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Steam Machine launches today

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine launches today

#451

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.

I was wondering if this would be a worthwhile upgrade to my Legion Go Z1 Extreme.

Sounds like it's in the same vicinity for graphics power. Not worth $1k for a tiny bit more RAM.

I do wonder if this will give me any useful presets, in the same way the Steam Deck does. I have no interest in tweaking graphics settings one at a time.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#452

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…

The PS5 base has 2 more physical cores (4 more threads) than this Steam Machine so I'm not optimistic that the Steam Machine outperforms the PS5. (both "semicustom AMD" so probably effectively the same architecture)

Zen 2 vs Zen 4 though. pS5 probably slower for CPU tasks

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#454

> 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 would be curious how the public would react to a Dutch auction, where Valve launches the console at a $10,000 price tag, and every ~hour drops the price by $100 until they are sold out. It creates the illusion that buyers are "breaking the line" when buying high, so it's their fault (not valves) for the high selling price. This would also eliminate scalpers.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#455

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…

A PlayStation 5 also requires you now to be online every so often (30 days?) for even your single player games.

This is completely untrue and was based on some weird TikTok rumors.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve gets it. I very much want to support them and vote with my wallet. Unfortunately the Steam machine isn't a good fit for me. I will buy the frame in a heartbeat though. HMD with a FOSS OS? That's in its own class.

One can still be a billionaire and not use shady tactics.

For at least a short while. I'm not sure it's a stable configuration.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#457
My first thought was "I wonder how this would work as a small-factor game dev machine" and lo and behold, there is a clip of someone working in Godot running a debug version of their game. Very cool to see Valve market this as Linux PC rather than strictly gaming.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#458
post #428

I respect what Valve is doing here and I loved the Steam Deck but a prebuilt desktop PC with 16 GB system memory and 512 GB storage for $1,000+ is insulting. Those are specs that belong on a laptop or a lowend console offering like the Series S. 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 dev…

Here, try your hand at assembling one much cheaper at the same performance:

https://pcpartpicker.com/

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#459

> 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…

Because they want to maximize longterm profitability and believe (which makes sense to me) this approach would harm that
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