One of those, the Origin PC Chronos, looks to be using a Silverstone GD05 chassis, which is the exact one that's been housing my HTPC/"Steam Machine" this past year. It's nice to see some vindication for the choice (although I've been thinking about moving to something more compact and console-like, as it's basically a full mATX case on its side, and has non-optimal airflow). Cooling is definitely an issue; there is no way it can dump the heat of 2× NVidia Titans and a 4770k, as it can just about handle my single GTX 460.
Sony and Microsoft must be laughing their arse's off right now. The whole point of a console is that its cheap and you get revenue from games. You lower the barrier to entry to allow mass market.
The re-badging PC gaming as console gaming without altering anything else is not going to usher in a new era of console gaming. I don't see the advantage of this over having a PC for gaming plus an existing console. Where is the USP?
Larger numbers of units of a specific model sold bring greater stability to the user. When you buy one of the official steam boxes, you (hopefully) suffer less from the usual PC weirdness. Kind of like buying a HP or Dell machine compared to a "supermarket PC".
Also, I imagine you plug it in and you can start installing games, without having to go through the thousand and one steps that are neccessary to make a Windows PC useable (Is that still the case today? Been a while since I set up a Windows box).
I was hoping there would be something "more to it" than just Linux boxes from tons of manufactorers that will be sold in small volume and changed often. I hoped Valve had a "secret weapon" like universal compariable ratings, or... something. But, right now it looks like they made a Linux disto and a controller... which is cool, but isn't going to rock the industry without some incredible marketing (read: exclusives, which they said they won't do).
RE: 1000+1 Steps, depends on the brand. A computer sold at Best Buy will likely still come with a good bit of crapware, but even there execptions happen.
But, a decent group of manufactors now offer "Microsoft Signature"... which is no crapware and higher standard on drivers... very much feels "Apple Inspired".
On the development side, consoles makes things both easier and harder at the same time. Easier in the sense that you have one target hardware set that doesn't change, so you can do all sorts of things to make your game run better. However, that makes things also harder since the hardware isn't upgradeable so you have your limitations set in stone.
So while I like the idea of Steam box, there isn't any benefit, in my opinion, to buying one over building one.
If you have one of these machines, you can boot STEAM and run it, and have your games everywhere. STEAM on your PC, STEAM on your friends PC, STEAM on the TV, STEAM wherever you wanna put it. Here is a list of machines STEAM works with. STEAM. STEAM. STEAAAAAM!
I'm quite happy having a very portable game collection that goes from one box, to another. The kids love it, anyway, coz: STEAM!
