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Steam Machine launches today

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine launches today

#371

Post by baud147258 »

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 I'm not convinced this hardware is "an extension of PC gaming, not a console" when the hardware is generations out of date.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…

> In my opinion, it would've been worth the money to just buy a gaming PC, put it in a garage, hidden room, etc with the networking gear, then stream it over the network to a Steam Link

Well if you scroll down the page, it's presented as a selling point of the machine

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#373

Post by treis »

dylanz wrote: post #313
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 I'm not convinced this hardware is "an extension of PC gaming, not a console" when the hardware is generations out of date.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 it's far from dead-on-arrival. I don't want to buy a PC, put it in a garage, etc. I want a little box I can easily hook up to my TV and play Steam games on. This scratches that itch. I'm old and want convenience. I know a lot of other people in my peer group who are going to pick one up too. Also I don't play any competitive games where I care about anti-cheat. I just want to play my RPG/JRPG's on a big scree…

I think dead on arrival is too extreme but the niche is certainly hard to see. The "just works" crowd will buy consoles and the "max performance" crowd won't be happy with this value. The niche is something like "willing to tolerate some headaches but not so much as to build my own PC". That exists but seems small.

Feels like they should have gone cheap. Undercut the switch and be the cheapest way to play games on your TV. We're pretty far past performance equalling more entertainment. A 150-200 box to play indie side scrollers is a niche that exists.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#374

Post by Eric_WVGG »

diath wrote: post #132
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…

Why is it surprising? This is essentially a pre-built PC in a small form factor and most PC peripherals are USB-A.

I haven’t seen a new product with USB-A in years. It’s long past time to move on.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#375

Post by jgon »

raincole wrote: post #101
radium3d wrote: post #46

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.

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

If you make 5 of a product and put a bunch of marketing behind it you can sell out too. People are going to use "selling out" as some sort of barometer of success but its like the lizard-man veto in politics. You'll always find some small percentage of people who will vote for the motion "the nation's leaders are a group of lizard people", but you can't use that as any sort of signal regarding the validity of the claim of the motion.

Valve could have priced this at 5k and probably found a couple thousand buyers, and if they only made a few thousand boxes they could claim it sold out then too. This thing is DOA in terms of having any major success or impact on the gaming market when I can walk down to my neighborhood PC store and either build a better PC myself for less money (at off the shelf markups no less!!!) or get a pre-built with better specs that costs less. I could buy a P5Pro and a Switch 2 combined for less money than the 2TB version, and the PS5Pro has 2tb as well!

Its actually mind boggling that Valve is coming in with a less economic product that a fucking hand-built premade at my local PC store.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#376

Post by aNapierkowski »

theshrike79 wrote: post #306
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…

I have about 500 games in my Steam library and maaaybe 20% of them are available for the PS5 (which I own). And I've paid full retail price for maybe two of them, the vast majority is from 50-90% sales. You don't get those for the PS5 that much. I also don't have any need for a "Gaming PC", what I've always wanted is a console but with my Steam games. This is it.

yeah i wonder if SteamOS gets a more official generic release or if it stays pointed at Steamdeck and Steam machine directly the only differences between this and a "Gaming PC" are the OS & tiny form factor (which are both quite relevant)

but youre exactly the target market for this it sounds like

I think you could kind of get there with a gaming pc that boots up steam big picture immediately? but it would feel hacky vs this for sure

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#377

Post by kllrnohj »

retired wrote: post #163
himata4113 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am more surprised there's people lining up to buy this when it's genuinely cheaper to get a used PC off a local marketplace. I feel like this is unnecessary as I am pretty sure they'll be able to fill it in one shipment.

For €1039 you can even get a mini-ITX PC that fits nicely in your living room. Install SteamOS to get a similar experience. Only thing you will not get is the HDMI CEC functionality.

Or buy this and get the exact same thing, but without building and parting it our yourself? It's still an open computer, not a locked down console. The price reflects that reality. It's not subsidized because you actually just properly own it.

The price of this steam machine is a rounding error away from the build it yourself DIY price. It's not marked up, this is just what PC components actually cost these days :/

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#378

Post by simpaticoder »

Most people don't know if they'll like the living-room PC gaming experience and at this price not enough people will even try. That's sad to me. It could be that with the right hardware and software the experience would be even better than a console, and if that happens then all the other good features of the Steam Machine (it's relative openness, the fact that you own it, etc) could shine. But without proving that people really like the experience, the rest is irrelevant, and lots of early adopters were just priced out of the experiment.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#380

Post by ecshafer »

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 see the world moving to thin clients that play games via some remote desktop infrastructure.

You can barely code in such an environment to a satisfactory degree. You want to stream 4k games with low latency?

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