Valve has been relatively quiet with its plans on how to distribute the upcoming SteamOS. Enter CES 2014 and Valve is making headlines once again. While it was certain that a first-party "Steam Machine" was in the works, little was known about Valve's plans to expand past partnering with iBuyPower and Digital Storm. Yesterday it was unveiled that Valve has partnered with 14 third-party companies in order to make and distribute Steam Machines.

Steam Machines and Steam Controllers were shipped on Friday, December 13th to the 300 beta participants!

The 300 selected beta testers were notified by Valve midday on December 11th that they were chosen for the Steam hardware and SteamOS testing. They also received a badge on their Steam Community profile and a number of games that run natively on SteamOS.