Looks like Alienware either had a change of heart or the previous news that their Steam Machine’s would not be upgradable wasn’t translated to well. Alienware boss, Frank Azor, has explained to gaming news site Eurogamer that the previous comments about the system not being upgrabeable are not correct.
“The Alienware Steam Machine, announced at CES, is designed to deliver a great gaming experience in the living room and we will enable customers to upgrade components. Considering we’ve purposefully designed the Alienware Steam Machine to be smaller than the latest generation consoles, upgrading the internal components will not be as easy as compared to other platforms, such as the Alienware X51, but we will not prevent a customer from upgrading.”
That said I can’t place my finger on this but it definitely seems to be that they pulled a “Microsoft” and reversed their decision after a huge backlash about a non-upgradable device. In fact it was Frank that stated that if we wanted to mod and upgrade an Alienware device then we would be better off with a Alienware X51.
“If a customer is interested in modding and upgrading their rig on a regular basis, then we recommend the Alienware X51,” he said. “Enabling easy upgradeability was a critical design requirement for the X51. It includes features such as single screw access to all internal components, and easy-to-remove ODD, HDD, graphics, etc. Regarding the Steam Machine there will be no customisation options – you can’t really update it.
So which is it Alienware? First you come off like Microsoft and then well…… you come off as Microsoft again.
There is still no confirmation on the specs or price on their Steam Machine that releases Q4 2014.
Source: Eurogamer
