Alienware has announced that it will be releasing new iterations of its Steam Machine every year. This is in stark contrast to the five-year lifecycle of the consoles that it was thought to be aping.The Dell-owned gaming PC manufacturer’s Steam Machines will also be non-upgradeable, forcing consumers to purchase a whole new system if they want to stay within the Alienware ecosystem...
Alienware's Steam Machine Booty
Alienware general manager Frank Azor "Lifecycle wise, consoles update every five, six, seven years, we will be updating our Steam Machines every year." He continued; “There will be no customisation options – you can’t really update it. The platform will continue to evolve as the games become more resource intensive.”It’s becoming more and more difficult to understand what place Steam Machines occupy now. Now that the much-touted modular upgrades have been removed from Alienware’s version it seems to occupy a very awkward ground between home console and PC.
Without the upgrade ability and customization of a PC it’s difficult to see what currently makes this a better buy than a console, although much of this will of course come down to price. Alienware has a history of selling upper-tier products with a price to match, so this is still very much up in the air.
Alienware announced it was working on the Steam Machines back at CES 2014 but there’s been no word on what components are going to be crammed into these machines.
Do you see a niche for a non-upgradeable prebuilt PC?Does the annual release cycle suggest a plot from Alienware to hook the consumer into continual upgrades?Let me know your thoughts!
No comments:
Post a Comment