Dell Joins Steam Machine Initiative With Alienware System 110
MojoKid writes "Plenty of OEMs have lifted the veil on their planned Steam Machine products, but Dell really seems to want to break free of the pack with their Alienware-designed, small form factor machine that they unveiled at CES this week. It's surprisingly tiny, sleek and significantly smaller than the average game console, weighing only about 4 — 6 pounds fully configured. Dell had a prototype of the machine on hand that is mechanically exact, complete with IO ports and lighting accents. Dell also had a SteamOS-driven system running, though it was actually a modified Alienware system powering the action with Valve's innovative Steam Controller. In first-person shooters like Metro: Last Night that Dell was demonstrating, the left circular pad can be setup for panning and aiming in traditional AWSD fashion, while the right pad can be used for forward and back movement with triggers set up for firing and aiming down sights. You can, however, customize control bindings to your liking and share profiles and bindings with friends on the Steam network. What's notable about Dell's unveiling is that the Steam Machines initiative gained critical mass with a major OEM like Dell behind the product offering, in addition to the handful of boutique PC builders that have announced products thus far."
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we stop putting unnecessary lights on everything, it's gotten tiresome.
Re:price (Score:4, Insightful)
All this news about steam machines is great, but in the end they will compete with consoles, not with standard PCs.
Higher end of the console market + lower end of the specialist gaming PC market (which is Alienware's arena) sounds like a viable target market to me.
There's probably not enough details of these third party steam machines yet, but in principle they should be more customisable and expandable, with more up-to-date hardware than consoles. Also, (unless Dell et. al. break out the footgun and lock their boxes down), they can double as Linux PCs or dual-boot Windows if you really must.
Plus, there's the potential of a "single market" for content that covers Steam on Mac, Windows and regular Linux distros, commercial Steam Machines and home-brew SteamOs boxes.
Re:price (Score:5, Insightful)
Two of the things I love about consoles are never having to check "System Requirements" or upgrade to support a new game.
Offset by 10 of the things I hate about consoles:
1) completely locked down
2) loaded with ads
3) games that are substantially more expensive
4) charge premiums for access basic features (e.g xbox gold)
5) artificial roadblocks to indie developers
6) artificial roadblocks to mods
7) demanding I have the disc in the drive, despite installing it to the hard drive
8) locking my online purchases to single physical console
9) arbitrary limitations on what controllers are available
10) 5 years out of date hardware on launch day
So, yeah, I can live with checking the box for requirements. To each their own, but I think that's the worst reason going to choose consoles.
For what its worth, I -do- have a Wii and WiiU, and I like them. For the last several generations now, Nintendo has had the least idiotic restrictions, and its relatively unique games library, and local multiplayer options have won me over my complaints. But the last playstation I owned was the PS1, and I've yet to have any interest in an xbox.
PC gaming had a rough batch of years for a while after the collapse of the retail market for games (when eb / gamestop etc all reduced their PC offering to one tiny shelf with some overpriced obsolete PC titles in beat up boxes).
But now, between Steam, GoG, Desura, Humble bundles, and the levelling off of the pc performance curve enabling gaming rigs to go for years without needing hardware to play ... the selection of games is enormous, and the prices are stupidly low.
Add in the maturity and ease of use of voice chat, readily available game servers etc. PC Multiplayer still lags behind consoles in terms of user friendly ... but its no longer anywhere near the chore it once was to setup.
Right now we are in a new golden age of PC games!
Now just give me a good joystick Space Sim in the vein of Privateer!
Re:price (Score:5, Insightful)