If they played their cards right, Valve could give us the best console of all time, one that plays multiple generations of games in higher resolutions than their originals, with performance upgrades that are both officially mandated and occasionally contributed by fans. It could be the best place to play everything you already love in ways that you never imagined... but it won't be. Why? Because of three things. One, there's already confusion for the general consumer around what exactly a 'Steam Machine' is when it comes to setting one up. Is it another PC? Does it stream from my existing computer? Is an all-digital system really what I want? and so on. Then there's two: How the hell do I choose which one to get, when there are so many different variations under the hood? Lastly, the entire appeal of console gaming is doing away with wondering about specs and sliders to tweak a game into working condition. The current crop of consoles might be dropping the ball when it comes to performance, but that's up to the developers to fix. When you give the controls of things like frame rate and graphical fidelity over to the user, millions of us are simply going to be constantly worrying we're doing something that's preventing the optimum experience, and that semblance of doubt will always prevent signing up for anything that's even close to a "PC for your living room".
