Quantum.

Sure enough, those performance gains have yet to hit the commericial market, and when they do, we'll see.  The big 3 could just as easily, just encorporate the new cheap tech, but its all speculation so.

Quantum computing is almost worthless for rendering workloads ... Their not these magically powerful computers that would speed up everything like everyone else would like you to believe. The only thing that it would even be remotely useful for is cryptography as it significantly speeds up shor's algorithm. 

We need a new paradigm just like how we switched from vacuum tubes to transistors. 

It's worse than that. The whole industry is now a gen and a half behind Intel. Their "14nm" is worse than Intel's 22nm and doesn't represent an area shrink, so there's no cost reduction.

I don't think it will last to 5nm commercially, at least not with all the current players (Intel, Samsung, TSMC, Globalfoundries).

I was thinking that this would actually be something great, but then i heard the price. Was proibhitive, but i still tougth that they a had a card on their sleeve: upgradable consoles. I would happily buy one of those if i had the opportunity to make any kind of upgrade as easily as the ones i do on my pc from time to time. I mean, c'mom, its a simple idea that people asked for so much time now, and the possibility of playing couch multiplayer on pc games would be very welcomed. I still cant belive that they are realising it without this option.

I really wished that they succeeded too because some countries, like mine, have several protectionits laws, and since console bussiness is basically a monopoly between the big tree, Tax are just of the roof. More competitions would help to get lower taxes in videogames around here.

Another point: there is a big diference between what we call a succeess, and what that companies will call a success. some of then will release a version yearly, so they are actually using the consumism route: making something newer for the consumer for then have something to buy all the time. Besides, each unit will generate profit, so i bet that some of then could survive doing 100K from release month and then 20K~10K on the subsequent months. But i hope that they succeed yet, altough I'm not placing bet on it. Anyway, we alreadly have any release date?

I thought so too at first. That Vale would come and offer PC gamers an alternative and cheaper way of playing the newest games. To buy a Steam Machine at a nice price and upgrade every 3 years or so.

Now I don't really see the point. I would rather play my games on a W7/8 PC that I built myself or buy some gaming PC from [insert company name].

So yes, I can't see how SM would be successful at all.

Btw, will anyone on this forum buy a SM? If not, do you know someone that will buy it? If not again, do you know someone that knows someone that will buy it?

Moore's Law is expected to "die" around 2020. In other words in 4 years the ps4/xbox1 will indeed be completely obsolute. Heck, they are already obsolete compared to higher end gaming rigs. It's just that in a few years you will be able to buy a $300 steambox that is 2-3 times more powerful than the ps4. The big problem steamboxes will have is getting developers to jump ship to Linux. If they do jump ship, and take advantage of the extra power, steamboxes could actually be a very good alternative to consoles for those who don't want to deal with standard PC gaming.

Really ? I wasn't expecting samsung's 14nm process node to match Intel's 14nm process node but I was assured that it's chip area scaling was 15% better than TSMC's 20nm or 16nm process node so relative to Intel's 14nm process node the size of samsung's transistors would be roughly 18.5nm so to speak. The reason why global foundries went to the trouble of licensing samsung's 14nm process node over their own 14nm process technology was because they could meet their customers demand on schedule while being able to produce chips at a marginally smaller size. This would literally put globalfoundries ahead of TSMC in semiconductor manufactoring technology by roughly 12 months due to the fact that they will have implemented FinFet technology first while having better chip area scaling too! Mass production is slated to be around early 2015 for global foundries.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321974

I honestly do think that 5nm might be the last shrink ever. At this point it gets insanely expensive to transition to a new prcoess node and the scariest part of all this is that we don't even have next generation lithography technologies ready yet such as extreme ultraviolet lithography! The only time that I can see us pushing under 5nm is that EVERYONE would have to collaborate instead of competing. 

Highly doubt that ... If the whole industry except for Intel is having troubles on getting better chip scaling on their 14nm process it will highly be unlikely to see that type of improvement in performance per dollar at the given time. 

everything has already been said.

Not adapted enough for the mass consumer, not high spec enough or customisable enough for a PC gamer. It will fall flat on it face. Its best bet to do well is europe but i doubt valve will be able to crack that nut

Half life 3 exclusive to the steam machine only. Now everyone will have to buy.