With the pending arrival of the Steambox from Valve, I have found myself lacking any real interest in the new technology. Perhaps it is a matter of being burned out as we have spent the better part of 2013 talking about the new consoles from Microsoft and Sony to the point where we were actually revealed when they shipped and the news could turn to actual coverage of a finished product.
That being said, I find that I have little to no interest in the Steam Box . I appreciate the ability to play my Steam games on the big screen tv in the living room and with a gamepad, but honestly it really is not that difficult to go upstairs and use one of the computers for gaming.
For those without a high-end PC I can see the merits of being able to play PC games without having the cost of a gaming PC but lets be honest, if you are a smart shopper, you can get a high end gaming system in place for $700-$1000 and do not most serious gamers already have a PC system they can game on?
If money is not an issue it comes down to features and gameplay and I honestly find myself asking what is the big deal about the system. We have gaming systems in the house so why do we need to obtain a system to play games on our televisions? I am sure some the ability to see them on a big screen TV is great but I already play my console games on a big television and honestly I have never thought I was being cheated of a gaming experience by playing a PC game on a monitor. If you have a 22 inch monitor or above and even a 17 inch monitor, it will provide a solid gaming experience as long as it is a good quality one that has a nice display.
The ability to use a gamepad is nice but I honestly prefer a mouse and keyboard to a gamepad as I find playing shooters frustrating with a gamepad and prefer to use the PC for them whenever possible.
I love Valve and what they have done for gaming and I hope the Steambox ushers in a new age of games such as the next Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, and Portal games, but I simply do not see the need to clutter up our living room with another hardware device when our PC systems will do the job just fine.
