For reference, a PlayStation 5 is $600-650 for the base models (lower performance than Steam Machine) and $900 for the Pro model (likely higher performance). I know this is a PC and thus an open platform, but for most buyers in living room gaming, that's the competition. I don't think this will reach mass market success, but I'm not sure that was the goal. Who are they selling to? Note: I ask as someone with a Steamd…
Right now, noone that can avoid it should be buying ANYTHING with RAM or SSD in it.
We're truly screwed if things don't calm down at least a little....
I understand why it costs that much, but it's too much. Don't get me wrong, I'm not commenting on the value, but rather the markets ability to handle it.
I mean, can the market really handle any of these prices? If we're truly stuck with these increasing prices for another year or so, whole sectors might get "restructured", including gaming, simply because people cannot afford the devices they depend on.
This is why Apple locks in supplier prices years in advance.
That would only works until it doesn't. The suppliers got supplier too and those in turn have their own supplier. I don't know about any specific contract but I bet there's a force majeure or price excluding input cost somewhere.
Places like Apple run their supply chains to ground. Literally in some cases, as they track sourcing of component materials back to the mines they are dug out of.
It is interesting to know how it compares in terms of performance to 500$ Mac Mini with Crossover? Of course Crossover support is worse than Proton, so it will not be viable alternative in real gaming scenarios. But Proton is made by Crossover team. And Apple hardware is 2x cheaper.
If Mac Minis were viable for gaming, everyone would get one. Unfortunately, Crossover has very spotty support and GPTK starts fraying at the seams on CPU-heavy titles.
The upcoming Steam Frame will be the real make-or-break moment for ARM PC gaming. Up until now, nobody has seriously attempted to make ARM work for the "Steam Deck" segment of users.
I am pleased to see hardware not being locked down as a selling point: > Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it's still your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer? It feels very commonsense that you should be able to run whatever you want on the computer that you have purchased, but it is surprisingly uncommon.
It's also convenient since they're now facing multiple anti-trust lawsuits.[1]
Xbox Series S/X, PS5 and both Switches are pretty much commodity hardware. Nobody has even hinted that it would be nice to have a 3rd party store or the ability to run whatever OS on them freely. I keep wondering why.
Probably because it's very niche. Talking to many friends, and an increasing number of posts on various console subreddits, there's lots of comments from PC gamers that embraced the console life due to it's simplicity. This has increased since the PS5 Pro released - "Close to PC-level graphics, without the PC-level costs and mucking around with settings" There is a certain appeal to this for many people that hacking…
Kind of funny because most games on the PS5 Pro have performance tuning settings. It's not as comprehensive as you'd find on a PC game, but it's clear the console audience is also wanting to tweak how their game runs. And, for what it's worth, pretty much every new PC game has an auto-configuration that customizes the settings for the hardware on install. So you don't have to ever go into settings, so long as you're happy with the play experience the developer decided you should have.
Here, try your hand at assembling one much cheaper at the same performance: https://pcpartpicker.com/
I just did one [0], mostly with regards only to specs and price (rather than quality). It comes out to $150 more, roughly 4X the volume, and about 3 hours more of my time in effort, all to get something that won't be as well-supported by games. What am I missing? [0] https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KY3VW9
Its a MicroATX build. This is considerably larger than the Steam Machine.
The Steam Machine is about a 6" cube. That's ~3.5L in volume. This case is ~33.6L. 33.6 / 3.5 != 4.
Here, try your hand at assembling one much cheaper at the same performance: https://pcpartpicker.com/
I don't recognized the CPU/GPU and PC building isn't my field so I could way off. But here's my honest attempt at it without paying a premium for the form factor which isn't an important feature for me: PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3WkCdq Price: $1021
At 51L in volume this thing is absolutely massive compared to the Steam Machine.
>which, judging by Steam Deck, is quite fair I love my Steam Deck but let's not forget that it took a solid 2-3 years for it to really become a somewhat turnkey, stable experience. They shipped it in a near-beta state. Flipping between gaming/desktop mode induced a fail state probably 30% of the time until a year ago, docking to TV's can still be very frustrating (aspect ratio and latency are almost always wonky unti…
> I love my deck, it's an incredible and capable device. But it was very clunky those first 2-3 years I got the Steam Deck on release. It was a near solid device for me from the get go. Only had the occasional crash/reboot, but I wouldn't describe it as having been clunky.
I personally would call the UI pretty clunky. Trying to figure out which settings are on the right settings button menu vs the left is annoying. Plus, there's stuff like not being able to get the onscreen keyboard to come on screen, and streaming can be a headache.
I love it and use it a lot, but it's not a Nintendo Switch experience, at all.