It’s no secret that I’m excited about Steam Machines as a concept. And it’s even more exciting to see Chinese companies getting in on the fun. Now, we’ve finally seen the first step: China’s first domestically-made Steam Machine has been announced! Its name? Shimmer FC. (No, it’s not a football club; the FC is actually short for Family Computer.)
The Shimmer FC will run Steam OS — obviously — and won’t require more than 200w of power. In terms of hardware, it’s packing an AMD 8-core processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, a 1280 MB video card (it’s not clear exactly which model), and a 500 GB hybrid SSD/HDD.
Beyond that, details are a bit scarce. There are no photos of the hardware, no price listed, and no release date for the console on the company’s website, which claims the Shimmer FC will be “China’s first real game console.” (The folks at Huawei might have something to say about that claim, though).
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the type of thing that’s likely to take China’s gaming market by storm. In fact, the announcement barely registered on many of China’s biggest gaming sites. Any home console is going to be a tough sell in China, where gamers tend to prefer PC, and although the Shimmer FC and other Steam Machines bridge that gap, they likely still face an uphill battle for attention in a market dominated by desktop, laptop, and internet cafe gaming.
Update 27-1-2014: Removed a line about the Shimmer FC potentially being released in Q2 2014; the developer was referring to Steam OS itself.
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