This has been a very big news week for SteamOS and steam machines. The new OpenGL next now called Vulkan has been announced to compete with DX12, Mantle and Metal.  SteamMachine models are now announced, as is the final version of the controller.  Current plus upcoming games on SteamOS/Linux now tops 1000 games with a ton of AAA titles anounced still 6-8 months ahead of launch of the hardware.

The GDC this year was one major announcement after another.  SteamMachines are priced from $479 to ridiculous amounts on the high end (I spent about $900 while building my own).  VR announcements from HTC/Valve including lighthouse api were also rolled out.

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/steam_machines

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamos_sale

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/03/khronos-unveils-vulkan-opengl-built-for-modern-systems/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/04/htc-and-valve-have-cracked-the-vr-code/#My0BL3:OqJU

Currently I am just waiting on the controller before I move this steam machine to the living room to sit beside my consoles. Is anyone else as excited about the year to come for this gaming platform as I am?

Do you think EA and Ubisoft will finally come on board and begin porting titles once the hardware ships this fall?

Hopefully.

As suspected ridiculous prices with laughable hardware.
There is a good reason why some of the vendors do not specify which GPU is used.

I went to falcon northwests site, maxed out a Tiki config and the price was $9,208.95

Yeah, fuck off Falcon Northwest.

If you buy a steambox rather than putting one together yourself, you need professional help.

Some people lack the technical skills and would need proffesional help . I thought a lot of the ~$1000 configurations were decent specs.  Still much more expensive than consoles.  The cheap options were OK but AMD needs better drivers before I would consider them.

"Introducing the newest gaming system from the makers of the ultimate gaming machines since 1996."

I like how humble the Alienware guys are.

Wait I didnt know Sony were making these??

Steambox prices are way too high. Why would you buy a Steambox instead of building your own PC?(Hell, you could buy a pre-built PC and it would have way better price to performance.)

Yeah, Steambox prices are giving SteamOS a bad name. When I'll build my next PC I'll probably install also SteamOS as third OS on it, but no way that I'll buy a pre-built Steambox.

An entry-level Steambox being $80 more than a PS4 and $130 more than a Xb one seems like a crazy pricing policy. But ultimately Valve doesn't need to worry too much about hardware sales because they will rely on standard PC for most of their revenue for a long time to come.

But the Linuxness of Steambox posses a threat to Windows. If thousands of games become available on Linux, including all new releases through Steam it seems like the last thing holding Linux back will be gone. The onl reason I have Windows PCs is for the gaming. If I can do all the gaming I want on PS4 and Linux then I have no further need for Windows. So in that respect I hope Steambox does very well and causes the beginning of the end of Windows dominance of PC.