Doing it yourself would mean visiting one of those build your own pc forums for help, and I think most people would rather kill themselves.
Doing it yourself would mean visiting one of those build your own pc forums for help, and I think most people would rather kill themselves.
Yea but how would someone who isn’t into PC hardware know what a decent GPU, nevermind a decent second hand PC would be, without going to forums, watching reviews, etc.
The whole appeal of the steam machine is it being a console-like PC for people who don’t have the knowledge and/or patience to build their own.
I wouldn’t buy it because I enjoy building myself a bang-for-the-buck PC from used parts and ain’t scared of installing Linux myself. But if you want the benefits of a PC (game availability and prices, flexibility, compatibility) with the benefits of a console (plug-n-play, couch game friendly), a steam machine is pretty much it.
the guys from the forums don’t know those things from the forums themselves. those things have specs. most in numbers. you can read system requirements of games you like to get an idea and then look up PC parts or complete PCs that exceed them. there are standards that say what parts generally fit together. when you know one part you want, that narrows down what other parts can be connected to it. for example, if you think the GPU is most important, it will determine the mainboard must have a certain connector for the card and also the power supply needs to fit, as well as the case dimensions to fit it inside. this is how you build/upgrade a PC. Some stores let you select only components that fit together for a configuration, like this German store for example will only let you choose a mainboard with an AM5 socket, if you selected a CPU that requires one and so on: https://www.alternate.de/PC/PC-Konfigurator
I know, I myself enjoy building PCs. But I know a lot of people who don’t. And they’d rather pay some amount of money more to not have to look up hardware comparisons, find out what works best together, install operating systems, etc. It’s a hobby not everyone enjoys and for those people a pre built and configured system with manufacturer support is great, even if it might cost them a little more.
How are you supposed to learn anything if you don’t make the effort of actually learn anything? Do you expect to get everything served on a silver plate? :)
You don’t have to learn everything. People have all kinds of hobbies and not a lot of time.
And I don’t expect anything to be handed to me. I expect to pay extra for people who know what they’re doing to do it for me.
I personally would never do that for a PC because I do have the know how because I enjoy bargain hunting for hardware and building my own rig.
But when I have an issue with my car, I bring it to a mechanic because I don’t have enough time and interest to teach myself how to repair it myself. I‘d rather put my little time into my existing hobbies.
Idk, I still think it has some merit. It can reduce a lot of troubleshooting when something not playing right. There’s 1001 things that can go right and wrong with PC gaming. Reducing the hardware to near zero with a standardized rig takes a lot of headache off IMO.
Some people just want to play games from Steam without all the pc gaming hobby’s baggage. They probably already have other fulfilling hobbies they learn from. What’s wrong not adding another hobby to go down a rabbit hole?
Maybe I’m too optimistic