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Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

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Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#91

Post by wildzzz »

jimmydorry wrote: post #85
AlanAzarkin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Those guys put together as many as four configurations that are cheaper than the Steam Machine https://www.digitalfoundry.net/features/build-your-own-steam...

These options are up to 10 times bigger than the SteamMachine, approach almost twice the power draw, and are up to 2.8 times louder than the SteamMachine. They aren't even close to comparable... so why exactly are they making this apples to oranges comparison? No one is assembling a PC to put under their TV, and even if they are, ignoring the obvious form factor, heat and loudness issues... they'll most likely still…

The power consumption is a little silly to compare unless you are operating solely off-grid. It would take a few years of gaming daily for a couple of hours a day to make up for the price difference (assuming $0.20/kWh).

Physical size is definitely a bigger concern, nothing can beat the Steam Machine. But I do prefer the long and thin design like the PlayStation series has always used. It's easier to fit that on the shelves inside a TV stand that were designed to hold cable boxes and DVD players or it can fit upright behind a TV. I'm not sure if I actually have room to put a Steam Machine behind my TV without it overhanging the edge a bit.

As for loudness, that's a bit more subjective. It depends on how far away you are from the PC and how loud you play sound or if you're using a headset. Just totally based on my experience, games that are very quiet are usually the low-resource indie games that wouldn't be pushing my GPU to max fan speed anyway. The games I have that really push my GPU tend to have pretty loud sound design.

Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#92

Post by samrus »

ReptileMan wrote: post #86
thewebguyd wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core difference there being, those settings will stick on Linux, and Microsoft will happily revert them next Windows feature update without telling you.

Not when you have disabled the updates and put the script in scheduled tasks.

Sysiphus be like

Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#93

Post by infecto »

somat wrote: post #51
infecto wrote: post #14

It is great timing in a way. There is a backlash with consoles and now more than ever the energy around AAA studios feels pretty low. You don't need incredible horsepower to play really fun games that still look visually appealing.

Yeah PC is sort of the "forever" console, I mean it's not strictly, there is always the upgrade grind, but new hardware tends to run old software fine(ish) and many(most if you play a lot of the smaller indie stuff) new games work fine on older hardware. It is a huge mess compared to consoles but that is often the price of freedom and I am happy that at least one system escaped control of a single corporation.

I still think the best bang for your buck. Even now with inflated prices. I can’t remember when I picked up my 1080, maybe 2018. I just upgraded last year. Obviously I missed out on beat in class graphics but it kept kicking and doing a decent job for such a long time.

Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#94

Post by lawn »

cassianoleal wrote: post #41
jerf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is, they're not. A lot of people have not been paying attention to PC costs. This is what they cost now. I've seen a few "make your own" builds online. If you use new parts, you might save 80$, and you generally don't get the form factor, efficiency, integrated Steam Controller puck, or visual appearance with those builds, plus, you know, you're building then yourself which should be counted for at leas…

> integrated Steam Controller puck This is part of the controller, not the Machine. Unless you mean software integration, then it's on SteamOS and the Steam client, both of which can run on custom hardware.

I've got a Machine + Controller and you don't need to use the puck (it's integrated).

Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#95

Post by sejje »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #62
sejje wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a techie my whole life, and for me, the mysterious OS is macOS. I haven't used it since high school (late 90s), which is when I picked up linux at home. I was never able to afford mac products as a young person, and now that I can, I wouldn't part with linux.

I really don’t feel like I need to explain how this is not what I’m talking about.

Okay, well this is: I've installed ubuntu for my elderly father, who is the opposite of a techie.

He didn't know the difference. He can still browse the web and play solitaire, just like on windows.

He ran it for a few years. Then he bought a new device and hasn't asked for my help.

Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#96

Post by jimmydorry »

wildzzz wrote: post #91
jimmydorry wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These options are up to 10 times bigger than the SteamMachine, approach almost twice the power draw, and are up to 2.8 times louder than the SteamMachine. They aren't even close to comparable... so why exactly are they making this apples to oranges comparison? No one is assembling a PC to put under their TV, and even if they are, ignoring the obvious form factor, heat and loudness issues... they'll most likely still…

The power consumption is a little silly to compare unless you are operating solely off-grid. It would take a few years of gaming daily for a couple of hours a day to make up for the price difference (assuming $0.20/kWh). Physical size is definitely a bigger concern, nothing can beat the Steam Machine. But I do prefer the long and thin design like the PlayStation series has always used. It's easier to fit that on the…

It's not the price of power that matters, it's the heat produced. Every extra W consumed is an extra W of heat that needs to be handled, and for consoles that tend to be chucked into confined spaces, that's an issue.

Loudness might be subjective, but if we're trying to compare builds, they should at least be in the same ballpark.

Looking at this article, they seem to only care about one dimension of this product: cost. It would have been far more interesting if they explored: cost, performance, size, heat (by proxy of power consumption), and loudness.

Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#97

Post by richstokes »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #6

I got one and I am considering switching everything to SteamOS. Unfortunately I still have nvidia cards around, but the experience is amazing for videogames. As for the desktop experience, having access to linux is way better than windows.

I got steamos working on my nvidia PC with a bit of messing about. I really like it, it’s a fun experience and after this initial hack, everything has worked great.

https://github.com/richstokes/SteamOS-Nvidia-Drivers

Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#98

Post by cassianoleal »

lawn wrote: post #94
cassianoleal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> integrated Steam Controller puck This is part of the controller, not the Machine. Unless you mean software integration, then it's on SteamOS and the Steam client, both of which can run on custom hardware.

I've got a Machine + Controller and you don't need to use the puck (it's integrated).

So do I. I can also use it without a puck on my other computers, and probably consoles.

The puck comes with the controller. You connect a cable to it. Do you mean there's a whole puck inside the machine?

Or is "puck" now shorthand for a wireless controller adaptor? What about the actual physical puck, with the cable and the magnets?

Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#99

Post by cassianoleal »

tomku wrote: post #68
cassianoleal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> integrated Steam Controller puck This is part of the controller, not the Machine. Unless you mean software integration, then it's on SteamOS and the Steam client, both of which can run on custom hardware.

No, it's part of the Machine. Direct quote from the Steam Machine page: "Steam Controller's wireless adapter is built right into Steam Machine for direct pairing. " It has dedicated hardware for pairing with Steam Controllers without needing a puck adapter plugged into a USB port.

They said Puck integration, not wireless integration.

I promptly admit I may have misunderstood something though.

Re: Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

#100

Post by ethbr1 »

infecto wrote: post #24
ray_v wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the price is steep but in my opinion, you really do get a lot of value here - especially with the fact that you instantly pull a ton of your library in seamlessly. If you've been in this ecosystem for a while that's a huge selling-point - or, at least it was for me!

Agree. I suspect others who use steam are thinking the same thing. When I heard the news for playstation my mind instantly jumped to silly digital prices for games forever. I look at the nintendo switch store and they will sell a digital copy for new retail price for years after even if you can pickup a used copy on ebay for half the price or less.

This. The biggest value proposition of a console that plays Steam games is the ability to acquire Steam games during Steam sales.

The closed console ecosystems seemingly have far less incentive to ever discount games, even old ones.

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