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Steam Machine launches today

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Re: Steam Machine launches today

#581

Post by Self-Perfection »

eximius wrote: post #366
throwaway21233 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why companies don't take advantage of the demand. For example: Start the bidding at BASE_PRICE (BP) + 2400. Then reduce the price by $1 every 3mins over the course of 5 days. Until the BP is met and then just carry on queuing. You could buy it early if you want it that much or just wait an extra couple of days and end up in the queue at the BP. I don't know if it would create pressure on that second it ti…

Holy fuck, not everything in this life needs to be profit maximized.

You can get away from supply/demand laws. By pretending that something is not giverned by them and putting fixed price lower than real price (i.e. that price at which suppl equals demand) one leaves space for scalpers to exist and collect money that people are willing to spend over set price.

Given that people are going to spend money anyway it seems more honest and reasonable to direct this money to the party that makes the thing by letting it to run auction.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#582

Post by bigyabai »

chrisco255 wrote: post #568
baby wrote: post #559

The deck is such a good console compared to the switch and switch 2 that I can’t be stop being happy that they released this now. How is Valve, a tiny company, doing so much better than Nintendo?

They're not. The Deck is hundreds of dollars more expensive than the Switch 2. The Switch 1 sold 155 million units, making it the second most popular console of all time. Switch 2 is also selling very well.

I don't think by "better" they meant financially. It sounds like they own both consoles and are surprised to replace their Switch use with a Deck.

Which tracks, to my wit; my Switch 1 is a buyers remorse product. If I knew that a Linux x86 handheld was eventually getting made, I'd have never bought it.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#583

Post by ThatPlayer »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #12

I'm tempted to go order yet another BC-250, even though I haven't gotten the first one going. Sure the Machine is considerably more modern, has great new features, probably vastly better power efficiency (even though it's only 6nm vs 7nm surprisingly). But 288GB/s memory bandwidth? Versus the BC-250's 448GB/s? https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/steam-machine-gpu.c437... https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/playst…

Last I checked the idle power consumption of the BC-250 was on the higher side to make me not want to use it as a media center, though that could be my PSU. No hardware decode/encode (yet) either.

And lack of DRM makes a PC in general a mediocre experience for official streaming services if you want more than 720p streaming. If you care about that.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#584

Post by robotnikman »

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…

I blame Sam Altman and all the other AI bros for this and everything else in consumer tech increasing in price

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#585

Post by tonymet »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #571
tonymet wrote: post #170

A question for both developers & gamers – why are we continuing to push hardware capacity upward to untenable costs? 2013 games are awesome, I still play them. Why not continue targeting that capability and sell $250 consoles instead of $1250 consoles?

The problem is that the market has basically bifurcated. In the Indie space, people want novelty, and that's too risky for AAA (even 10 year old AAA) scale games. Over in the modern AAA space, you've got a more reliable user base (in that they're more eager to buy slight changes to the same game over and over), but you're competing more on "Wow" factor. And ever-better graphics have been a pretty easy way to convert…

I would argue AAA are avoiding the safe bets by forcing "new experiences" into safe money-making genres.

At Xbox Showcase, many of the popular beats were bringing back elements from Halo or Gears of War that fans missed.

The formula for making hits seems to be pretty clear, but the studios are bucking it.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#586

Post by makeitdouble »

YuechenLi wrote: post #89

Surprised that they have 4 USB-A and only 1 USB-C. With their power profile, Steam Machine should be powerable by a single USB-C cable on extended power range which should reduce the need for the power supply altogether and greatly simplify mechanical as well as thermal design, although the power electronic design would be more complex as a result. I would also be expecting Wifi 7 support as well as unified memory co…

These are USB3-A, so USB3-A to USB-C cables will properly work at full potential for any of your USB-C peripherals.

It's a bummer if have none of these cables around, but it's still more elegant than adapting USB3-A stuff to USB-C.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#587

Post by Fogest »

mrguyorama wrote: post #137
lawn wrote: post #104

It's interesting how so many are complaining about price and how it's dead etc. Yet it will still be out of stock for a long time.

The repeated insistence that a company can only possibly be successful if it reaches every human being on earth is killing the world. A company that spins up a division, builds a product, sells 100k of them, and winds down is a success Keep in mind this entire venture from Valve is also about ensuring they can't be made a vassal of Microsoft.

Valve isn't doesn't have to appease any public shareholders every quarter. There are likely no real expectations apart from making some profit which I am sure they will easily do. Then they just do like they have done with the Steamdeck and leave it on their store as an item they keep in stock and make some decent side income on. Throw it on sale for all their big sales and get some nice sales bonuses off it here and there.

I think ultimately there goal is to push more people towards Linux so that more games get developed there. All of their hardware pretty much targets the Linux side of gaming, so they really are trying to get rid of the Microsoft monopoly on PC gaming which I think is great.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#588

Post by Asraelite »

philistine wrote: post #481
asattarmd wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need to do that because, in some sense, they're competing with Gaming PCs, not really with Gaming consoles. Gaming consoles sell their consoles at a discounted price because they can recoup a lot of it when selling games. Steam can't have a markup on games because they share their marketplace with other PCs.

Can you point me to any statement that any current console is being sold at a loss? All I've seen is that everyone is doing at cost nowadays. The PS4 Pro was the last subsidized console.

Discounted doesn't necessarily mean at a loss. It could just mean a smaller profit margin than normal.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#589

Post by ThatPlayer »

dmitshur wrote: post #176

Interesting that its HDMI is 2.0 and not 2.1. Hopefully it's still possible (for those that really want) to connect modern 4K TVs at 120 hz via the DisplayPort 1.4 output.

The DisplayPort 1.4 instead of 2.1 is also interesting. The RX7000 series came with DisplayPort 2.1.

DisplayPort 1.4 should be enough to do 4K@120hz. Not enough bandwidth for HDR at the same time though

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