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Steam Machine launches today

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine launches today

#91

Thanks to Valve, I've now been using Omarchy as my operating system for months now. Gaming just works on Linux now. It's crazy, used to be a pipe dream! I'm buying the Steam Machine as well to game on the couch. Give me 4k 60fps and that's all I need. The Steam Controller is also fantastic shape on my hands, very comfortable.

Care to explain what Omarchy has to do with Valve?

[flagged]

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#93
This is a weird thing to call out, when there's so much else to talk about (price, specs, etc) buuuuuut-

Check out the gameplay video partway down the page, where the two people are on the couch playing Cuphead. Right under "Your Steam library in more places."

It's just... a real clip of real people playing a real game and reacting in a real way. It's funny. I know it's stupid to call out, but how many exaggerated versions of this scene have you seen before? And Valve is smart enough to say "Let's just film two people playing a real game and snip a nice, realistic reaction shot from it."

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#94

I imagine Valve Software wanted to release the Steam Machine for $549-$699. The great RAM hoarding of 2025-2026 killed this product on arrival sadly.

"killed" is a bit of a stretch. High prices on all gear is here to stay. This is the new normal. Unless that simply means that nobody buys consoles/pc's.

But you cant compare the price point with what it used to cost and imagine that its overpriced now and that people will seek alternatives. There aren't any cheaper alternatives.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#95
I hope they will release a version with a replaceable CPU and GPU. For a company that does so well on repair ability I don’t understand why they solder everything on the board. I prefer a mini-ITX system where I can easily change the components.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#96
I want to buy one just to raise the signal that Linux support is important.

When these machines were announced I switched to Fedora as a daily driver on my high end gaming rig.

It’s been awesome. I still have to go back to Windows for music production unfortunately. I may switch to Mac for that so I can completely abandon Windows.

I run an optical HDMI cable from my office to my TV and get to play games and use Linux in 77”.

Something feels awesome about that.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#97
post #84

For reference, a PlayStation 5 is $600-650 for the base models (lower performance than Steam Machine) and $900 for the Pro model (likely higher performance). I know this is a PC and thus an open platform, but for most buyers in living room gaming, that's the competition. I don't think this will reach mass market success, but I'm not sure that was the goal. Who are they selling to? Note: I ask as someone with a Steamd…

Unlike a PS5, a PC has all the games that I want to play. And to drive home the irony, right now I'm actually using my Steam Deck to play a game that was originally for the PS3 (Valkyria Chronicles). Legitimately purchased, even!

Now that Bloodborne is "on PC" (wink wink) there's kinda no reason to own a PS4 or PS5 in my opinion. Persona 5 was the only other holdout, but now P5R has a great PC-native release.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#99

For reference, a PlayStation 5 is $600-650 for the base models (lower performance than Steam Machine) and $900 for the Pro model (likely higher performance). I know this is a PC and thus an open platform, but for most buyers in living room gaming, that's the competition. I don't think this will reach mass market success, but I'm not sure that was the goal. Who are they selling to? Note: I ask as someone with a Steamd…

My guess are people who want to PC game but don't want to deal with building a PC themselves - there's a decent market of pre-built gaming PCs that this would be competitive with. https://www.newegg.com/Gaming-Desktop-PC/SubCategory/ID-3742

And there's a valid market there, but as someone who just spent half my Saturday morning debugging a CPU throttling issue on my kid's 2020-vintage Lenovo Legion laptop, I feel like a pre-built is in some ways the worst of both worlds, like you don't get the savings and fine-tuning that is something you assembled yourself, but you still get all the fun of debugging driver issues, weird performance stalls, and who knows what else.

That said, I've never had a Steam Deck or tried to seriously game on Linux, so I may be out of touch with how much smoother the picture is in an all-Proton world.

(the laptop issue turned out to be something in the firmware asserting BC PROCHOT for some reason; for now we can periodically clear it with the ThrottleStop utility, but who knows what the actual underlying problem is)

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#100
My steam deck is underpowered as a living room gaming PC.

Wish it was cheaper but would look forward to a “just works” experience including sleep/instant game resume.

Add my thousands of already owned Steam games and it makes me excited for a great couch gaming experience. It’s the reason I don’t get a PS5/Switch cause I don’t wanna rebuy all the games and they are not on sale as much.

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