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Steam Machine launches today

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine launches today

#611

Post by Gigachad »

ReliantGuyZ wrote: post #249
ElijahLynn wrote: post #235

Why so many USB-A ports and only one USB-C?

Because most PC peripherals (mice, keyboards, microphones, controllers, USB headphones, detachable hard drives) are still USB-A on the other end of their cable. Yes this is changing, but in this case I appreciate them acknowledging the reality on the ground and not creating a situation where there are many dongles afoot.

Most peripherals these days have a fully detachable cable so it can be whatever you want. Usually they include some garbage 10 cent C to A cable in the box that you throw in the bin and replace with a good quality C to C cable.

I could understand having both C and A on the machine, but having the one C port on the back seems like a mistake since that's the port I'd think you'd most want quick access to to plug in flash drives and such if you wanted to copy files from a phone or laptop. While the back ports are where you'd stick the fixed receivers.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#612

Post by notnmeyer »

xtracto wrote: post #556
notnmeyer wrote: post #547

anyone talking about hw performance is not the intended market. if you have a gaming pc, like building systems, etc, you are not the intended market. this is for folks who want steam games in their living room and dont want to build their own system.

I've built my own PC several times and am a hardcore Linux enthusiast. However at this point in my life, the best gaming experience i get is from XBox live/online subscription. I got to the browser, click on a game and start playing without caring for anything else. The most complicated thing i have to do is connect an Xbox gamepad for games that require it (I prefer keyboard +mouse whenever possible). I wish Steam h…

yeah, so this was exactly my scenario. i have an xbox and ps5, but bought a steamdeck about 6 months ago to play indie and windows games... its been utterly amazing. i dont care about specs, or graphics, or framerates (within reason). playing on steam still feels like it did when i was young.

maybe im misunderstanding, but you exactly like the person that a steam machine is for.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#613

Post by mariopt »

butlike wrote: post #212

The only thing that I get with consoles that I don't get with the Steam Machine is a guarantee; a GUARANTEE that the games I buy will play on the system. If I but a game and it says PS5, I know it will play. A list of specs on the Steam Machine landing page does not absolve this for Valve.

Now game devs can optimised their game for it and Steam Machine will get royal treatment. It's not unusual for a PS5 game to run slow on a PC with much better hardware due to not being optimised. The Nintendo switch is a great example, pretty old hardware but the games run well (for their intended experience).

Many people are complaining about the price but you can bring you entire steam game collection and even use as a PC if you want, I sold my PS5 once it became a useless brick cause Sony prevents you from running Linux.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#615

Post by bschwindHN »

Melonai wrote: post #572
inigyou wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess, DAWs? Have you tried Reaper (FOSS) or Bitwig Studio (commercial)?

As a sibling comment pointed out, Reaper is not FOSS, it's fully proprietary. What makes it stand out is its great Linux support, and very generous licensing. If you want to venture into the FOSS DAW realm on Linux you have to go to LMMS and Ardour. I've played around with them, they're a little bare-bones, but they do work. Issue is I haven't been able to use them properly, because I just can't stand to look at them…

You're not alone, I'm also constantly pixel peeping and disappointed with the UIs of many open source (and closed source!) tools.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#616

Post by fdye »

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,…

I've never understood why anti-scalpers just don't work backwards from shipping address. Are these scalpers all really keeping hundreds of actual physical addresses they can receive packages at? Like if you see the limited product has 100 orders going to the same building, or apartment, or whatever then flag it before it goes out. Limit PO Boxes, etc.

Sure they can find mules to buy+receive one and then sell to the scalper, but the more steps you put in the better. Same for the people scamming Sam's club by buying memberships, ordering limited items, then refunding the membership. Just lock orders to members older then >1yr and make sure it only ships to the actual physical address attached to the membership. Flag multiple memberships at the same address.

I've run a modest shipping op and the second I saw even a couple orders of the same product going to the same address I would halt it and do additional verification.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#617

Post by cassianoleal »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #548
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…

Xbox 360 controllers (and their knock-offs) are still extremely common choices for PC gamers who want a controller. Xbox because they have good windows plug-and-play, 360 because there are still plenty of $20-ish dollar ones available, as opposed to the ~$40-50 range for the Xbox One controllers. Wired Xbox 360 controllers (and most of their off brand alternatives) have a non-removable USB-A cable.

There's plenty of cheap adapters for these use cases.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#618

Post by Rapzid »

annzabelle wrote: post #537
d3Xt3r wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is nice But this is not nice: > This item is not available for purchase in your region

I moved to New Zealand recently from the US and am now seeing that everywhere. A lot of the time some local ecommerce platform imports the Australian version of most electronics with a markup, but we don't have official retailers for a lot of products, most notably Pixel phones. Also no Apple stores, though there are official retailers for Apple products.

It's way, way better than it was 15 years ago. Amazon and Amazon AU, Costco, etc. TradeMe for the cheaper stuff you don't want to wait for shipping from China.

But yeah the selection and availability is nowhere near the USA or even say.. Indonesia.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#619

Post by mega_dean »

brechin wrote: post #531
redox99 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you sampled 100 steam players at random, it would look nothing like that.

Based on https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ I would imagine out of 100 Steam players, most are playing at a Windows gaming computer with an Intel CPU, a bunch with Windows/AMD, then a few with a Mac, then one with a Steam Deck. Most of those are probably NOT plugged into a TV, so in that way I agree that these are not typical Steam users. That's why the Steam Machine was developed, to bring gaming back to the c…

> bring gaming back to the couch in a way that the Steam Link didn't succeed at.

Also in the way that the Ouya didn’t succeed at - their kickstarter tagline was “Cracking open the last closed platform: the TV”. I actually had completely forgotten about the Ouya, but the wording of your comment made me go look it up.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of...

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#620

Post by sib301 »

ZekeSulastin wrote: post #545
Peaches4Rent wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Just built a pc this Jan. Ram and GPU prices are insane. This is what you get for the price. Maybe a 100-50 max difference. I've been looking at building a TV box for a while and this was the number it was hitting

You did look at the Steam Machine's specs/benchmarks, right? I'm fairly certain that the build you just made well exceeds what Valve put out.

Incorrect go spec something on new egg and you’ll get a very similar number.
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