421–430 of 1001 posts
16 Gb system ram... i'd bet that they originally planned it with 32. Note that you can order more storage but not more RAM. Although that may also be to force vendors to target this exact architecture. Also: oooh internal power supply! Someone thought about elegance too.
You can upgrade the ram yourself.
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I don't understand, what is so special about this? They are selling a x86 PC. All x86 PCs sold by everyone are open and you can install whatever you want. It's commodity hardware packaged into a small box. There is nothing special here. Trying to sell it as it if Valve are more consumer friendly here is nonsense.
Every console on the market right now is locked-down proprietary garbage, that's the basic reality. The PlayStation 5, the Xbox One, they are also technically x86 PCs as they run on x86 processors, but they are specifically locked down to prevent any use outside of their narrow use cases that are optimized to make them money. Valve is really the only company that's developing proper consoles with a custom operating s…
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"?
Do you usually want to upgrade components in a console?
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I don't understand, what is so special about this? They are selling a x86 PC. All x86 PCs sold by everyone are open and you can install whatever you want. It's commodity hardware packaged into a small box. There is nothing special here. Trying to sell it as it if Valve are more consumer friendly here is nonsense.
I think what's special here is: 1) Full compatibility with SteamOS. You won't have to fiddle with drivers/hardware/whatever to get it working[1]. 2) The physical hardware is maximally condensed, more so than you'd be able to do yourself with a SFF build. I'd have definitely considered this if I wasn't already doing my own SFF stuff. Gaming on the Deck is a delight and I'd love that console-esque experience for my pri…
So does the typical gamer who's not a nerd like GP. I'm not framing it as an insult, more like a reminder: we infamously ignore the power of brands and sensible defaults chosen for you.
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…
I think this product is going to be hamstrung by its attempts to present as a midpoint between a PC and a console. The way this is being achieved seems to be by selling a device with the specifications of a console but the price tag of a PC.
Valve already did the "this is a lowend device and that's okay" thing with the Steam Deck, and got away scot-free because nobody expected a handheld and people didn't have a ton of preconceived notions. The Deck was also a better value since it was (prior to the price hike) priced reasonably for its specifications.
The desktop PC and/or living room console modalities are both significantly more stratified. People have solidly defined expectations about price-to-performance-to-usability ratios in both of these sectors, and I worry this doesn't go far enough in any particular direction to meet the demands of either market.
Leaves me wondering who exactly this is for.
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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,…
It's surprising that the whole Western world is discovering the threat of organized or scripted scalping just now, when it's been a problem in places like Japan for over a decade. Account age requirements, lotteries, quick subject matter quizzes to chase away hired line-sitters, hidden ID code on tickets to ban scalpers on auction site pics, randomized queues for sales page etc etc has all been in use for years. It's…
> 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…
I don't get why companies don't take advantage of the demand. For example: Start the bidding at BASE_PRICE (BP) + 2400. Then reduce the price by $1 every 3mins over the course of 5 days. Until the BP is met and then just carry on queuing. You could buy it early if you want it that much or just wait an extra couple of days and end up in the queue at the BP. I don't know if it would create pressure on that second it ti…