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Steam Machine launches today

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine launches today

#461

Post by dijit »

gonzalohm wrote: post #307
prhn wrote: post #96

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…

You are lucky. A lot of the games I play with friends use kernel level anticheat crap that doesn't work on Linux

I work in AAA; more people using Linux means we'll actually get buy-in for working with Linux as a platform.

Right now Producers and HQ don't want to support it because "theres no money there" and they're bolstered by a crew of developers who have only ever touched Windows who will reinforce the notion that Windows is all you need (because they've sunk their entire career into the platform).

I remember bringing this topic up a decade ago and basically being laughed out of the room, slowly those laughs will become uncomfortable silences, then token support from the passionate, then proper initiatives.

It takes time, yeah, but we're so much further today already than we were 10+years ago.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#462

Post by elAhmo »

branon wrote: 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…

My 15 year old Mac Mini has the same amount of RAM as this machine in 2026. I bought it used around 7-8 years ago for 200 EUR.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#463

Post by user43928 »

aeturnum wrote: post #433
branon wrote: 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…

This device does sit between mac-mini-esq lower power devices and compact enthusiast builds and, like the Steam Deck, it's an attempt to build a new segment. That said, if you think paying $1000 for this kind of hardware is some kind of exception, I think you should go take a look at what you can get on the prebuilt gaming PC market. You get a little less because the Steam Machine has a small footprint, but if you're…

No it does not. The Late 2024 M4 Mac mini benchmarks x1.6 faster in ST and 2x in MT.

The Mac mini costs $600.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#464

Post by kbenson »

oh_no wrote: post #370
tmoertel wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

so i think you're a bit off. it's s/g but g is legit accounts who want to buy the steam machine. we could say it's 5000 scalper accounts, and 50000000 gamer accounts. but it's not 5000/50000000, it's like 4500/20000. which isn't bad! but scalpers will still be way over-represented, because they'll be trying to buy it when most steam accounts won't. now one fuzz factor is the queue system, as you're not putting down m…

The lower g is, the lower the profit margin for s is, so so the fewer resources they will put into it. Unless there's unlikely to be more releases later or g are not cost sensitive and want it at a premium, this neatly scales to lower numbers.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#465

Post by GZGavinZhao »

gonzalohm wrote: post #307
prhn wrote: post #96

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…

You are lucky. A lot of the games I play with friends use kernel level anticheat crap that doesn't work on Linux

*sad poro noises

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#466

Post by jitl »

himata4113 wrote: post #154
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…

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.

if i was 10 years younger, sure I’d build my own. my roommates and i build our own gaming PCS, router, nas, home theater pc, we ran our own ethernet through the house. we ran openbsd on the router and freebsd on the nas, for fun.

i’ve changed. i really do not want to spend any extra time on yak shaving outside the job.

i am happy to pay $1500 for someone i trust with a fantastic track record to do it for me. plus its so cute!!! it will look great in my new apartment with the red faceplate. most gaming things are not cute.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#467

Post by protimewaster »

rgreekguy wrote: post #445
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…

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

Doesn't Steam do that too? For a long time, offline mode in Steam didn't work for many people, and, when it did, it wasn't reliable for being offline for long periods of time. Is that all sorted?

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#469

Post by mannanj »

srmatto wrote: post #183
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…

I would love to see a generalized FOSS reservation system that could be used for just about anything that would help address the issues Valve listed. It could be as simple as a short lived deployment (1,3,7,14 days) that writes out the entries to a Google Sheets. I have encountered so many people trying to come up with their own approach to this problem that I think it would be worth solving. Maybe I can find time to…

Would love to know if you decide to work on this, or if otherwise, want to collaborate. feel free to email me hello@mannan.is - or maybe I'll begin work on this before you and we can share notes

edit: I don't particularly care for Google Sheets, just the idea of solving the underlying problem.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#470

Post by ocdtrekkie »

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,…

Scalping is much easier to solve, people just wouldn't like it: Lock the device to the purchasing Steam account for a year.
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