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Steam Machine launches today

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine launches today

#291

Post by ajmurmann »

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,…

Does it solve scalping? It seems like there is still money in sighing up with the goal to resell. Granted this is better in that I don't have to race the scalpers.

Till the sales price matches the market value scalping will exist. The best way to address that is a vickery auction. Till then scalping will continue.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#292

Post by Elidrake24 »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #148
raincole wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you mean by 'killed.' It'd be sold out faster than hot cakes.

No way. $1100+ to play games with medium/high settings at 1080p? You can probably buy a prebuilt tower that does better than that at that price.

It isn't difficult to fact check this; the markup is ~$80 from what I can buy independently, not factoring in general extra cost for mini-pc parts.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#293

Post by benoau »

raffael_de wrote: post #229

What is the appeal of Steam Machine as a dedicated gaming device? Isn't it going to be old in a few years and then you have to get rid of it because upgrading components isn't a viable option? Isn't that quite the opposite of anything that deserves to be associated with them term "hacker"?

> Isn't it going to be old in a few years and then you have to get rid of it because upgrading components isn't a viable option?

I expect to get the rest of this decade out of my Steam Deck so IDK, very different to my normal expectations for a computer. The Steam Deck also defines a floor that will allow compatible games to be very performant on the Steam Machine so I think that will help the Steam Machine have a decent lifespan.

I also think on some level we need to start resigning ourselves to getting 10+ years out of our computers!

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#294

Post by maccard »

inigyou wrote: post #234
robmccoll wrote: post #32

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…

They make different performance playstation 5s?! What happenes to the console compatibility story? You used to expect any game to work on any console because they were all near identical.

It got messy but pretty much all ps4 games work on ps5, and all ps5 games run on the ps5 and ps5 pro. On Xbox, everything runs on series S and series X.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#296

Post by sanskritical »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #10

I know they will sell, but at this price point I don't understand who is supposed to be the target for this. Either you want a gaming computer, and you'll get a much better one that can be upgraded in the future for the same price, or you want a console, and you'll never pay a grand for it. 4 years old hardware and poor connectivity.

I want a simple UNIX workstation that "just works". Apple broke this promise to me with Tahoe, where horrific design decisions compounded the bugs on essential peripherals (Tahoe began spinning up and down my external raid array to sleep constantly, for no reason, making extremely loud noises as the drives repeatedly if it's idle, forcing me to constantly touch files in a while loop over dozens of partitions -- also I have a few petabyte of storage and it now takes ages to mount every reboot, as now with Tahoe Spotlight indexing is done as part of the mounting process and I can't opt out of this behavior and I'm in a warzone where power outages necessitating shutdowns are frequent). I have since used a docked Steam Deck as my daily driver and everything I want just works! It's now my UNIX desktop OS of choice. I've been on the Mac since OS X but Tahoe was so bad that now I consider an operating system designed for wasting time gaming a more serious and less disruptive option to my daily workflow. Heck of a job you're doing, Tim Apple!

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#297

Post by tuna74 »

asattarmd wrote: post #189
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.

They need to do that because, in some sense, they're competing with Gaming PCs, not really with Gaming consoles. Gaming consoles sell their consoles at a discounted price because they can recoup a lot of it when selling games. Steam can't have a markup on games because they share their marketplace with other PCs.

Steam has a very high markup compared to its competitors like Epic Games Store.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#298

Post by terribleperson »

saltamimi wrote: post #266

It's just dead-on-arrival. I'm not convinced this hardware is "an extension of PC gaming, not a console" when the hardware is generations out of date. To credit Microsoft, Sony, and other players, the reality is that unless you are "in the game" for decades, you HAVE to provide a convincing differentiator from the other console markets. Steam had this with the Steam Deck and personally, I see the world moving to thin…

I think calling the hardware generations out of date when it performs on par with a PS5 on new games is a bit inaccurate.

I would, admittedly, be interested in an anticheat that reboots the machine for deck into a secure mode.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#299

Post by koolala »

retired wrote: post #186
HeavyStorm wrote: post #18

> who are we trying to tell you how to use your computer? Valve is still great.

Isn’t this industry standard? How many PCs have locked boot loaders? Edit, reply to Rohansi as I am rate limited, I’m talking about gaming PCs not consoles.

I can't believe all the replies who see no problem with a company completely controlling their device like it makes no difference.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#300

Post by saltamimi »

buellerbueller wrote: post #290
saltamimi wrote: post #266

It's just dead-on-arrival. I'm not convinced this hardware is "an extension of PC gaming, not a console" when the hardware is generations out of date. To credit Microsoft, Sony, and other players, the reality is that unless you are "in the game" for decades, you HAVE to provide a convincing differentiator from the other console markets. Steam had this with the Steam Deck and personally, I see the world moving to thin…

>It's just dead-on-arrival...the hardware is generations out of date Some people say this same thing about the Nintendo Switch and its successor, but here we are, with the former closing in on highest selling console of all time, and the latter tracking above that.

I don't remember anyone saying this about the Switch and at the time, the reviews for North America at least were very positive.
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