With Steam Machines comes another promise: there will be a variety of machines hitting the market in 2014, all running Valve's operating system. Apparently, turning up the PC and launching Steam takes a lot of effort, hence the company's desire to simplify things even further. To make these, Valve will collaborate with many hardware manufacturers, so in the end you will have to pick the Steam Machine that best matches your needs and desires.
For the moment, Steam Machines are a complete mystery. There's not even a hint about the specs, but I assume that we won't have to wait that much to find out. On top of that, SteamOS will be available for download soon, so the ones who are not happy with Valve's offer (which is very unlikely) or who don't like waiting are free to build their own Steam box from scratch.
