Christmas is coming early for 300 Steam users who were notified Wednesday that they are among the lucky chosen few to get their hands on prototype versions of the Steam Machine consoles and the Steam Controller. Valve announced that the Steam Machines and Controllers were heading out the door today and they’d be releasing an early version of SteamOS to the public.

Valve previously opened up applications to participate in the Steam Machine beta testing process to people who met a specific set of criteria. From those people who have met the criteria and entered the program, 300 US users were selected to receive the hardware. Not only are these beta testers getting the Steam Machine loaded with SteamOS and the Steam Controller, they are getting a bunch of SteamOS games unlocked for them and a special beta tester badge which will serve as a target for people to badger them with questions.

If you weren’t one of the chosen few who will get your hands on a Steam Machine, Valve does have a halfway measure to make up for it. They are releasing SteamOS to the public today. While it will be downloadable, Valve doesn’t recommend that everyone goes out and gets it. In their announcement, Valve said, “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.” I guess that means it’s not exactly in a finished and ready for home use state.

While details about the hardware and software is in short supply right now, I’d imagine that we’re going to find out more soon now that SteamOS is in the wild. Valve is promising more info in January at a CES press event. Looks like we’ll be covering CES next year.

Source: Steam