The titanic battle between the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One is in full swing and it’s generating heaps of next-gen hype all across the infosphere. Regardless of which camp you side with, the constant posturing between the two leaves little room for other gaming news to push its way into the limelight. Believe it or not, there are other new consoles and cutting edge peripherals coming soon that are worthy of interest. Let’s meet Valve’s Steam Box, the budget friendly OUYA, and the very exciting Oculus Rift.
Valve has always been a godsend to the PC gaming community, bringing wildly successful properties like Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Steam to the masses. Their current project, the Steam Box, seems to be an attempt at breaking into the console market and providing a system that blends the best of both console and PC. The Steam Box will run Linux, include all the ports you’d expect to see on a current PC, and come at three different price points depending on the quality desired. For those who don’t prefer Linux, Windows can be installed as well. Ideally, the Steam Box is a quiet, compact, and affordable alternative for those who would like to play their PC games on large HDTVs with minimal complication.
However, concerns are being raised as to exactly who this “console” is targeting. Any serious PC gamer worth their salt most likely already owns a powerful, custom-built system and runs an HDMI cable to their TV. At the opposite side of the spectrum, console gamers are already used to purchasing optimized, closed systems that are priced to sell. A top of the line Steam Box would almost certainly cost you more than either the PS4 or Xbox One. Whatever Valve’s plans are, we’ll just have to wait and see if the Box is either genius or insanity.
Up next is the quirky, little OUYA. And little is no exaggeration, the console is literally half the size of the controller. The OUYA experienced a rare and meteoric rise to fame and fortune on the public backing website known as Kickstarter, accumulating a bewildering $8.5 million in donations beyond their original goal of $950,000. The system itself costs a humble $100 and boasts an intriguing list of features.
The OUYA runs on the Andriod OS and focuses primarily on simpler, pick up and play games from the phone market and other ported titles that can all be played in demo form before purchasing. In addition, the console comes with free development tools enabling anyone with the know-how to homebrew a game and get it out there on the market for other OUYA users to enjoy. It’s also stated to be the first “open” console, meaning that opening it up and poking around, modifying, violates no agreement and is even encouraged. If you happen to be an app lover, OUYA’s got your back there too. All of your favorite phone apps and video streams will be compatible and available. Are you the nostalgic type? Well OUYA can run the entire emulator gambit so you can enjoy blasts from the past from a variety of older systems right on your TV. The OUYA is all about adapting to your preferences, even if you decide that you downright despise the controller, you can switch it out for anything else that sports bluetooth connectivity. This all sounds like a lot of geeky goodness, but there are always a few rough patches. Early reviews claim that the OUYA tends to be a bit buggy and sluggish, and suffers from sporadic Wi-Fi signal issues. Hopefully, the system’s open nature will speed up the process of ironing out these bugs with the community’s help.
Finally, we arrive at the Oculus Rift. Virtual reality has been a pipe-dream term thrown around within the gaming community every so often, and the attempts to reach that holy grail have been gimmicky and lackluster up to this point. VR represents the next massive leap in gaming immersion, where the player lives within the world rather than just controlling it from outside. With the Oculus Rift, the age of virtual reality might actually be upon us.
While still in very early development, the Oculus Rift is really turning heads as a viable and reasonable virtual reality peripheral. The device is a simple piece of headgear that straps on and blacks out all other vision apart from the two small screens situated in front of the player’s eyes. When the user turns their head, the Oculus Rift follows that movement within the game and pans accordingly. This dual screen setup effectively simulates the feeling of being directly inside the game world, imparting a level of immersion previously unheard of. The environment would exist all around you, removing the ability to “look away” without removing the headwear entirely. Those who have been lucky enough to test it have claimed it to be unlike any other gaming experience they’ve had. A completely transformative effect.
It’s also worth noting that both the Steam Box and the OUYA plan to support the Oculus Rift when it’s released. Currently, both the release date and the price of the Oculus Rift are not set. Until then, we’ll just have to settle for that old staple. The waiting game.
