Steam Machine launches today • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#801

Post by frollogaston » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:24 AM UTC

starkrights wrote: post #788

giancarlostoro wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling it would have cost drastically less if we didn't have a RAM / storage crisis, which is really sad.

I’ve seen from a couple of places that a valver has commented that they can’t say exactly what the original price goal was, but that you can get an idea from the price increase of the steamdeck (~$200 usd) That wouldve put the steam machine somewhere around the $800 mark for the base edition, which would’ve been so, so much sweeter of a value proposition.

I feel bad for them running into this shortage right before launch. Steam Machine was announced before all this.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#802

Post by leokennis » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:24 AM UTC

imustbeevil wrote: post #124

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #93

This is a weird thing to call out, when there's so much else to talk about (price, specs, etc) buuuuuut- Check out the gameplay video partway down the page, where the two people are on the couch playing Cuphead. Right under "Your Steam library in more places." It's just... a real clip of real people playing a real game and reacting in a real way. It's funny. I know it's stupid to call out, but how many exaggerated ve…

I'm not sure I understand, I'm just seeing a very clearly staged 2 second clip of product usage and reaction like you'd see in any commercial.

Days of our Lives is staged and so is The Godfather.

Yet one is not like the other.

Valve staged a scene of two people playing a game like how most people play a game. Just like that, there are many small human touches to this Steam Machine page. The messy cable picture where they show off the led strip, the honest and plain FAQ. Etc.

We don't have to glaze Valve for doing this, but we can still appreciate it.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#803

Post by fsadsadsdasdas » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:30 AM UTC

pseudosavant wrote: post #72

I know the price for PC parts is terrible these days, but $1049 for a 6-core 16GB RAM, with a 512GB SSD, and no controller, is a terrible value. For reference, the PS5 Pro has more than twice the number GPU CUs, an 8-core CPU, a 2TB SSD, a controller, and costs $899.

[flagged]

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#804

Post by frollogaston » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:39 AM UTC

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've only ever played a couple of games with kernel-level anticheat. The rest have some other reason they don't work in Linux.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#805

Post by nottorp » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:45 AM UTC

koolala wrote: post #308

nottorp wrote: post #253

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.

You can, but why would you when all steam deck/machine certified games will run fine on this hardware?

Unless you buy it because it's an x86 based mac mini. That may be true for quite a few early adopters, who knows.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#806

Post by nottorp » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:52 AM UTC

flocked wrote: post #468

Crazy. A Mac Mini costing nearly half as much as based on the released benchmarks, the same performance playing games with Crossover.

Will Crossover survive the dropping of Rosetta 2 that is coming?

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#807

Post by petterroea » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:59 AM UTC

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…

Living in Japan, most popular concerts are handled this way. It really really sucks to not get a ticket, and it sucks even more that we need to do it this way because of scalpers. But hey, if it means I overall have a better chance of getting tickets (at list price at that), hey, I guess it is worth it.

I wish there were better ways of defeating scalpers.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#808

Post by rsynnott » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 7:01 AM UTC

redox99 wrote: post #156

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #93

This is a weird thing to call out, when there's so much else to talk about (price, specs, etc) buuuuuut- Check out the gameplay video partway down the page, where the two people are on the couch playing Cuphead. Right under "Your Steam library in more places." It's just... a real clip of real people playing a real game and reacting in a real way. It's funny. I know it's stupid to call out, but how many exaggerated ve…

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

Yes, all ads are made by sampling 100 users of the product at random.

I mean, you could say this of I think pretty much literally any ad. Were you previously unaware of advertising?

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#809

Post by fxwin » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 7:02 AM UTC

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…

> Those are specs that belong on a laptop or a lowend console offering like the Series S.

Unfortunately, valve (and we consumers) have to recalibrate our understanding of which prices qualify as "insulting".

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#810

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 7:03 AM UTC

anthonyrstevens wrote: post #692

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why a randomized reservation order? Lies, they just want to protect themselves from the German Tank Problem [0] type of analysis. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem

I thought about this, and can not tell if you are being serious or not. I can see arguments for either.

All the best jokes are only part jokes.