Submitted 4 months ago by ZippyBot@lemmy.zip [bot] to gaming@lemmy.zip
I think people underestimate how hard it is to build a computer this small and this functional with off the shelf parts. I have a case that just has a motherboard, power supply, and SSD in it for video streaming and web browsing on my TV, and it’s almost as big as this. It’s a relatively high spec MOBO since I wanted to stream fames from my PC initially, but still.
I don’t have confidence I could make this myself at these specs.
I’ve been told for decades that building a PC is cheap and easy and more affordable than a console. Are you saying that was a PC gamer lying on repeat?
I’m saying that building one small is difficult.
It certainly was the case, for a while, given you were shooting for similar specs to consoles. But times are a little different now.
I just want the controller and I want it now. Maybe the vr too but I need to make more money first
It’s going to be a complete repeat because they learned nothing from the first time. This is only really appealing to console games as PC gamers have nothing to gain from buying one, but pricing it like a PC means console gamers won’t buy them either. This is exactly what happened the first time.
The first time it was largely due to lack of game support and confusion as they were 3rd party devices.
This time pretty much every game will run through Proton, Linux for desktop has matured a lot, SteamOS is much better and Valve are selling it 1st party. It will sell a lot, even if it is priced as a PC... I mean at the end of the day it is a PC, a custom SFF one, which are usually very expensive. This will good value for what it is, you just can't compare it to a console.
I guess time will tell, but I’ve seen a ton of companies selling custom PCs fail and I’ve seen Valve fail at this the first time around and I’m not really convinced people on Lemmy have a real grasp on how unpopular Linux still is with the general public.
I play a lot of games and it’s definitely of interest; if I can buy a powerful, compact machine that can play everything for less than the cost of a modern 12gb+ GPU, I’m sold.
There’s still at-home streaming. I just upgraded to an RX 9070XT so I can stream 4k60 to my TV through my Steam Deck using Sunshine and Moonlight.
Granted, a big reason why I did that was because they were selling for $600 a week ago on Newegg. Plus I didn’t want to have to fight Nvidia drivers on Linux while trying to mod Skyrim to hell
I am a PC gamer and am considering one as long as the price is reasonable.
This is only really appealing to console games as PC gamers have nothing to gain from buying one
I have a PC gamer friend who has an 8-year-old PC. He has said he is getting a Steam Machine.
What this offers PC gamers is a ready-made box. Some PC gamers don’t want to build a PC, they want to just buy it. And this offers a very standard package to get.
I partially agree with you, this needs to be under $800. But the last attempt was awful, this would have to be over $1000 to be as bad as the original Steam Machines.
The pc parts market is getting fucked by the AI rush, so maybe it’ll work out better.
And then bitcoin before that. I miss sane GPU prices.
I’m might be tempted by this thing.
I’ll have to see the price and the real world specs.
I have a framework desktop which probably fills al lot the same niches though… having this set up with the tv is something the framework doesn’t do.
Why can’t the framework desktop be on the TV?
I don’t think it has hdmi cec the way steam box does.
Plus I use it as a server and it constantly has most vram used by ml models.
Aren’t the consoles loss-leaders to lock you into their platform? I don’t see how Valve can be expected to match that price range.
I don’t see how Valve can be expected to match that price range.
They don’t have to. Even if the sticker price is $50 more and the console equivalent, for a lot of people that’s a better value because you don’t have to pay >$100 per year for online services.
And if it’s priced the same as a similarly spec’d PC, there’s still wiggle room there. Are they comparing to a custom-built PC? Or are they comparing to a prebuilt?
Valve is insanely profitable and makes money with every game sold on Steam. Selling the Steam Cube at cost would make financial sense for them over the long run.
Depends on the console and the point in its lifecycle.
They can’t, and they won’t.
The way I see it, the people the Steam Machine is meant for are these:
People who are sick of the increasingly predatory nature of console gaming and want to switch to PC, but don’t have the confidence or knowledge to build their own
People who are similarly sick of Windows bullshit and want to try Linux, but don’t have the confidence or knowledge to do it themselves
People with plenty of cash who fancy an extra gaming PC to put under the TV
Valve fans who will buy anything Valve releases, no matter what
IMO it’s not trying to compete against consoles directly, and especially not on price, it’s trying to be an alternative to people who are already sick of consoles.
Something that I don’t really see people talk about and could be a huge selling point for people is that it’s pretty small. Especially for folks that live in a small studio, saving space can be pretty important. I know mini-PCs are big in China, which itself is a huge market
There is some overlap among those, particularly 2-4 and 3-4.
Also, I’ve read a lot of comments from people for whom the Steam Deck was their first experience with Linux and they are overwhelmingly positive. I can see this new device having the same effect.
Not anymore. That changed with the Xbox one and PS4.
They probably caught on when people started buying hundreds of xboxes to build supercomputing clusters
Still gonna buy it
sj_zero 4 months ago
Unfortunately, during the pandemic we discovered what happens when things are underpriced. Effectively, if you don't have the original company pricing their products according to the market, the scalpers all swoop in and buy up all the stock and resell it at market rates.
artyom@piefed.social 4 months ago
The difference here is you can only buy them directly from Valve, they’ll probably have some sort of limit, and you’ll probably need an account to be a certain age, at least in the early days.
pastel_de_airfryer@lemmy.eco.br 4 months ago
They had the exact limits you described back when the Deck was released and that didn’t stop scalpers.
However, the Deck was a much more hyped product, so there was more incentive for scalpers to jump through the hoops.