How Final Fantasy XIV Took Me Prisioner While Setting Me Free

Long time friends of mine know my troubled and turbulent history with MMORPGS.  From Ultima Online to Lord of the Rings Online, I always wind up ending my relationship with these games in hatred and emnity.  But I think the worse offender in this case was World of Warcraft.  Particularily because it's such a good game.

Part of the reason MMOs have never jived for me is the discrepancy between single player and multi player games.  In my gaming career, I spent 99.99 percent of the time playing single player games.  One of the rules in a single player game is that if you work hard enough and are skillfull (or lucky) enough, you can experience 100% of what a game has to offer.  As games got larger, this became more difficult, but the basic tenent stands.  If you invest enough, you can get a perfect experience.  MMOs work the same way too.  It's much bigger than the biggest single player game, but if you had unlimited hours, you can also experience all of what an MMO has to offer.  That's one of the driving principles behind my gaming.  I don't get 100% on all the games I play.  Not even close.  But I like the idea that it's possible.  That it's fair.  But MMOs have one thing that pushes the fairness factor to the other end of the scale.  Namely, people.  Other people.

Of course, other people are what you play an MMO for.  It's just that, at the same time, you are also totally dependent on them.  In the case of WoW, I wanted to see all the game has to offer, but the obstacles coming from other players often prevent that from happening.  This isn't so much a blame game as it is an acknowledgement.  For instance, it all came to a head when, after months of playing, I finally got the chance to run the Molten Core.  Molten Core, or MC, is a 50 person instanced dungeon in World of Warcraft.  One of the first.  Naturally, I was excited at the opportunity.  But then, people happened.  Just getting all 50 people organized took forever.  The time was set for 7pm, but by the time it was ready to go, for real, it was more like 8.  An hour wasted.  All that time, the people there were just talking.  Shooting the sh*t.  Dancing the night away, whatever.  As a classic introvert, I just kept to myself, impatiently waiting for the darn thing to get on with it already!

When the thing started, it lived up to the promise of being fun.  For about 10 minutes.  Then we got to, I think, the first or second boss.  It was a cerberus type beast.  The whole party stopped to a standstill as the leaders discussed strategy and organization.  So it was another chunk of time wasted before we can start moving again.  It was boring.  Worse was, the boss wupped the entire 50 person party, so the whole thing was a big waste of time.  I never ran MC again.  It was also one of the final straw.  Soon after, I sold every virtual item I had and gave the proceeds to my friend.  Then, out of spite, I deleted the character permanently.

It was a big lesson.  Playing an MMO isn't anything like a single player game.  To be fair, it's not the game's fault or the people's.  And, to my credit, I've also mellowed out.  A lot.  And that's when Final Fantasy XIV comes in.

Long story short, FF14 hooked me from the get go.  Back in the WoW days, I had a saying:  if they ever made anything as good as WoW, but with character and graphics designed by the Japanese, I'd drop everything and played that MMO.  Well, it took the better part of a decade, but FF14 is that game.  In a way, it's a dream come true.  And I finally learned to stop caring.  The game recently just came out with a big patch.  90% of all new content are for maxed level characters, none of which I have.  But I just ended up shrugging it off.  Afterall, there are still tonnes of things at the lower levels I haven't even touched, four fighting classes I haven't even looked at and enough crafting to make me want to level up a gathering class.  In other words, no big deal.  Let the level 50s have their fun while I have mine.  And the new 24 person dungeon recently added?  No thanks.  I'll try it once, but if I have to wait up to an hour just to get the thing rolling, I will never do it again. 

I have to thank Final Fantasy XIV for being a wonderful game.  A game good enough to justify giving up the past, starting anew, and just having a lot of fun.  And I've learned one of the better parts of playing an MMO:  playing with other people.  Shocking, I know, but being in a party of four, where everyone's progress depends on everyone elses, makes me feel like I'm a part of something bigger than myself.  Even the simple act of buying and selling on the auction house is an act of helping other's.  You're either providing what they need, or you are rewarding their efforts with your own.  It's a very spiritual thing.  In retrospect, I think I ran more dungeons in an FF party these past two months than in my six months with WoW and liking it 10 times as much.

In the end, I think life is much to short for an MMO.  That's why you just gotta play it.

Going Cold Turkey

Like most people, I was very excited about Achievements when it was first introducted.  Later on, it was followed by Trophies for PSN.  Now, I find them to be a hassle.  At best, they gave me something to do, but more often, they were an intrusive element.  Achievements and Trophies make me play the game their way, using weapons I don't like, with tactics which aren't fun and forces me to make in-game choices I regret.  Throughout the last console cycle, I've spent half my time just trying to ween off Achievements and Trophies, but honestly, nothing works.  One of the first things I do when starting a new game is go through the achievement list.  And no matter what I do, the idea of achievements are everywhere.  Even Steam has them, for god's sake, as does World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV.  So then, how does one get rid of the urge to collect trophies?  Cold turkey seems to be the only way, and the last resort.  But how do you do that, exactly, when everywhere you go, escape from their presence is impossible?

Well, one way is being forced to give them up. 

On PSN, I actually have two active accounts.  A main account, opened on the same day I got the PS3, and a sub account, opened later.  A sub account is basically a 'kid's version' of a main account.  It has purchasing restrictions, and is tied at the hip to the main account.  Long story short, I ended up using this sub account for the majority of my gaming.  This means all of my trophies were in my sub account.  Aside from the annoying restriction of having to do PSN purchases strictly via the main account, it was a workable deal.

When the PS4 arrived, however, things changed.  One of the things which captured my imagination this current console cycle is the idea of posting videos and screenshots directly from in-console onto things like Twitter and Facebook.  So imagine my chagrin upon finding out that this feature is totally barred from sub accounts!  A difficult choice presents itself.  Do I stick with using the sub account, keep all the earned Trophies, and give up ever using the ability to post on social sites?  Or do I give up on the sub account, revert back to the main, and totally forgoe all my Trophies earned?  In a way, the decision is moot.  The trophies are still there and they are still mine.  I'm not technically losing anything.  But on the other hand, what is out of sight is out of mind, yes?  I tend to agree on the latter.  Despite this, I chose to revert to the main account and forego all my Trophies.

What surprised me isn't that I made this decision, or why.  What surprised me was how easy this decision was to make!  Essentially, within an hour of figuring out this limitation, I was ready to give up my entire trophy progress.  Since then, I have never looked back.  The important thing to take away from this, I think, is that there is, indeed, something out there which superceeds the urge to perpetually collect trophies!  In other words, there is something greater than Achievements and Trophies, and that breaking away for something worth while isn't very difficult. 

This is an auspicious start to one day being free from the grasp of Achievements.  Do I still check them when I start a new game?  Yes, I'm afraid so.  Do I still get a tingly sensation whenever an Achiement pops or a Trophie chimes?  Yes.  But do I really care about them any more?  For the first time ever, I can hold my head up high, and say with a fair amount of certainty that no, I do not care about them anymore.

P.S.  While this happened on PSN, no such luck occurred on the Xbox side.  Fortunately, I absolutely hate the new Xbone interface.  Where as the 360 has their achievements lined up all neat in rows, the Xbone makes each achivement a garish icon which seems to take up a quarter of the screen.  Just scrolling through the list for a single game is an exercise in wasting time.  I'm hoping that this will one day allow me to just say 'screw it' to Achievements.

The Future of Console Launches is Now

The last two generation's of console launches were bad.  From the PS2 to the Wii everything was just a mess.  People had to line up in the early mornings and some folks still went home empty handed.  Supply numbers were a mystery and preorders were hit or miss.  But things seem to have turned around, hasn't it?  The launches for PS4 and Xbone were...  great!  I didn't hear of many late night line ups, nor were there much confusion over whether or not a preorder would come through.  And yet, some of the same problems persists.  There was definitely more demand than supply for both consoles, and some people who preordered still didn't get their units yet.

It sounds kind of contradictory, but it isn't.  The more things change, the more things stay the same.  However, the latest two console launches did a lot of things right.  For those of us who wondered whether Sony or Microsoft will ever learn, it seems that they have.  Here are a few things I've figured out as their secret to success.

While there were certainly supply shortages, both companies did their best to off set the pain.  Microsoft announced delays for several European countries.  These countries will not be getting a Nov 22nd launch.  Sony went even further, delaying the PS4 launch in it's native Japan until 2014 just so they can supply North American first.  They even pushed back the launch in Europe and Australia until Nov 29th, two weeks after the NA shipments.  All this effort means ample supply for the NA launches.  While it's not exactly fair to those countries not getting units on 'day one', at the very least you know where you stand.  If you live in North America, you've lucked out.  If not, you at least know how long to wait.  In the end, however, raw units made the difference. Both Sony and Microsoft sold over 1 million units each on launch day, which means, at the very least, that there were over a million units out there in the first place.  This is a far cry for the... what?  250 thousand for the PS3?

I preordered both machines from Gamestop.  A friend of mine did the same for the PS4.  Both of us got our systems on day 1.  I had to go over to Gamestop to confirm my PS4 preorder, while the store called me about my Xbox One.  The result is that I knew whether or not a unit will be there for me at launch.  This is huge because folks now know ahead of launch day whether they will get a system.  This means people won't be lining up at stores (not much, anyway).  Afterall, why bother?  Those lucky enough to get a machine?  They have all day to pick it up.  Those who don't, will know not to expend the effort.  In the end, I got both of mine without much of a hassle.  Just walk in, pay, and leave.  Another friend of mine ordered from Amazon, and he got his as fast as the mailman can deliver.  I'm assuming Gamestop and Amazon aren't the only guys on the ball, and this is important.  Knowing where you stand - if you will get a machine or not - takes down the confusion.  There are still some people who got the call saying they will NOT have their preorders filled first day.  But that sure beats not knowing, getting too hyped about a machine that won't arrive for weeks.

In the end, the old problem persists.  There still isn't enough for everybody.  But I think the foundations are in place for smoother console launches in the future.  Both companies supplied plenty of units and they made sure to set firm release dates for all the regions of the world.  But the retail side also pulled through to a great degree, letting people know the status of their machines.  There will still be those lucky people who walk into a store without a preorder and walked out with a next gen system.  And there are people who still don't have one, but want one.  But the most recent launches were a success.  Not just in the amount of units sold, but on logistics, organization and customer service.

Ys and Zelda Mixed at Birth

Recently, I had the pleasure of playing two fantastic games. Both are on hand held systems: Ys Memories of Celceta on the PS Vita and The Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds for the 3DS. Wonderful games, both. I started Zelda first. Had fun with it for a couple of days, then started Ys last night. I wanted to keep playing Zelda, mostly, maybe get it done before diving too deeply into Ys. The reason for this is the same reason why I have decided to just forget about Zelda, for now. And the reason is… I just like Ys more.

I get a sense of trepidation whever I think that. I mean, dropping Zelda? ZELDA! For Ys? Dropping a game in a series where grown men cry over a new zelda trailer at E3? A game where every release draws out the fans? A game where it's music feature in it's own concert? It's almost sacrilage. Zelda is good. Great, even! There's no excuse not to play. Not for Ys anyway. Of course, it's a silly thing to beat myself over… but…

But what it…. what if… Zelda is Ys and Ys is Zelda?

The two games are, in a way, polar opposites. Zelda is mostly 75% puzzle solving while Memories of Celceta is about 90% action. Link get stronger by finding power ups, but Adol levels up traditionally, with EXP and better gear. Zelda has tonnes of hidden stuff, but what you see is largely what you get in Ys. Link wears green, Adol is in red. Yet, they have much in common as well. Both heroes are mute. Both have a strong focus on Adventure, Doing Good, Helping People, and Saving the World. But the biggest common denomiator of all is that both series are great!

I first came into contact with the Ys series with the SNES release of Wanderers of Ys (which is Ys III). The game was every thing I had hoped for. Great characters, fast paced gameplay and a great story. My copy was a rental, and in the span of the week, I have beaten the game at least twice. That's how good it was. I enjoyed the game so much that I tried others in the series. Ys VI on the PSP, Ys Book I and II on Virtual Console, the remake of Ys III on the PSP. To be honest, none of those ignited the same reaction from me as Wanderers did. Until Ys Seven, that is. That game now stands as one of my top games of all time. From what I just mentioned, you might be wondering if I really like Ys, given that I barely played them. But the same can be said of my Zelda history. I refuse to touch Majora's Mask because the looping gameplay is a turn off. The DS enteries (Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass) forced players to use the stylus controls, not something I'm fond of. And I barely touched Link's Awakening or the Ages/Seasons games on the Gameboy. If I played more Zelda games than Ys games is only because there were more Zelda releases. The bottom line is, both series are fantastic.

Yet, Zelda is the series with the crying fanboys and the millions of copies sold. Ys is the niche hit which set fires in Japan but hardly a backdraft here in North America.

But what if history was reversed? Imagine an alternate universe out there where the creators of Ys worked for Nintendo while the creators of Zelda plyed at Falcom (Ys' developer, obviously). While Nintendo was busy singlehandedly inventing the console industry as we know it, it would have been Ys released as a golden cartridge while Zelda played on early Japanese PCs. Since both series featured new gameplay, noone without access to a time machine is going to be able to predict how both will turn out in present day, which means that Ys would have just as much chance of taking off in North America as Link did in our current universe. After all, both games played great and share some similarities (and major differences).

In essense, grown men can be crying at the mere sight of a new Adol adventure. Ys games would attract fans with every new release. Concerts would be made out of Ys music. (Incidentally, the music in Ys are some of the best ever in gaming. Here's something I can say with no compromise. The Ys soundtrack is much, much, much better than Zelda's.)

And then, I would be right. In such a world, dropping Zelda for Ys would just be the right thing to do…

Xbox One Impressions and Comparisons with PS4

The Xbox One is finally here!  And I got it!  Here are some first day impressions and happenings.

Hooking up the Xbone was a breeze and the day one patch went up within minutes with no issues.  Anyone worried about that should rest assured.  Kinect was pretty cool too.  I am not, however, impressed with the look of the dashboard.  Always did hate the whole Windows 8/Mobile look and I wish they didn't import the thing straight to Xbone.  The blocky icons and plain backgrounds do noone any favors.  I'm also not a big fan of advertising, and I'm disappointed (but not surprised) to see several just a scroll away.

The interface works a lot like the PS4.  You have your home screen, and any application can be paused and taken back to the home screen, where you can restart it at will or multitask with something else.  It's easy to use here.  Kinect was also fun to give voice commands to, and you can pretty much use your voice to do anything.  Even in certain apps, you don't have to touch a controller to navigate.  Just say the menu options and the machine will do it.  I don't find it more useful than a controller, though.  If my controller isn't within arm's reach, sure, but if I already have it in my hands, then voice commands are pointless.

I'm also very impressed with Forza Motorsport.  It's the only game I've tried at the moment, but I'm already blown away.  The independent trigger vibration was genius, and really helps with the racing.  The graphics are near photorealistic and the lighting effects were stunning.  Great game!

But there are some problems.  Can you believe the machine crashed on me already?  Here's what happened...  Forza 5 needs a whopping 6GB update on day one.  The machine started the installation automatically and after about 6% completion the game was ready to play.  I played it, enjoyed it, but it's not going to last forever.  After a few races, I got a message saying that the next part of the game hasn't been installed yet.  So I checked the progress on the home screen, and it says 15%.  I waited a while, and it still says 15%.  Now, my internet is very spotty, so maybe it conked out and noone noticed.  There were two options on the menu.  I can cancel the install, or I can pause it.  I chose cancel.  Nothing happened.  I chose pause.  The status now says paused.  I tried restarting it but nothing happened.  Worse still, none of the other apps are working either.  Clicking on icons don't do anything.  Naturally, I turned off the machine but when it I turned it back on... nothing.  No image, no sound, nothing.  Panic was setting in until my girlfriend turned the machine off via the 'touch button' on the console (disguised as the Xbox logo, so I couldn't even tell).  She turned it back on, and whew!  It works!  What's also funny was that the install now reads 97%, mysteriously.  A few minutes later (I dare touch nothing else) the install was complete.  It wasn't reassuring.

My next beef with the machine is Xbox Live Gold.  I've heard that a lot of features are locked (like Netflix) unless one is a Gold subscriber.  So maybe I shouldn't have been surprised when the video upload feature was locked to non Gold members.  See, the Xbone lets you capture game footage any time, much like the PS4.  But in order to even edit the darn thing, you need a Gold membership?  Is that stupid or what?  Uploading videos need a membership too.  That's just stupid.  Luckily, I was able to use my girlfriend's 1 month trial card.  Problem solved, right?  Not so.  Apparently, uploading the video only gets it to the Xbox servers.  Other Xbone users can view uploaded videos but there's no way to get it onto Facebook.  I searched online and found that maybe, just maybe, there is another way.  This way involves Skydrive, Microsoft's own cloud storage service, which is also an Xbone app.  But it doesn't work!  Everytime I tried to save anything to Skydrive, I would get an error.  The Internet (for once) was no help at all.  It took me a long time to figure it out, but here's what I did....  I went onto Skydrive's site directly from the web.  There, I logged in with my Xbox Live password.  Right away, the site asked me to sign a user agreement.  Aha!  That's it!  Agreement signed, the Xbone and Skydrive connection now worked.  Why didn't the machine just tell me to do this in the first bloody place??  Problem solved, right?  NO!  Turns out that I STILL can't post to Facebook.  There simply is no option!  Now I might have to get the app version of Skydrive for my iOS but that involves updating my iPad to the latest version of the OS which will slow it down and.... GRRRRR!

Stupid Microsoft.  Why make it so hard?

*sigh*  Well, that ended on a sour note.  So I'll stop.

So there it is.  My latest Xbone impression.  And last week was the PS4 write up.  Now I'll try to summarize and compare.

Hate to say it, but the PS4 is the hands down winner here.  It's got a much better looking interface, it never crashed on me and it lets me send videos and screenshots to Facebook first time, every time.  There's nothing complicated about it.  And I don't need a paid membership to do this stuff either!  Oh, and you can't access save files on Xbone for some strange reason.  Don't know why, but you just can't.  Stupid.

BUT!  The Xbone does win hands down for games and graphics.  I dare say Forza looks better than AC4.  I'm not sure that's a fair comparison, since Forza was built from bottom up to be next gen.  However, there's no doubt that Xbone has better games at this point.  I'm loving AC4 on PS4 but it's still a non exclusive game.  While Forza, which is a great game, is an Xbone exclusive.  Until Second Son, there's nothing on PS4 I want from Sony first party.  Oh and things download waaaaay faster on Xbone than on PS4.  The day one patch was bigger than Sony's but it installed in less than half the time.

In the end though, having a less than stellar launch line up and a slower connection is better than needing a paid membership just to access some key features.  I know Sony has their Plus program mandatory for online play, but they make up for it by giving us two free games.  I signed up for Gold and got zip for free. Indeed, features get taken away without it!  I have no doubt that Sony's gaming lineup with match up over time, and already, after the day one scramble, their servers are a bit faster.  However, some of the Xbone's bone headed features, like Skydrive or lack of access to save files, is something too cumbersome to ignore.

Don't take my word for it though.  The next gen console wars have yet to truly heat up.  But right now, Sony definitely has the better machine.

The PS4 is Here!

Yup.  And I'm a proud owner of a PS4.  This blog will be about my initial impressions.

In what has to the best launch ever, I got my preorder machine with no fuss, muss or line ups.  This was a far cry from the PS3, or even the Xbox 360.  It looks like console manufacturers have learned their lessons.  It seems like the Xbox One launch will be smooth too.  Anyway, about the PS4...

Setting up the machine to the TV was a breeze, along with setting up the Playstation camera (sold seperately, but I got one).  When I turned on the machine for the first time, the visuals already blew me away.  I haven't see a crisper background in my life, even though it's just a menu at this point.  This was also when the trouble started.  As everyone knows by now, there was a huge day 1 patch to the machine.  You need this before you can do any kind of online stuff with it and it is 350mb approx.  Sony, naturally, got their servers bogged down by all the PS4 owners doing the same patch, so no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get the patch downloaded.  Eventually, I had to go online with a PC, download the patch onto a USB stick, then use the stick to update the PS4.  For all of Sony's faults, at least they gave us this option.

By that time, it was getting late, so all we could do was hit the Playroom.  After a quick update (not nearly as big) for the Playroom, my girlfriend and I gave it a shot.  Playroom itself is nothing more than a tech demo to show off the controller and the camera.  So as it is, it isn't much.  We had some fun with two player air hockey using the controller's touch pad and played with some very cute robots with the camera's augmented reality feature.  Basically, robots appear on the screen, superimposed on an image of out living room via the camera.  Then we interact with these robots.  We can pet them or hit them, and they react accordingly.  To be honest, it's not that impressive.  But it is funny, and the robots were cute.

The next day, I woke up early to further test out the machine.  I bought into the PS Plus program and downloaded, for free, Contrast and Resogun.  Resogun is a side scrolling shooter with trippy visual.  It adequetly shows up the PS4s lighting muscles but I'm not sure if I should be impressed. It does look very, very pretty when the screen is packed full of enemies and bullets but, again, I'm not sure if this can't be done on the PS3.  Probably not, because the light show looks a little TOO pretty.

Next up was Contrast.  If there ever was a diamond in the rough, this game would be it.  It's got an unusual story involving a girl and her imaginary friend who has the power to fuse with shadows.  Unfortuately, I've see this premise already with Lost In Shadows on the Wii.  Graphically, aside from sharper than usual images via higher resolution, the game doesn't look next gen.  And when it moves, the frame rate doesn't really keep up.  Not as much as I could tell anyway.

So basically, it was up to Assassin's Creed 4 to really show off the power of the PS4.  Can't really expect much too, since the game also came out on the 'last gen' consoles.  The game plays great, as expected, but it doesn't use any of the controller's PS4 specific features (except the ability to scroll the map using the touchpad which is actually more cumbersome than using the analog).  I notice things in the graphics that the PS3 likely couldn't handle.  Weather effects were top notch, especially when it storms.  I also noticed crisper shadow effects than the older machines, too.  And I think (because I can't tell for sure) the 1080p resolution made it look sharper but there's nothing I can truly point a finger to.

So far, the only difference in performance I've noticed are much shorter loading times, and a very quick transition between game and the PS4's menu.  This is actually a bonus in one respect, because the sharing feature just won't be the same if the PS4 interface lags.  I've posted an image and a video on Facebook and both went off without a hitch.  The video capture feature was quite impressive.  At any time, I just hit the share button on my controller and the last 15 minutes of game play would be recorded for me right there.  All I had to do was give it a slight edit, which basically involved setting a start and an end to the video, crop it, then post it to social media.  All this was done in seconds.  The editing options could use a bit more features, however.  When previewing my video, it would be nice to be able to fast forward or rewind.

All in all, anyone looking for a true next gen experience should wait a year before picking this up.  As it is, the only difference between this and a PS3 would be the difference between a high end gaming PC and basic one.  For me, I'm loving it.  The machine is smooth, it's an improvement, and I can't fault the experience for being too much like last gen.  And I have every confidence that it would only get better.

The Steam Box: My Thoughts

So here it is, the fabled Steam Machine.  The biggest news in gaming last week was Valve's announcement of something we've all been expecting: a Steam based console. 

Here's a quick recap.  Last week, Valve announced a three pronged strategy to dominate the living room.  The same space taken over now by the big three console makers.  Valve announced:

1)  A Steam OS, which will be running games on…

2)  The Steam Machine.  Basically a console which will play games on Steam and…

3)  A brand new controller designed specifically for the Steam Machine.  Not just any controller, but something actually NEW.  And we're not talking about motion controls either.  I have no idea how it works, but can't wait to try it out.  Best you Google it if interested, though, because I won't be talking much about the controller in this blog…

So what is Valve trying to do?  Basically, they want part of the console market.  Will they do it?  My answer, in short, is… no.  The reason?  Folks like me.  I believe people such as myself SHOULD be the target market for this new machine.  I'm basically a pure console gamer, who prefers a controller to a keyboard, and a big screen to a monitor.  All this is pretty much covered by Valve and their strategy.  An OS targeted specifically for the living room?  Check.  A console like machine?  Check.  A new controller?  Double check.  Seems like all they need, right?  Not really.  They forgot one thing.  It's not something they don't have, but rather something they do.  They forgot to take the PC out of the console.

What I mean is…. Take the OS.  Please!  Okay, that's an old joke.  The thing is… in the history of console gaming, not a single manufacturer boasts about their OS.  Not Sony, not Microsoft, not anyone.  And you would expect if anyone wants to boast, it would be Microsoft.  There's got to be a reason for it and simple common sense tells us that console gamers simply don't care.  So long as the game works when we stick the disk in, it doesn't matter one iota what kind of OS it uses.  The fact that Valve makes a big deal out of it tells me that they aren't using the right message to target their audiences.  On the other hand, what kind of OS a machine uses is huge for a PC gamer.  I've known a couple in my time, and most PC gamers get a kick out of configuring their system to play games as much as they do playing the game.  Not so console gamers.  We just want the game to work, period.  With as little fudging around as possible. 

Any piece of software would be useless without hardware, and here too, I find Valve's message to be lacking.  They basically announced this a little too soon.  There's no hardware specs, or pictures of how it would look.  Quite unlike the other console reveals, which pretty much have everything finalized.  From what I've read on the actual machine itself, it appears that Valve is willing to let anyone make their own hardware specs, so long as they all use the Steam OS.  This is similar to Android, in which anyone can make a phone for it to use.  Would we see a Samsung Steam Machine?  We could.  And here's where the problem begins for a console gamer like me.  I want to be certain that the machine I buy can run all the games, all the time, for as long as the hardware cycle lasts.  Valve already went and said that the hardware for the box is customizable, and different tiers can be made by almost anyone for any purpose.  This is just like the PC market, where you have everyone from HP to Dell making anything from weaker netbooks to full on gaming rigs.  As a console gamer, why would I want that?  The biggest advantage of getting a PS3 is that I know I can play any PS3 game on it from now until forever.  Or until the system breaks.  If anyone can make a Steam Machine, then what stops manufacturers from making a new iteration of consoles every year?  So every year you have to shell out more money to keep up?  No thank you.

The only thing these announcements tell me is that the Steam Machines are nothing more than PCs desigined to be hooked up to a living room TV but I still don't really understand why people like to do this.  The technology has been around since forever which allow users connect a PC to a TV if they wish, but most PC gamers don't.  They are perfectly happy with their smaller monitors.  So I don't really understand why Valve is importing the whole PC centric culture into the living room when their own customers see little point in doing so.

P.S.  I wrote all that in the paragraphs above last week, but didn't get around to posting until this week.  Today, the theories were pretty much confirmed.  The Steam Box, or Steam Machines, are basically PCs designed first and foremost to work with your TV.  It will be manufactured by anyone who is interested, and the OS is open sourced to any one who is interested.  They also came out and said that the high end boxes can cost as much as $1000.  So basically, I still don't get it.  Who will buy this thing?  Not the diehard console gamers who prefer ease of use and not the need the have to upgrade every year.   Certainly not the price sensitive people (not unless they are willing to go with 'lower end' builds).  So who?  I have no idea.  And that's why I think this will go no where.

Of course, we've all heard of those famous Steam sales, and half off any game is a great deal.  It's just that….  If I wanted to put up with all that PC nonsense I might as well buy a new PC…