What's next
After a short demo, I got an opportunity to ask my burning questions about where all of this is going.
First, circle January on your calendar. That's when the other shoe will drop; Valve's hardware and software partners will reveal the actual Steam Machines that will ship to consumers, and the games that will come to the Linux platform, at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show.
There will be a number of different Steam Machine boxes on sale in 2014, and Valve expects them to arrive mid-year. Some of those boxes will be far smaller and / or cheaper than Valve's own prototype unit. "You can get far smaller, and that's what many OEMs are doing. I think it's safe to say less than a quarter of the size," the team told me.
Of course, when they get to that size, they won't be using full-size graphics cards any more. Intel's integrated graphics are a possibility there: "We're super interested in Iris Pro." When I ask whether Intel or AMD might make special chips to bring down the price of truly powerful integrated graphics, the room goes quiet for a moment. "We don't have an answer that we can give you before January," the team answers.