see how low the price might go.
What do you think of the Steam machine prototype? Which games do you hope are included in the upcoming Steam sales?
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Source: Seattle Times, Reddit
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