Price-wise, it's a large step up from the latest gaming consoles, though. The bare NUC is $650, and Intel says a typical build with 16GB RAM, a 256GB SSD and Windows 10 would run $999. Should you go for external discreet graphics via the Razer Core (now on pre-order for $500), and an NVIDIA GTX 970 graphics card (the minimum for an Oculus Rift and HTC Vive) you're in for another $850. That makes the total investment $1,850 and you could easily build a much better PC for that price.

However, NUCs do have their place. If you don't have a lot of space and are fine with the Iris Pro graphics, you'll get an okay gaming PC and extremely competent media server. The NUC goes on pre-order at Newegg in April for $650 and will ship in May 2016.