Valve has announced that its line of Steam Machines will finally launch on November 10, 2015.

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Steam Machines are custom-configured hardware presented as alternatives to traditional consoles or more expensive gaming PCs. Valve wants to make playing PC games on TVs in living rooms around the world more accessible, and is using these powerful but fairly priced rigs to do it. Pre-orders will begin later today.

You can see the full range of Steam Machines on Steam's site, created and manufactured by some of the biggest and most well-known gaming hardware companies in the industry. These products will run Valve's proprietary SteamOS instead of Windows (also cutting down the price), which will launch with the hardware.

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There is actually one way to get a specific Steam Machine early in the U.S.: pre-ordering through GameStop will get you Alienware's Steam Machine almost a month early, on October 16. This model is one of the flagship rigs in the lineup, and starts at $479.99. You can also include a Steam Link (the wireless device that connects your TV to your home network) and a Steam Controller. Here is the Alienware product's base specs, which can be upgraded fairly significantly:

- Intel Core i3 - 4130T DC

- 4GB DDR3 RAM

- Nvidia GeForce GTX GPU w/ 2GB GDDR5

-500GB 7200RPM HDD

- 1x1 802.11 Wireless Card

A $750 version can instead get you i7 4765T QC, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB drive--not too shabby at that price.

The launch of all of this hardware is exciting, but there are some roadblocks to overcome down the line. It remains to be seen how quickly people adopt Steam Machines, and how the lack of upgradeability will affect the product as years go by. Gaming consoles manage to go roughly a decade with the same hardware, so it may not be an issue for most, but PC system requirements move much more quickly. There are Steam Machine configurations out there for just about everyone, though, so head over to the list if you're in the market for a rig.

Tags: Steam Machines Valve