A brief but illuminating report by Engadget notes that Valve have released a little more information on retail variants of the upcoming (and now eagerly awaited) Steam Box ahead of their scheduled press conference tomorrow. Ten additional third parties have joined iBuyPower and DigitalStorm to be listed as official partners of the project, likely indicating that they will be heavily involved either in the internal components or retailer-specific variants of the PC/Console/Harbinger of the End Times.

The news will be a major fillip to GIGABYTE and ZOTAC, who will likely between them providing some combination of motherboard and GPU on many models. Depending on the final design of the Steam Box chassis this may also necessitate implementation of a high-quality blower cooler for the GPU as in the reference boxes issued to beta testers late last month.

Scan Computers, a major UK etailer, will also be pleased to bask in the reflected glory of Valve's innovation. Their 3XS machines have in the past flirted with unconventional chassis designs and so this may feel a little like getting back to their old tricks for the guys from Bolton. The backing of a large UK etailer will also hopefully mean that there is minimal lag between US and UK releases of the Steam Box, a factor which will have caused some worry amongst enthusiasts despite it effectively being a bespoke PC.

The full list is as follows: Alienware, Falcon Northwest, iBuyPower, CyberPowerPC, Origin PC, Gigabyte, Materiel.net, Webhallen, Alternate, Next, Zotac and Scan Computers.


Source: Engadget