It seems Valve’s announcement that the SteamOS public beta beginning today was timed perfectly – the first videos of people unboxing their Steam Machines have started to surface online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXCbdn00pKY

The first of these videos came from youtuber Corey Nelson, he was kind enough to show us the entire packaging and contents that came with his prototype.

The Steam Machine comes in a very ominous wooden box, and is accompanied by an hdmi cable, a usb cable, a wifi receiver, the controller, a usb thumb drive with OS recovery on it, an a manual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khC927-1fRY

He also did a follow up video showing the Steam Machine booting up, and him playing Don’t Starve on it. He mentions how the controller is a bit hard to use, as it’s easy to mistakenly hit buttons.

The OS itself seems to be pretty fast and snappy, jumping into a game didn’t take long either. One thing that makes me really happy is to see the oodles of ports – lots of USB, data, display and audio ports.

The real question is how games that really push the hardware will play, and if the controller will be adequate for games that traditionally only work on mouse and keyboard set ups.

The console’s exterior has three hundred holes, one for each beta tester. The hole that is colored white correlates to your number as a beta tester. The pictures featured in this article are from a Steam Machine Beta tumblr, which you can view them here.