[JulianK]

While I understand the desire to have an upgradable PC, as a developer the single greatest benefit of a console is a fixed target. If it runs on this machine, then it runs on all the machines.

From a user's perspective this means I can easily tell if something will run or not. No worrying about whether I have enough cores, enough pixel shader units or simply enough memory. It Just Works. That's the console promise.

I can't overstate how important this is for both the developer and the consumer. Not all developers can afford to have QA departments to test on every configuration out there and, believe me, there are a lot of OS/GPU/driver/memory configurations floating about.

I think the Apple/Nexus model that says "this is the new device this year" is a workable tradeoff. Then you can say: Only SteamBox 2013 and up are supported. We no longer support the 2012/older models.

However, allowing the user to upgrade their machine only helps the technically proficient and hurts the small developer and less technically inclined users that a console is usually targeted at.

[nemo1618]

An upgradable machine would allow proficient users to simply improve their current system rather than buying "this year's new device." It would be nice to have both options available. You still don't have to support older hardware, and savvy users don't have to pay extra for a whole new system.

Meanwhile, if you can't afford either upgrade, it should still be possible to play most games, albeit at a reduced framerate. The same could never be said for a traditional console.

[Corrado]

An upgradable machine also allows a "power" user to upgrade their machine way beyond the original specs in order to give them an unfair advantage in online gaming. I picture someone with a monster 24 CPU/256GB RAM box playing TF2 at 200fps pummeling me ever harder than they do today. :(

However, I like the idea of a Valve console. They've done so much right in the world of gaming that I'd like to see how else they can shake it up. :)