Check out all of our Best of 2014 coverage here and Worst of 2014 coverage here.
Last year may not have seen a console debut, but it still hosted a heaping helping of hardware innovation.
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Read on for our picks of the best and most interesting tech of 2014 — including a few things we expect to hit the market this year.
The Nvidia Shield: hardcore gaming in tablet form
Above: The NVidia Shield Tablet (shown here with controller) debuted in 2014, as did NVidia’s GRID game-streaming service.
Millions of gamers already use tablets to play, but Nvidia bumped up the bar last year with the Shield Tablet. This 8-inch gaming powerhouse uses the company’s brand-new GRID game-streaming service to play fully-featured console games, including Titanfall and Borderlands 2, both of which can’t be launched locally.
The Shield Tablet is the Android world’s best answer to the iPad for gaming (it runs Lollipop, and more than 400 games in the Google Play store are Shield-optimized). A separate wireless controller gives a small-screen console feel, and it supports Twitch broadcasting.
GRID games are free to Shield owners until June 30; Nvidia hasn’t announced pricing after that. The Shield Tablet starts at $300.
Shinra Technologies: super-computer gaming in the cloud
Above: Shinra Technologies’ new team. Yoichi Wada is at right.
One of the most exciting tech launches this year is one we don’t expect to see the results of for a while: Shinra Technologies’ cloud-based, cooperative computing gaming platform. Parent company Square Enix announced Shinra’s launch in September, saying it will be run by former Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada.
Shinra proposes to put the power of a super-computer on your desktop by using the combined computing capacity of PCs all over the globe, serving up just the slice of massive games that you need in real time based on the actions you take.
The result could be game worlds 17 times bigger than Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, movie-like games that render in real time, immersive 3D and VR environments, and other things that would make your lonely PC fry its CPU and then commit suicide by jumping off your desk.
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It’s a beautiful vision, and one that’s likely to suffer from a metric ton of real-life hiccups when it goes into beta testing early this year. But, like virtual reality itself, it offers the tantalizing ability to take gaming somewhere it’s never been — a welcome quantum leap above console quality iterations.
The Razer Blade 14-inch touch-screen edition
Above: The Razer Blade 14-inch edition offers a gorgeous touch screen.
Razer refined its much-hyped Blade laptop last year, with some gamer-pleasing results.
The smaller 14-inch model is sleek and airplane-worthy, the ultra high-end touch screen is pleasant to use, it sports a crispy 3200 x 1800 resolution display, and its hardware continues to keep pace with the industry. The basic 14-inch Blade includes 8 GB of RAM, a 128 GB SSD, an Intel Core i7 quad-core CPU, and an NVidia GeForce GTX 870M with 3 GB of RAM. It weighs about 4.5 pounds.
You can still buy the 17-inch Blade Pro, but unless you’re replacing your desktop, there’s no reason to. The smaller form provides a good compromise for those who really do want to take their gaming on the road.
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Three things that make us sad about the new Blade: its lap-toasting heat, its battery life (3-4 hours when not pushing gaming performance), and the price tag. The basic model starts at $2,200. But then again, you knew that the moment we said “Razer.”
The New Nintendo 3DS: envy your Japanese and Australian neighbors
Above: The New Nintendo 3DS offers more horsepower and better 3D — to those overseas.
The newest iteration on Nintendo’s already-excellent handheld gaming monster, the New Nintendo 3DS, hit the market in Japan, Australia, and New Zealand last fall.
While it won’t reach the United States or Europe until further into this year, and pricing has not been announced — Nintendo still has some normal 3DSes to sell here yet — its significant 3D improvements, beefier processor, extra set of triggers, customizable face plates, and extra nub analog stick scored points with reviewers.
The New Nintendo 3DS still looks like a 3DS: The screens are a little larger, but still lower-definition than some other high end portable gaming devices, and it has more bulk and less oomph than your smartphone. Still, it’s designed for gaming, and that commitment shows, making this a favorite portable device four years after the original launched.
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The Hyperkin RetroN 5: Play your favorite video games of the past
Above: Nine classic video games consoles in one box.
Hyperkin’s announcement of its RetroN console emulator, which allows gamers to play titles from nine previous consoles, was marred by release delays and some emulation hiccups at launch.
Now that the firmware has been updated, however, the RetroN 5 appears to offer what it promised: the ability to play NES, SNES, Super Famicom, Genesis, Mega Drive, Famicom, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games on your TV via an HDMI connection.
It’s hard to resist that kind of retro action, even if it’s accomplished via Android emulation and doesn’t have wireless connection capabilities. Even GamesBeat’s snobbiest retro gamer agrees. The RetroN offers one of the best ways on the market to scratch that retro itch, at $160.
Backlit keyboards with 17 million colors, plus interactions
Above: The Corsair K95 RBG Cherry MX gaming keyboard in basic rainbow mode.
Backlit keyboards, even those with programmable colors, have for years offered gamers the ability to play in the dark. But this was the year that virtually every high-end keyboard manufacturer jumped into the fray, giving us keyboards that you can program with up to 16.8 million colors based on what game you are playing, what mode you are in, the animations you’d like to see — even what keys you press.
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How much will it add to your gameplay? Probably not a lot, beyond that aforementioned ability to see in the dark. But how much fun it is to program and see happen? A ton.
The Logitech G19s ($200), with its gimmicky LCD screen, has been a solid entry in this space for a while. But I prefer the mechanical action and wildly programmable lights displays on the new Razer BlackWidow Chroma ($170). Even better, try the Corsair K95 RGB ($190), with its psychedelic ripple effects and nifty Cherry MX-switched keys.
Alienware Alpha: the best Steam Machine that wasn’t
Above: Alienware Alpha
The year 2014 was supposed to mark the triumphant debut of the Steam Machine, a console-like device that could plug into your TV, run a special Linux-based OS and give you access to all your favorite Steam PC games in a more living-room-friendly format.
Unfortunately, that launch has been pushed off until sometime this year. That didn’t stop Dell’s Alienware line from launching its own pre-Steam-Machine machine: the Alienware Alpha. This shiny black console-like box runs Windows 8.1, comes with an Xbox controller, plugs into your TV with an HDMI cable, and can be upgraded to full Steam Machine status when the new platform goes live.
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The Alpha isn’t as powerful as current gaming desktops, but it’s beefy enough to run most PC games and installation is a breeze. (For more, see the GamesBeat preview.) Think of it as an expensive gateway drug for console gamers, starting at $550.
Oculus Rift: Are we there yet?
Above: Oculus Rift virtual reality goggles in their Crescent Bay prototype form.
Oculus Rift‘s 2015 launch as a consumer product still isn’t certain — you can only buy it as part of a $350 development kit now — and yet it has already captured the imaginations of players everywhere.
The early teases of the 3D virtual reality headset’s potential created hugely long lines at gaming conventions, even though the tech is still very much a work in progress. Picking out a target against a background in a game demo can still be challenging, for instance; nobody’s really sure what we’re going to do about controllers; and pity the poor folks who wear glasses.
3D VR gaming is the holy grail of the industry, an experience so immersive that you actually feel like you are moving through it. Gaming (and porn, though early development has been crude — ha ha) has been the driving force behind the headset’s $2.44 million Kickstarter, its two development kits, and Facebook’s eventual $2 billion purchase of parent company Oculus VR.
The final version is likely to cost what the development kits have — somewhere between $200 and $400 — making it as expensive as a console in its own right. But some big names (Sony, Samsung, Apple, Facebook) are betting on its success. Several game developers have announced their own titles in development for the platform.
For a sneak peak, you can try the Samsung Gear VR headset, which is available now for $340 and uses Oculus tech combined with a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 wireless phone. So far, it mostly plays free demos and mini-games.