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Home / Features / Best of CES: the gaming tech you’ll want to buy in 2014

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…

2014 CES Hot Stuff Awards winners

CES 2014 – the biggest news, live from Las Vegas

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.

Steam Machine preview

Steam Controller hands-on review

Oculus Rift Crystal Cove – blow your mind

Best of CES: the gaming tech you

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.

Oculus Rift Crystal Cove face-on review

Oculus Rift v2 hands-on review

PrioVR gaming suit – suit up, hit the floor

Best of CES: the gaming tech you

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.

PrioVR hands-on

Virtuix Omni – game yourself thin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTtfAQEeAJI

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

Best of CES: the gaming tech you

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.

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About

Esat has been a gadget fan ever since his tiny four-year-old brain was captivated by a sound-activated dancing sunflower. From there it was a natural progression to a Sega Mega Drive, a brief obsession with hedgehogs, and a love for all things tech. After 7 years as a writer and deputy editor for Stuff, Esat ventured out into the corporate world, spending three years as Editor of Microsoft's European News Centre. Now a freelance writer, his appetite for shiny gadgets has no bounds. Oh, and like all good human beings, he's very fond of cats.