What if you could play Halo Infinite on your TV while still mowing grunts during a bathroom break and ending your session on a laptop when you should be working? That is the basic idea behind the Alienware Concept Nyx, a server that is powerful enough to run all of your games on your home network. Think of it like Plex for games, but instead of opening up your video library, it’s about getting your games across all of your devices.
Gallery: Alienware Concept Nyx | 9 photos
Gallery: Alienware Concept Nyx | 9 photos
Given the push to game streaming from Google Stadia and Xbox, Alienware may have come across an interesting solution for multi-gamer houses. It is conceivable that you can have two games running on your TV at the same time, as we saw at a recent demo in NYC. Or you could play cyberpunk while someone else is perfecting their Rocket League skills on another device. Since all rendering and network processing takes place in your home, Nyx also offers lower latency than traditional cloud gaming which relies on servers hundreds of kilometers away.
However, concept is the key word here. Alienware reps didn’t want to tell us what was driving the mysterious Nyx server that looked like a giant gaming desktop. And while Engadget’s Cherlynn Low and I could play Cyberpunk 2077 and Rocket League on a single TV at the same time, the games played in tiny windows. It wasn’t nearly the elegant half-frame experience that Dell shows in promotional images.
Similar to Alienwares Concept UFO, a Switch-like portable gaming PC that was first demonstrated two years ago, Nyx may never see the light of day. But we could see elements of this in future products, much like the use of the Nyx UFO controller demonstrates. Finally, the game server concept could simplify streaming from your rig. That’s something we can already do with Steam’s remote play feature, but maybe Dell could make it a little easier to play all of your tracks in your home. The company says it is also exploring ways to play four games at once, as well as methods of collecting all of your titles no matter where you installed them.
Dell
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