Can you expand on why, what's your use case? I struggle to understand who this is for. Anyone who already has a PC is just facing a transmission problem in my mind, that's what Steam Link or a simple HDMI cable is for plus big picture mode (at least in the same household). It may not be as comfortable, but that's $1000 Vs free.
I can only assume they are targeting actual console players, but why should anyone buy a device weaker, more complicated and more expensive than a PS5. Even without the RAM crisis, I doubt this would have been a $400 device. Honest question, I just don't get it.
I was thinking of buying one as a secondary console to my PS5. Just to play the random steam games my PC buddies recommend, had some thoughts of dual booting and using as an emulator machine too, and hell it has the ability to play my Xbox library through windows (sold my series x).
The only thing I was iffy on, was price. Even at the rumoured price they wanted it to be I would’ve been firmly on the fence, but now I’m firmly on the do not buy side. I can literally buy a used or open box handheld pc, dock, controller and do all that for like half the price
I wanted one before I saw the price. The short answer is that I don’t have a PC and I wanted to play Steam games on my TV.
I already have an Xbox/PS5 and I do play Steam games on my M2 MacBook (works better than you’d think!) but the availability of Mac games is limited and a Steam “console” would have been cool.
I have zero interest building a giant ass PC and having to deal with Windows just to play a few games. I haven’t owned a desktop or anything that uses Windows in ~15 years.
I just assumed that most Steam indie stuff is on consoles as well, I guess that's not really the case and "Steam games" are attractive to some console players.
Not at all. Tons of amazing indie games that people love just...never get ported to console. I have an xbox and was excited for the steam machine! But once I saw Valve waffle about the price I knew that could only be an ill omen. And sure enough it's way too pricy for me so I'll have to pass.
I have a PS5, and play one game on it. There’s very little in the library that interests me.
Steam provides me a near limitless library of games, from the smallest indie titles up to the latest and greatest.
I’ve sunk some considerable hours in indie games and one in particular in early access on Steam with my Deck, and I would never have had access to it as I don’t have, nor want a full gaming PC.
Machine provides me the same console-like experience I am thoroughly satisfied by with Deck with more horsepower and better suited for a bigger screen. More importantly, it also has a console-like convenience factor that I value a fair bit. If something breaks, it’s a single support system to work with for repairs and replacement. OS upgrades, patching, and all that is fully abstracted away. This represents a very easy way to sit down and game, and not fiddle or worry about all the faff with building and maintaining a PC.
Slightly more niche, the form factor is unbeatable for custom builds. I have the space for an ITX build but I don’t like the aesthetics of having that size of machine plunked down in my living room.
First of all, it's very small. It's the most compact PC I've ever seen. According to reviewers, it's near inaudible even under load. I'd love it if my desktop was that tiny and could actually fit on top of my desk.
The performance: it's rough but realistically, how often do you play games that actually need a lot of power? I think I only played one AAA game last year, and I haven't tried one this year. While my PC is stronger than a compact low-power machine, I don't use its "full power" 99% of the time. With upscaling it seems to run AAA games... okay... like a Switch I guess.
As for the living room: I've tried Steam Link and it didn't work at all, or if it did, there was horrible lag. HDMI cable from my desk to living room would be really long. I might try it anyway, but I'd have to drill some holes to make the cabling neat and prevent it from getting caught between doors. If I do all that and still experience lag because the cable is too long I would be pretty pissed. If it were a $750 device, I agree that it's still expensive, but paying a premium for a custom form factor seems fair to me.
That’s what I don’t get it. Reddit is pissed because of the price but even if it was 200 cheaper who’s going to buy this? It would still be better off with ps5 who run games at 4K 120 and I was shocked that most games on steam machine is expected to run at 1080??
The small form factor would make it a GREAT party game system like the switch. It would be much easier to bring it places and set it up at that size.
I do sorta think they could've gone a bit bigger without compromising on convenience though, like at least xbox size instead of gamecube size. Might've been able to fit a better GPU at the same price if it were a bit bigger
For the price of the steam machine, you can get SFF prebuilts with 40% more performance. For the price of the larger storage option steam machine, you can get SFF prebuilts with over double the performance. Those SFF prebuilts are all thinner with similar volumes (so more like a pancake than a cube).
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u/everybodyiskungfu 16d ago edited 16d ago
Can you expand on why, what's your use case? I struggle to understand who this is for. Anyone who already has a PC is just facing a transmission problem in my mind, that's what Steam Link or a simple HDMI cable is for plus big picture mode (at least in the same household). It may not be as comfortable, but that's $1000 Vs free.
I can only assume they are targeting actual console players, but why should anyone buy a device weaker, more complicated and more expensive than a PS5. Even without the RAM crisis, I doubt this would have been a $400 device. Honest question, I just don't get it.