I also think, like you, that OcculusRift will be the big game changer that may spell the doom for the consoles (because are far from being powerful enough for these kind of things).
As for the ratings system, sure, it's possible but it does not mean it's not confusing for consumers, and it adds another barrier to adoption - that's basically NOT mainstream. And you mentioned Windows performance ratings as a reference, but that's a failed example since nobody ever used these numbers anywhere.
If they go for categories/benchmarking, then they will need to have a kind of authority in place to attribute such numbers, and Valve's message so far is very against centralization. So I don't expect them to lead such efforts. If they ever did, I believe they would make it simple: SteamBox Level A to play these games only and do streaming, SteamBox Level B to play all GPU intensive games... etc...
EDIT; I don't think Dell will get rich, and neither most of the hardware manufacturers involved for that matter. SteamOS is no more no less than an Android OS-like for the PC, and that will push prices down for manufacturers which will fight hard to make small margins on large volumes. It will only be profitable for very few players.
The current consoles are plenty powerful for this type of thing, don't forget they are basically just gaming PCs in compact cases this generation and share almost the exact same hardware (Xbox One and PS4).
Really ? Even the Occulus Rift co-founder mentioned they are far away from where they need to be.
WHen you want to do virtual reality, you need constant 60 fps (or more, ideally) in order to give a good impression of movement in all directions. XBone and PS4 are already struggling to display a SINGLE 1080p screen at 60 fps already, let's not dream too much. They are massively underpowered, and the AMD APU is notorious for being mid-range in terms of performance at best in 2013. Give it one more year and even the cheapest gaming PCs will be more powerful than them.
One of my coworkers has a Occulus dev kit.. I'm pretty sure it's just a single screen in there so 1080p Occulus would only require a single 1080p stream as far as I know, which current consoles are more then capable of.
As for the ratings system, sure, it's possible but it does not mean it's not confusing for consumers, and it adds another barrier to adoption - that's basically NOT mainstream. And you mentioned Windows performance ratings as a reference, but that's a failed example since nobody ever used these numbers anywhere.
If they go for categories/benchmarking, then they will need to have a kind of authority in place to attribute such numbers, and Valve's message so far is very against centralization. So I don't expect them to lead such efforts. If they ever did, I believe they would make it simple: SteamBox Level A to play these games only and do streaming, SteamBox Level B to play all GPU intensive games... etc...
EDIT; I don't think Dell will get rich, and neither most of the hardware manufacturers involved for that matter. SteamOS is no more no less than an Android OS-like for the PC, and that will push prices down for manufacturers which will fight hard to make small margins on large volumes. It will only be profitable for very few players.