Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by ethbr1 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 3:12 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #89

ZekeSulastin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never want to see HN complaining about Apple prices ever again now that I see multiple folks calling the Steam Machine a great value.

It’s not a terrible price for a unified device that will just work with your steam library. You could save a few hundred building your own but it will be a larger form factor and take a little more messing with to run.

And as the TCO enterprise adage goes: the cost of continued support.

It's one thing to value ones own time spent supporting something at $0, but most people probably shouldn't.

And it's incredibly inefficient to debug and maintain your own custom stack, when Valve can assign a team to do the same thing at orders of magnitude lower unit cost for standardized hardware/software configurations.

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

#102

Post by Forgeties79 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

sejje wrote: post #95

Forgeties79 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is still not what we are talking about. This has nothing to do with ease of use when set up or the practical considerations of swapping. Linux is not mainstream in the consumer world. People do not really know what it is. It is still mysterious and personal computer installation is far from turnkey.

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

#103

Post by m4xp » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 12:31 PM UTC

mmusc wrote: post #3

One interesting point I've seen online is that the steam machine is more of a budget Mac than a pc. As valve controls the whole stack including the OS which creates a very streamlined experience that just works. Maybe its what will make Linux more mainstream!

The only reason why Linux hasn't gone mainstream (talking about desktop pcs) is because of schools and prebuilt-pcs. Majority of pc users don't even know what OS they are running.

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

#104

Post by syspec » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 4:44 AM UTC

kittoes wrote: post #71

laughing_man wrote: post #13

This is why I would never make it in business. I just don't see the consumer case for buying a Steam Machine. They're too expensive for the console niche they're intended to occupy.

As a kid who grew up absolutely loving their GameCube, this is a perfect computer to me. Yes, I already built my own LAN cube ~2 years ago that fits in my carry-on and is significantly more powerful for a comparable price point... but the Steam Machine is WAY smaller! I can fit it in my backpack and still have room for a monitor, work laptop, peripherals, Steam Deck, and clothing. It's just not possible to build a DI…

That's a hell of a backpack

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

#105

Post by ninjettor » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 11:04 PM UTC

Agingcoder wrote: post #21

mmusc wrote: post #3

One interesting point I've seen online is that the steam machine is more of a budget Mac than a pc. As valve controls the whole stack including the OS which creates a very streamlined experience that just works. Maybe its what will make Linux more mainstream!

Linux has gone mainstream a long time ago - from dvd players to android phones. It just hasn’t succceeded on old preexisting markets ( personal computers ) but has taken large parts of most of the newly created ones ( servers , mobile devices , embedded devices etc )

I mean Playstation uses FreeBSD 11.

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

#106

Post by lawn » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 9:57 AM UTC

cassianoleal wrote: post #98

lawn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You can use the steam controller over Bluetooth, the puck is really a 2.4GHz dongle that (allegedly) gives better performance/reliability of something.

The Steam Machine has the 2.4GHz dongle part as well as a Bluetooth adapter.