Best of CES: the gaming tech you’ll want to buy in 2014
All the best gaming gear you could possibly want over the next year. Are your eyes ready?
CES is winding down – and our senses are still trying to comprehend what they’ve been subjected to under the glaring lights and oxygen-saturated air of the show floor here in Las Vegas.
And nothing has blown our minds more than the slew of incredible next-gen gaming tech.
From the new army of Steam Machines to incredibly immersive virtual reality gear, there’s never been a better time to be a gamer.
Here’s what you have to look forward ot over the next year…
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Valve Steam Machines
Valve’s recently-unveiled Steam Machines come in all manner of shapes and sizes, and they’ll inject your living room with powerful PC gaming goodness.
Running Valve’s made-for-gaming Steam OS and combined with the innovative touchpad-toting Steam controller, the Steam machine experience should serve up more power and better visuals than either the Xbox One or PS4.
Models range from the US$500 quad-core iBuypower with 500GB of storage, 8GB of RAM, and Radeon CGN graphics, all the way up to the insane US$6,000 Falcon Northwest Tiki with Titan Graphics and 6TB of storage.
If you’ve never had the courage to build your own PC then 2014 is the year to take the plunge into PC gaming.
Oculus Rift Crystal Cove – blow your mind
Coupled with a newer 1080p blur-eliminating OLED display, the Rift Crystal Cove prototype is quite possibly the most exciting thing we’ve seen in all of Vegas this year, and is number one on our gaming wish list.
PrioVR gaming suit – suit up, hit the floor
While motion sensors like Kinect are impressive in their own right, PrioVr’s suit takes things much further. And we love it.
Strapping yourself into its torso, head and limb sensors results in your whole body’s movements being tracked with incredible accuracy.
From bashing zombies in with frantic waves of your arms to rolling around on the floor to avoid being shot, the suit adds an unparalleled level of control to virtual shenanigans, thanks to more naturally-translated in-game movements.
Virtuix Omni – game yourself thin
Who says you can’t lose weight nuking noobs in CoD? The Virtuix Omni is an interactive 360-degree platform which translates walking and running movements into, well, walking and running.
Special stabilising shoes which prevent lateral sliding match up with radial grooves in a concave, low-friction platform.
A special harness holds you in place and the concave surface allows your foot to naturally slide back into place. Thanks gravity.
Integrated tracking hardware and software means you won’t have to faff around with any separate motion tracking cameras either.
Run, walk, jog – the choice is yours. With a Rift strapped onto your face at the same time, you’ll soon detach yourself from the real world. Just remember you’ve got to eat sometimes, OK?
PlayStation Now – console-free console gaming
Remember when Sony bought gaming streaming service Gaikai? No?
Well, it doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that they did, and the PlayStation Now is the end result. And you’ll definitely want to jump in.
It lets gamers stream PS3 games to both PS3 and PS4 consoles, in addition to most of Sony’s 2014 range of Bravia smart TVs, with future tablet-support also on the cards.
It’s the Netflix of gaming thanks to an all-you-can eat subscription option (but if you’re not keen on spending big, you can choose to rent games individually).
The service supports the standard DualShock 3 controller, and if your Bravia TV doesn’t support Bluetooth then you’ve always got a USB cable to fall back on.
Esat Dedezade
Contributor 
