I don’t quite understand the criticism. It’s not gonna be top of the line, but it’s more than enough to replace my dying laptop from 2015 that I pretty much only ever use like a desktop anyway. And I can save myself the time and effort of picking parts, building, and dealing with shit not working as expected.
I am honestly curious how do Sony and Microsoft react internally to Valve deciding to get their part of cake. Nintendo shouldn’t care, their cake is a separate cupcake at the top anyway, but Sony and Microsoft are directly in the line of fire.
I don’t think the Steam Machine is going to be placed in the market as a competitor for consoles. It’s probably not gonna be sold at a loss. The Steam Machine is a competitor to Windows. It’s Valve’s solution to show hardware makers and publishers that a PC gaming market without Microsoft is possible. At the moment Valve’s business is way too dependent on Microsoft. With the direction Win11 is going, Microsoft is a serious threat to Valve’s survival. The more anti-consumer Windows becomes the more likely it will push PC gamers to consoles.
Remember the first Steam Machines came out when Microsoft tried to force their Windows Store on developers in Win8.
Don’t be surprised when one or both of them starts doing some shady shit to sabotage things if Valve starts eating a larger market share.
Nintendo will always care, especially since you can easily currently install emulators on stem deck, and I seriously doubt it would be impossible to install those on steam machine. Now aside from the emulation stuff, having another contender in the console market may always affect each of the companies simply because not everyone can afford all the consoles. Growing up the parents who raised me didn’t buy us a single console, so my first consoles were from the parent who only visited (divorce), in lieu of child support payments, and we generally only had one at a time until we started buying them ourselves.
If you’re on a limited budget, even with kids, you may only choose 1 or two consoles, and your choice may be the most “comprehensive”. While Nintendo makes excellent games for kids, it’s not like the PC market doesn’t have anything for kids. Plus new consoles in a market could convince publishers to expand that way too.
While true overall, I was more going for the fact that people buy Ninendo because they want to buy Nintendo rather than because they want any random console. Meanwhile Sony and Microsoft are fighting for the same consumer - someone who wants an alternative to PC gaming. Which is also what Steam Machine is.
I doubt the Steam Machine will affect their bottom line in any meaningful way, and that’s not Valve’s goal, anyway. Most people aren’t like me, who got a Steam Deck right after the terrible Switch 2 reveal.
On one hand, maybe. On the other tho, a lot of parents are gamers themselves with big steam libraries. That can be really good argument for steam machine, and also Valve has brand loyalty on par with Sony or Microsoft, just not in consoles (yet).
I’d be (pleasantly) shocked if Valve made significant inroads with lifelong console gamers. Fortunately, we benefit from having an open console-like experience from them either way.