151–160 of 283 posts
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”…
Let me be that guy: we live in a time of collapse, for both the environment and international relationships – do we really need more gaming rigs?
Yes. Because if unrelated industries decide to give up then a theoretical collapse becomes an unavoidable economic collapse. And history has proven that war usually follows economic collapses. So literally the best thing Valve could do here is carry on like usual.
Notice that I'm also not criticizing Valve. They're doing what they feel is best for their business.
What I'm disagreeing with is enthusiasm for buying yet another gaming rig in the above circumstances.
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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.
The lower SKUs for Steam Deck are sold pretty much with zero margin or even at a loss, as Newell said this was a strategic decision to enter the mobile gaming market. However, for PC gaming, Valve already has a monopoly, and selling general-purpose hardware with little or no margin sounds like a recipe for losing money quick, which is not what Valve is known for...
But hey, we don't have to argue. Let's meet on HN again when the price is announced and I'll happily eat my words. :-)
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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 mo…
It's especially fascinating against the lens of this return-to-office phase we're living through. I'm a big fan of WFH but hear me out: online gaming (physically by yourself) is somewhat analogous to work-from-home. It empowers you to optimize your entertainment, challenge, competition into narrower and narrower facets of the experience. And tribe.
But jibba jabba around the water cooler can be enjoyable with the right people, just like it can be on the couch with friends and fam with Mario Kart, NHL '97, or Jackbox. Or board games.
There's room in this zeitgeist for a breakout multiplayer hit that just doesn't feel good unless you're in person.
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.
A lot of home computing used tvs back then
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Valve isn't likely to make SteamOS the kind of platform that facilitates intrusive* anti-cheat** or which is locked down in a way to prevent cheating at the client side. This means that a number of competitive multiplayer games will never run on it. I think in this regard, consoles still have an advantage*** if you're into those kinds of games. * I don't care what the intention is, they are _objectively_ intrusive. *…
There is a real need for anti cheat / certified hardware. Valve is uniquely be positioned to address it because they have trust from the gaming community. Ideally a single anti cheat mechanism would be shared by all software vendors. Online games could request "console mode" involving hardware key exchange. Done right this wouldn't have to be invasive like current anti cheat.
Given that valve refuses to use KLA for their own competitive multiplayer games, and has gone out of their way to not make their hardware locked down, I really dont think they will go down the path of making a locked down platform or facilitating intrusive anti cheat.
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%.
I hate the iOS store because it’s full of ad-riddled slop. Steam isn’t remotely close to that. If I find a game on there, even if it’s bad, someone clearly spent time and love making it.
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> This is the same demographic which Sony and Microsoft are selling to. Steam has nowhere near the same name recognition as Playstation or Xbox in the general public.
Which means what exactly? Inserting a random factoid does not make a sentence have a point.