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I don’t need a Steam Machine

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Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#131

Post by yoz-y »

exitb wrote: post #42
yoz-y wrote: post #24

Back during Covid I bought a PC tower just to play PC games. Later I also bought a PlayStation because the couch experience is better. If the steam machine was available I’d definitely opt for that instead of both. If steam continues the way it is, it will be hard for me to justify having a gaming PC and a console instead of just one machine.

Note that there’s no secret sauce regarding Steam Machines. Once you put Bazzite, ChimeraOS or Jovian Nix on your PC, it can provide a great couch experience.

I expect that steam machine will have better controller support. I found wireless controller support on Windows (both for ps4 and Xbox controllers) seriously lacking.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#132

Post by Nursie »

CalRobert wrote: post #38
mariopt wrote: post #12

Steam Machines can become an existencial crisis for PlayStation and Xbox. A “console” that I can use as a PC? I am in 100%. You’ll get the world biggest game library at a discount, this is why I sold my PlayStation after spending 200 euros and watching it becoming useless. I also suspect a lot of game devs will optimize for steam machine and finally we’ll get a console like experience on PC. Don’t let the “low specs”…

Man, I got a free ps5 from my isp and was excited to have friends over for games. Come to find out that playing games with your friends apparently isn’t a thing anymore (I guess there’s fighting and racing games). What a lame-ass boring system.

There are a few games that support couch coop, but you’re right it’s not very well supported any more.

We enjoyed Split Fiction and It Takes Two recently, but those are quite couple-y. And Blue Prince is very playable as a group effort.

Then there are games like “overcooked”, though again not many. IIRC there’s a new Katamari on the way as well.

But there really aren’t that many “get your mates together” games any more.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#133

Post by luqtas »

phito wrote: post #16

It's the same as the steam deck: I don't enjoy video games anymore, I've actually never really enjoyed gaming except for a handful of titles. But I'll be damned, I love that Valve is bringing gaming to Linux and I'll buy the hardware just to support the cause. The people in my life that have been using the "I need Windows for my games" reason (or excuse ;)) to not switch to Linux are now slowly but surely leaving Win…

wait, your going to buy Steam hardware to support Linux gaming? WFT. isn't the multi-million yatch Gabe bought enough?

go donate to khronos or the wine team. maybe even Godot, which treats Linux as a 1° class citizen

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#134

Post by embedding-shape »

goda90 wrote: post #129

I built myself a new gaming desktop and set up my old one next to our TV, telling myself I'd get it all situated with controllers and my large library of split screen games. We have a Shield TV for most streaming, so the desktop is pretty much only used for two things: My wife watching Chinese shows on random websites and watching movies remotely with friends over SyncLounge[0]. So while the Steam Machine is intrigui…

I don't have much reasons to buy one either, besides "It'll be fun to thinker with" and "I want to support any company trying to make Linux go mainstream, because ultimately that'll make my desktop experience better". But those two feel more than enough, and I'm happy to open my wallet for them.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#135

Post by ekianjo »

cubefox wrote: post #78
Aeolun wrote: post #2

All of this is true, but Valve is one of the best companies I know and for now, I’ll happily give them money. It’s not about the fact that I’m actually going to use it. It’s about the fact that I want people to keep making things like this. It’s about the fact I want to reward them for not locking it down completely.

You wouldn't like Valve so much if you explicitly saw the 30% Steam tax, I mean fee, declared every time you bought a PC game on Steam. Imagine if Microsoft did that. +30% for every Windows software. Like iOS. Then Steam games would be +60% rather than +30%.

Nobody prevents game devs to sell on their own website with 0% tax. Curiously, they choose to go on the market with 30% tax.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#136

Post by lanfeust6 »

tormeh wrote: post #40
torginus wrote: post #27

When I first saw the Arduino I didn't see the point - after all there were boards that cost less, did more, and the Arduino IDE seemed very barebones compared to what you could do with GCC and a custom toolchain. Then eventually I saw how much community support, ready made hardware emerged around it, to the point that after a while, not going the Arduino route was a decision you needed to justify heavily. Same thing…

> a comparable desktop experience to the commercial OSes Isn't it alteady comparable? My Linux desktop has almost the same game compatibility that Windows has, and none of the advertising and jank. Gone are the legendary days of xorg.conf. Linux has less problems than Windows now. Support from professional software vendors (Dassault, Autodesk, et al) and Nvidia could be better, admittedly, but these restrictions aren…

Yes - but now what would you rather plug into a big screen TV? Supposing you opt for an OS like Bazzite/pop that is TV friendly then you are turning a desktop into a multimedia console foremost. People like stuff that works out of the box.

Conversely You can also turn the Steam Machine into a desktop by installing another OS

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#137

Post by chiffaa »

deng wrote: post #124
torginus wrote: post #27

When I first saw the Arduino I didn't see the point - after all there were boards that cost less, did more, and the Arduino IDE seemed very barebones compared to what you could do with GCC and a custom toolchain. Then eventually I saw how much community support, ready made hardware emerged around it, to the point that after a while, not going the Arduino route was a decision you needed to justify heavily. Same thing…

The Arduino was 30$ when it came out. The Raspberry was 35$. I'd be astonished if they manage to get the Steam Machine down to 800$ (bundled with a controller). Knowing how Valve loves their margins, it's probably closer to 1000$ or even more. This is not something you spontaneously buy to play around with.

In one of the interviews that came out when the Steam Machine embargo ended, someone from Valve said that, unlike with Steam Deck, they can't afford to sell at a loss because the form factor and the OS of the Machine make it possible to buy it just for general compute, which would be devastating with negative margins. So, unfortunately, I guess it will be 800-1000$ in the end

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#139

Post by tapoxi »

deng wrote: post #124
torginus wrote: post #27

When I first saw the Arduino I didn't see the point - after all there were boards that cost less, did more, and the Arduino IDE seemed very barebones compared to what you could do with GCC and a custom toolchain. Then eventually I saw how much community support, ready made hardware emerged around it, to the point that after a while, not going the Arduino route was a decision you needed to justify heavily. Same thing…

The Arduino was 30$ when it came out. The Raspberry was 35$. I'd be astonished if they manage to get the Steam Machine down to 800$ (bundled with a controller). Knowing how Valve loves their margins, it's probably closer to 1000$ or even more. This is not something you spontaneously buy to play around with.

Moore's Law is Dead (chip analyst YouTuber) believes a $300 bill of materials and $600, maybe even $450 for the lower SKU.

The CPU and GPU in this are last generation, and he believes Valve got a bulk discount on unsold RDNA3 mobile GPUs. They did something similar with the Steam Deck riding off a Magic Leap custom design. People predicted that would be pricey too but launched with (and still has) a $399 model.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#140

Post by JKCalhoun »

mariopt wrote: post #12

Steam Machines can become an existencial crisis for PlayStation and Xbox. A “console” that I can use as a PC? I am in 100%. You’ll get the world biggest game library at a discount, this is why I sold my PlayStation after spending 200 euros and watching it becoming useless. I also suspect a lot of game devs will optimize for steam machine and finally we’ll get a console like experience on PC. Don’t let the “low specs”…

Funny to see "Game Machine that can be used as a PC" when, as I was growing up, it was "Personal Computer can also play games".

In both cases I suppose it was the dedicated gaming-machines (Switch now, Atari then) that were feeling the squeeze.

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