The console landscape has been incredibly rocky over the past couple of years. For a while it seemed like the typical dominance of big companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo was set to be shaken by new upstarts. There was the Ouya, which has proved to be a bit of an expensive smartphone gaming machine and there's the Steam Machines, which after much bluster when first revealed don't quite have the same impetus behind them. On top of that, Sony is ruling the roost in the new console generation while Microsoft and Sony battle it out for second place, with over 20 million new-gen systems sold between them.
And of course the PC is beavering away with massive summer sales as usual.
So will the Steam Machines ever make the splash we were foretold of when they were first unveiled, or will they always be a sideline curiosity? Sony's worldwide studios head, Scott Rohde thinks they will one day, but that Valve has a long road ahead of it.
"The short answer is Maybe Someday," he said (via Ars). "It's not meant to be an arrogant statement. It's not something that we're saying, 'Oh yeah we're not worried about them.' I think we're always interested in anything that comes into this space because it's fascinating to all of us."
He also suggested that getting hardware shipped globally would be a difficult hurdle for Valve to cross, since it's not something the mainly digital distributor - at this point - has had to do.
It will likely rely on its suppliers and third party Steam Machine makers to handle that, but we'll have to wait and see how they do. Alienware is expected to ship its first real Steam Machine later this year, but that won't come with SeamOS or the controller, making it seem somewhat redundant.
Do you guys think Steam Machines will ever compete head to head with consoles from the big three?