5. The Steam sales

You can get some truly great deals during Steam’s summer and winter sales.

Although the Steam sales are not perfect by any means, they still allow players to buy games at heavily discounted prices. For instance, last year’s blockbuster Shadow of Mordor, got a 50 % discount, being sold at $24.99 (£14.99) in the 2015 summer sale. Also titles like Alien: Isolation got discounts as high as 75 %, which is surely something completely unheard of in console-land.

And although console gamers are used to buying and trading-in used games (which is something that won’t be available to Steam Machine owners), those that decide to take the plunge and opt for a Steam Machine will find that the Steam sales are a nice alternative – it is clear that Valve’s sales are unmatched when it comes to offering top games at budget prices.

Steam itself is also a nice and intuitive platform to use, as user-friendly as the PlayStation Network or Xbox Live and with many social features, and running its “big-picture mode” interface on a large widescreen TV will surely be a pleasurable experience for Steam Machine owners.