No.

It's still just a PC.

The fact that you can have various different configurations alone makes it vastly different than what consoles are supposed to be... With consoles, every developer knows that every person that buys the console has one configuration to work with in terms of horsepower. What that allows is for developers to build games knowing that this is what every user will have and to use that specific configuration to its fullest potential for better or for worse.

With PCs, the configurations are endless in which case the developers will need to make sure that not only do they work properly with Intel, Nvidia, Amd CPU and Amd GPU, but also that they work properly with windows and linux (if they want to go that far). And of course, you also have the Api differences... Dx12 for example will have two different tiers with one of them having some features and the other having the full set of features. And the list goes on

I am well aware how similar the consoles have become to PC but there is also a distinct difference that consoles should always have that PCs won't for better or for worse which I explained on another post

And I also know that its not as custom to say the PS4/XB's level but it is certainly trying to be

There is no way this is going to be successful.

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree. I really don't see how it's trying to be custom though. That would be the same as me taking Ubuntu, changing the desktop to LXDE and calling it my own distrobution, which admittedly has happened, but it doesn't make it a different distrobution, it just makes it a spin on the Ubuntu Distro. 

It's just a PC in a small box. Except now you're paying the same price for the stuff that's under the hood, than you would in any other normal PC, yet you can do less on a stean machine than you can do in a normal PC.

Well it is trying to put all the typical linux experience in the backend and trying to push its UI onto the front. Valve is trying to make sure that Steam OS is gaming first and everything else later where as all the other versions of Linux are not... You look at all the different Linux OS's out there whether it be Ubuntu, SuSE, Redhat, Kali and etc, they all have similar enough UI experience even though they are used for different purposes but Steam OS on the other hand want it to be a very different experience.

Granted the coding itself and how Distro works isn't all that different and you can do all the linux functions without too much of a hassle once you know what you are doing but Valve certainly wants the "Big Picture" experience at the forefront of Steam OS rather than what the typical linux experience is. Oh and its not like they can't make their own distro in the future since valve has the money to do so

I don't think you understand at all what Steam Machines are.

It's a PC.

Point is: What is consoles supposed to be.. they have evolved ever since gen 1.. (joystik, controllers, cd, mp3, dvd, online, internet, media center, forums, streaming, digital games, digital only, membership)

The configurations have to work properly.. but I think they can manage that.. (just like sony/ms/nintendo/apple)

If we called OUYA a console.. I think we should call (the Alienware steam machine in the op) for one also..