While it must be disappointing news for those internationally that the 300 Steam Machine beta boxes will be confined to the U.S. only, it's not all bad. Friday the 13th will bring some good fortunes to those who want to take the SteamOS software for a spin, as Valve will make it downloadable tomorrow.
Valve does caution that the SteamOS release tomorrow is meant for those who know their way around Linux, so anyone else may want to hold off until January. After all, it's not like you can't run all your Steam library from Windows.
"SteamOS will be made available when the prototype hardware ships," Valve wrote. "It will be downloadable by individual users and commercial OEMs. (But unless you’re an intrepid Linux hacker already, we’re going to recommend that you wait until later in 2014 to try it out.) We’ll post info soon about that. Oh, and stay tuned for the in-home streaming beta to begin soon, too!"
Here's a photo from the production line. We're already jealous of those lucky 300.
So far we've seen two other Steam Machines:
