I think Steam Machines or shit like Alienware Alpha is futile. They're trying to not only have comparable prices to consoles, but make them LOOK like consoles to attract casual consumers that would otherwise buy an Xbox One. Making a $500 pc look like an Xbox doesn't incentivize anyone that thinks that way. Especially because, to be honest, an Xbox one offers a better experience at that price.

$500 pcs can't run shit. Multiplayer games like WoW, Dota, CSGO, these games don't require high-end PCs. But single player games are always at the cutting edge of hardware requirements. At least with an Xbox One, you can run the latest games on a $400 machine and they will still look decent. With a $500 pc, the computer won't even able to run those games. And if it can, the gfx settings will be on all low and the Xbox version will probably look better.

Moving forward, the requirements for games will start to look more and more like what's required to run Witcher 3. PC gamers don't want to hear it, but if you want a decent experience in most new games, not just dota or CSGO, you need to shell out close to a grand.

Yes the $500 pc is an option, but its severely limited in the games it can run. Especially new single player games. Unless a $500 Alienware Steam Machine can pull 30 fps in Witcher 3 and still make it look as good as it does on Xbox One, there is absolutely no reason for the casual consumer that would otherwise have bought a console to opt for the Steam Machine (or other $500 pcs, for that matter).

$500 Steam machines might as well be called Dota 2 machines, because that's the only type of game it will be able to run with good frame rates and good graphics. That, and 4 year old single player games. I've seen Shadow of Mordor on low at my friends house, running on a 7870. I've also seen Shadow of Mordor on my friend's ps4, which supposedly has a gimped 7870. The ps4 version looked better by far. It wasn't even close.