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from my wife - we sit in front of a computer all damn day. we don’t want to sit in front of a computer all damn night too. we want to sit down in front of our TV and play games together in the evening. we just want it to work. we’ve built PCs and we have no interest in cobbling something together and supporting it for it’s lifetime. don’t act like that doesn’t come with a huge cost of time.
I’ll repeat what others likely mentioned before:
Valve specifically chose to build a mid range PC, so more people can afford it.
Also they priced it in a way where it’s still affordable while offering the convenience of not having to build it yourself. The majority of people never built a PC themselves, nor do they want to.
i think i must be their target audience because i’m excited as hell for the steam machine. i have no desire to build my own, i just want to play my steam games on my big tv. that’s it. they’re making that easy.
Not disagreeing with any of this, but it’s not like people who don’t build PC’s dont have plenty of options of prebuilt ones from either high end 3rd party stores as well as low end ones. To me it’s just another option to add to a long list which due to the company name will definitely sell more than the others right off the bat.
Choose: Big, bulky, shining with full RGB spectrum monster (low-end)
Or small funny box that Just Works.
To me the Steam Machine looks more like it’s supposed to be a console type deal. Like what the Steam Link was supposed to be.
Especially if you mainly use it with the Big Picture mode of Steam OS
It is so bizarre that even when something like this is announced, a unique phenomenon in gaming and modern pc history, which is sure to make a lot of pc linux converts because of its accessibility, the pc linux masterrace is still being gatekeeping about it.
I’ll just repost the same comment I wrote the first time someone posted this meme:
It’s a small form factor PC, pre-installed with Linux and steam. Period.
Can you build something more powerful cheaper? Probably
Can you build something more powerful with the same form factor for cheaper? Maybe, probably not… We don’t know.
All of those are beside the point.
They sell millions of desktop PCs pre-installed with windows, they often make terrible hardware choices, and don’t even have a small form factor, if they do they have the computing power of a laptop. All of this at an unreasonable prices. At the very least the steam machine will be better value than those. Anyone who would consider one of those PCs, might consider a steam machine instead.
Funny meme, but I would genuinely worry for the people who don’t understand the value proposal of a pre-built, console-like PC for Steam gaming. We will see if it’s worth it based on price and specs later, but the logic is definitely there, especially with MS, Sony and Nintendo dropping the ball so much.
As a PC Linux gamer I hear you…I really do, but listen…I really just wanna stick something Steambox-esque on my face and finally have a smooth open source VR experience.
I’m really looking forward to that.
And I know when they announce it, it’ll probably be way out of reach for me, but I’m still looking forward to it lol.
Well, It’s a game box that doesn’t record everything you do, shove it into AI, and sell all your secrets to the highest bidder.
It’s basically a linux PC from a reputable vendor that comes with support.
And yeah, you could build your own cheaper.
that comes with support
biggest point.
When you build your own linux pc, you will always have a big risk of some unexpected problems. Lowering the bar of technical expertise to run linux is the main selling point here IMO.
Yeah, I think the missing point is the average Lemmy user is not the target market. This is Steam’s attempt to grab market share from the other consoles. People with gaming PCs are probably already using steam. People with Xbox or PS are probably not. Steam needs to provide an out of the box ready product to let them existing console players play steam.
This is me. I used to be a PC tinkerer back in the day. But now, ain’t nobody got time for that.
And yeah, you could build your own cheaper.
Notably, though, this is the case with any pre-built PC; the Steam Box isn’t an exception. We don’t know the final price or specs yet but presumably it’s no worse value than buying something from e.g. Dell. Probably better value purely based on it coming with Linux and without the bloatware.
And also cheaper because steam expects to make additional money on each user in the future via steam purchases, so they can keep the margin smaller in the hardware price
Steam has explicitly said they are not subsidizing the steam machine as other console makers do
iirc they said they weren’t selling at a loss, but that’s not the same thing as selling at a low margin. PC manufacturers have to make essentially 100% of their profit from the initial sale of the device, but valve can make a smaller profit from the sale of each device because they know each device will lead to additional profit through game purchases
I thought pc makers made side profits with all the bloatware they install. And possibly some weird deals with M$ too.
They don’t know that, if they sell cheap enough it might be worth it for a random office somewhere to order a hundred and use them as work computers with no intention to ever buy a game in them. Also they aren’t going to be locked, nothing prevents you from getting one and run games purchased in every market under the sun that isn’t steam (and/or pirated games).
I don’t think they have any certainty that they’ll even make decent money on them. I am hopeful that this will be good for everyone but can’t exactly see how at the moment.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/valve-finally-confirms-leaked-steam-machine-price-rumors/
Well, it’s true we don’t have actual numbers yet, we do have some pretty solid info on the hardware. And we have some statements from Valve themselves that it’s not going to be console-priced, even though the hardware is clearly console specced.
Don’t get me wrong. I really really want it to work out well. I would love to have well, supported Linux workstations in people’s hands.
But I think we’re going to find its price is going to shove it into a niche audience.
With the prices of RAM…
Not just the highest bidder. All bidders.
It’s smaller, it has build-in wireless steam controller/frame/deck connector, iirc it switch on your tv when you turn on the machine, it has minimal amount of programmable LED, and it’s powerful enough to play the latest release. The form factor alone is quite enticing, building my own pc with the same spec probably will be a lot more bigger.
Have they announced a price yet?
Nope, it’s fucking hilarious how they already go crazy about the price and the bad stats with nothing concrete being announced yet.
I’m not worried about the stats since it’s better than my rig lol, but with ram and other hardware prices increasing, it does worry me a little that it could flop due to the price.
It’s a linux gaming PC where you do not have to worry about hardware compatibility.
So is it ‘never obsolete’ like the EMachines were?
That’s exactly what I believe about it. If Valve sold it without their monopolized software on it, I would be interested.
They allow you to install whatever you like on their hardware. This is the same case with the steam deck - the bootloader is accessible with a button combination.
So if you don’t like steamOS, you can just install another OS from a USB device before the first login screen.
Er, why would you expect the software on this to be any more restricted than the Deck’s? Have you seen some information to that effect?
No, I just don’t trust Valve. They poached the better Cassali off Doomworld, and they’ve monopolized gaming without physical media.
TBH, if Tim, Romero, or Carmack relaunched the Big Blue Disk, I would get in, in a heartbeat.
If nothing else, I’d be absolutely down to do what In did when I got my deck and wait for a refurnished model to be sold before purchasing, if it’s actually good like deck is IMO. Then, since it should work just fine with at least the modified Arch based SteamOS, probably see about replacing SteamOS with something other gaming focused distro, more as an experiment than anything else.
Steam box
It’s got what nerds crave!
I like the idea that it’s a targetable hardware profile personally.
How do you not get it? Didn’t you buy an eggs box when you were a kid? What was in it? Eggs. Now this is the same thing but with Steam. Your just pretending you don’t get it.
But i could just buy chicken and wait for the eggs.
No one is stopping you buddy
Seriously. I have like 3 egg boxes. Can’t wait for all the Steam I could be putting in boxes.
Does it go to 11?
It’s from Valve. It doesn’t even go to 3.
“v2.5 is all the game anyone is ever going to need” - Gabe
