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Steam Machine launches today

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine launches today

#951

Post by Forgeties79 »

DiskoHexyl wrote: post #926
Forgeties79 wrote: post #915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

My bad- support is too wide of a term, and I meant it in a sense that Valve is quick to respond when their hardware stops working. I got my deck fixed after the warranty period, for example, with very little fuss. They even payed for the shipping of the broken device to them

That’s pretty cool of them. Hopefully they continue to operate that way. I remember when Apple used to be like that about iPods.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#952

Post by mattstir »

empath75 wrote: post #902
Lucasoato wrote: post #684

> Steam Machine, like our other hardware products, is made up of many components that we source from manufacturers around the world. The price at which we sell our hardware is a direct result of the cost of these components. We felt like we had a good understanding of how those costs might change over time when we first started sourcing them for Steam Machine back in 2023. That understanding was born from the many ye…

This is why Apple locks in supplier prices years in advance.

Apple is also an absolutely enormous company. Even if Valve wanted to lock in prices, they're simply too small for RAM manufacturers to notice on their radar, unfortunately.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#953

Post by Forgeties79 »

redundantly wrote: post #933
Forgeties79 wrote: post #915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Then it’s likely you either weren’t trying to use all the available features or are misremembering, because I promise you it was not smooth at launch. I got mine over a year in and these problems still existed. The gaming/desktop transition was a notorious issue, as was docking to a TV. Computer monitors it was (generally) fine.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#954

Post by sltkr »

voxic11 wrote: post #921
empath75 wrote: post #902

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Apple locks in supplier prices years in advance.

Computer hardware prices tend to go down over time so in general this is a pretty bad strategy. Of course in rare times like these it can pay off.

Presumably this is calculated into the contract.

If the price is expected to fall over time, then the negotiated price is below market at the beginning and above market at the end. From the suppliers view, they take a loss in the early years that they recover later.

Apple probably pays a premium to shift this risk to the supplier. Besides that they don't take a loss just because prices tend to fall. They only lose if market prices fall more steeply than expected.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#957

Post by Forgeties79 »

sedatk wrote: post #956

GamerNexus found out that an equivalent DIY machine would cost $979 in parts only to give a perspective on the pricing. It would probably be bigger too due to the discrete GPU.

So you'd save $150-$200 building it yourself, around 15-20%. Seems reasonable to me.

Re: Steam Machine launches today

#958

Post by neogodless »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #957
sedatk wrote: post #956

GamerNexus found out that an equivalent DIY machine would cost $979 in parts only to give a perspective on the pricing. It would probably be bigger too due to the discrete GPU.

So you'd save $150-$200 building it yourself, around 15-20%. Seems reasonable to me.

$1049 - $979 = $70 (7% savings)
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