When the Gabe Newell showed off a collection of restickered gaming PCs to well wishers in a washed out conference room at CES 2014, I think we should have taken the hint of the long journey ahead. Kyle Orland's Steam Machine/SteamOS review over at Ars Technica tells us what we should all have been expecting for years:
"Were this a game or Steam update, Valve could rest on its software-first laurels. It could call all of this a “beta,” offer extensive patch notes along the way, and enjoy open communication with the community until its products and users’ expectations met comfortably in the middle. But releasing physical hardware is a much larger statement of intent—something that a few uploaded bits and bytes can only do so much to remedy. Steam hardware enthusiasts should be aware that they’re about to enter a serious beta-testing period, one in which the “DLC” may be the need to purchase new models down the line."