Following in the footsteps of some of the industry’s most notorious cases of vaporware, Steam has plans to finally take PC gaming away from, well, the PC.

I haven’t had much experience with Steam as I prefer to breathe new life in the forgotten and dejected consoles and accessories I’m constantly on the hunt for, but it seems that the folks over at Valve want to issue a serious challenge to the rising 8th generation of console gaming.  Valve has plans to beta test it’s new SteamOS starting this year followed by a wider release sometime in 2014.  And that’s not all.  In addition to the fully-customizable and FREE SteamOS, there are also plans for pre-built “Steam Machines” allowing PC gamers to enjoy their favorite titles on their TV.

Minimum specifications for SteamOS have yet to be revealed, but Valve has stated that it will ensure “significant performance increases in graphics processing” and that issues of lag will be addressed.  Several companies are already hard at work designing and building these Steam Machines but exact details regarding their function remain secret.  SteamOS will play Linux-based games from Steam’s selection on its own and will also provide the means to stream PC and Mac titles (from a PC or Mac with the Steam Client installed)  across home networks.

And there’s more.

The Steam Machines will come with the Steam Controller, a very different animal than we’re used to seeing.  Both console and computer controllers have taken various forms over the years, but as the 6th generation closed we began to see some serious homogenization of controller shapes.  When laid side by side, you won’t notice any wild differences between between the Xbox One, PS4, and Wii U Pro Controllers.  Even the Wii U’s Gamepad mimics the general function of these devices, albeit with a giant screen in the middle.  For several years the standard has been a roughly rhomboid configuration of 4 action buttons, dual thumbsticks have gradually supplanted other solutions for moving in 3D environments, and the rarely used L and R buttons of the SNES and 3DO have evolved into the nigh-essential shoulder and trigger button pairs.

The upcoming Steam Controller promises to give us our first truly unique controller design since the Wii Remote with it’s intent to imitate the experience of playing games with a keyboard and computer mouse.  Instead of thumbsticks, the Steam Controller is equipped with recessed touch pads, and 4 action buttons surround the center, which is fitted with a generous touch screen.  It retains a pair of trigger and shoulder buttons on each side, ostensibly for the play of first-person shooters.

Steam has finally found a solution where so many other efforts have failed.  The ApeXtreme, Indrema L600, and The Phantom all promised to bring PC gaming into the living room, but it looks like this long-lived concept will finally be realized by the Steam Machine.  Will it stack up to the likes of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft?  Or will the schism between PC and console gaming remain as irreconcilable as the division of the Roman Empire?  Hopefully we’ll only have to wait as long as 2014 to find out.

Be sure to read Malefico’s take on what one of these “Steam Machines” might look like!

Written by The Cubist