Having not owned a console since Super Nintendo, but feeling a certain lack of gaming exposure, the near future is looking pretty bright. Ouya had a super successful 8 million dollar kickstarter. Gamestick is looking pretty awesome, and passed it's goal in 6 out of 30 days. Nvidia has created the Shield... A hand held console thing... And finally Valve has released information about the Steambox called Piston at CES.
Price points are going to be a big deal. The super portable Gamestick will retail for $79. Add $15 shipping on the kickstarter to get it in April 2013 on launch. Ouya is a $99 dollar console that promises 'free to play' as the basic purchasing mechanic of every game. The Shield should be priced somewhere between $100 and Pistons $999. Piston will be more like a PC meant to attach to your TV, rather then a bargain device.
By the time the Piston becomes available the desktop PC where I play all my steam games will be just about ready to be replaced. $1000 is a terrible price point for a console... But a great price point for a replacement of my gaming PC. Having missed the Ouya kickstarter, the Gamestick is awfully tempting. Super portable and cheap, even if it's games kinda suck the form factor and portability is tempting. Although I don't feel the need to pay $90 now, when I could buy it for $79 later, which means their kickstart campaign isn't efficient.
With a flood of new consoles in 2013, will you be buying anything? With Windows increasingly becoming a game tyrant, will Linux be coming to your rescue? 2013 might be the year of the console... Therefore is 2014 the year of the console game? Start coding folks!
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