Steam Machine launches today

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

sudobash1 wrote: post #103

I am pleased to see hardware not being locked down as a selling point: > Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it's still your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer? It feels very commonsense that you should be able to run whatever you want on the computer that you have purchased, but it is surprisingly uncommon.

Post by sparkling » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

nananana9 wrote: post #175

emadabdulrahim wrote: post #141

I'm not familiar with SteamOS and Valve hardware in general. Could I play something like Overwatch on this, and connect keyboard and mouse? Could I play other PC games like World of Warcraft?

It's just a Linux box, you can do anything that you can on any other Linux machine (including install Windows). Linux more or less runs most Windows games. The ones that don't run are ones where the developer is going out of their way to make them not run - mostly with kernel-mode anti-cheats that just find themselves staring at the wrong kernel. Steam makes that pretty seamless and Steam games "just work". For non-S…

Post by binarycleric » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

Post by mort96 » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

YuechenLi wrote: post #89

Surprised that they have 4 USB-A and only 1 USB-C. With their power profile, Steam Machine should be powerable by a single USB-C cable on extended power range which should reduce the need for the power supply altogether and greatly simplify mechanical as well as thermal design, although the power electronic design would be more complex as a result. I would also be expecting Wifi 7 support as well as unified memory co…

Post by inigyou » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

tmoertel wrote: post #146

sailingparrot wrote: post #38

> Why a randomized reservation order? [...] we wanted to create a system that would be less frustrating and more fair for everyone. A launch that starts at a specific day and time tends to reward bots, people with fast internet connections, talented gaming fingers for quick F5/refresh reactions, and those who can schedule their life around that moment. By accepting reservation signups over the course of a few days, w…

Yeah, this is a promising solution to scalping. Previously, if you had only small numbers of consoles available at launch, scalpers and their bots would claim a large share of them. With Valve's new policy, that share is reduced to s/g , where s is the number of verified Steam accounts controlled by scalpers and g is the number of legit gamer accounts. Since s is likely to be much less than g , s/g is close to zero,…