Wait for Valve's Steam Box or Not?

[gavmac]

Anyone know if there's a point to waiting or not?

I haven't got a pc yet but have built up a few different configs on this site with help from the Guru dudes, an have managed to now narrow it down to a decent enough spec.

But, if Valve release something awesome and I've already bought one, that would be extremely annoying.

I know it's Moore's Law and all that and that I should probably just bite the bullet, but it's Valve.... VALVE, YOU HEAR!!!

Or is it just me...

 

[keynes]

It is likely to be a cheaper alternative but if you are planning to get a +£1000 rig I wouldn't wait.

 

[gavmac]

It is likely to be a cheaper alternative but if you are planning to get a +£1000 rig I wouldn't wait.

Do you not think they would do a high-end option too? That's kinda what I had my bets on..

Also, if they were putting out to developers for testing earlier this year, you think it would be shipped this year?

 

[Grimezy]

It's likely a Valve box won't be as open and adjustable as a PC is. It's more likely to be similar to a console using Steam store rather than a PC using steam store.

I would go for the PC. I don't know much about the Valve box but if it's purely locked down to using Steam-only then you're probably going to miss out on quite a bit.

 

[Wozza63]

I think its designed to get as many people into PC gaming as possible, therefore will likely be cheap, similar to consoles. Although I imagine it would be a bit more expensive and may have possibilities of upgrades. But due to the size of the box it is supposed to be in, you won't be putting any GTX 780's in there.

The box also runs on Linux, which, has a reasonable collection of new games, but still has only a fraction of the games available on steam. If you go on the Steam site there is a Linux section where you can see everything available on the Operating System. Of course if the new system is popular then developers will need to develop for Windows and Linux pushing Mac into 3rd priority

 

[Grimezy]

It's also worth mentioning that a lot of us guys don't actually buy our games from Steam, there's dozens of other sites around that sell CD keys that can be downloaded using Steam but quite often Steam is one of the more expensive retailers especially for new releases. I doubt the Valve box would let you buy from outside of Steam!

Plus it depends what kind of games you like, if you want to play MMO's/RTS's as well as regular games then a PC would be better.

 

[gavmac]

I've heard it'll be open to installing Windows too, although it'll be shipped with Linux.

Good point about the semi/pc console thing, never thought of that, and if that's indeed what it ends up like, I'll get a pc. Once it's released along with HL3 and the internet recovers from implodingn all over everyone's face, I'll shove a Valve sticker on the front of my machine.