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I can build a better PC for less money
Can you?
First of all, Valve has not even announced a price yet. Everything is still pure speculation.
Second, have you seen the price of GPU’s, RAM, and SSD’s these days? Consumers for gaming PC parts are competing for supply with industrial buyers now. AI is hoovering all the supply up with the backing from private equity. The GPU market never fully recovered from the cryptocurrency era either.
I’ve been wanting to build a new mid-range gaming PC for years now. I’ve kept an eye on prices. I spent ~$1k on a machine in 2019, with the GPU costing a mere $175. Nowadays a comparable tier of GPU starts at $600, and the cost fo a mid-tier machine is over $1,500, getting closer to $2,000 with the RAM and SSD prices.
Valve can get better bulk pricing on components. Their primary profit center is software sales, and it’s really hard to sell software when no one can afford hardware. So Valve is incentivized to design these machines that are resistant to being scalped or scrapped for specific components, and to sell them for relatively low margin in order to drive game sales. We already saw this with the Steam Deck- it was hardware that could play games without mining crypto.
I do think the RAM and maybe SSS supply could throw a wrench into Valve’s plans though. Just because if the prices go high enough, people could start buying steam machines to rip out the RAam modules and sell them separately. But we are nowhere near that level of RAM pricing yet.
I remember that guy on hacker news who said Dropbox would never take off because he could build something similar with rsync. He’s not wrong, people who looked for something rsync could solve continued just use rsync. Meaning, people who want to build a PC for less will continue to build a PC less. The Steam Box isn’t for people who want to build a pc for less, though.
brought to you by valve
It has what games crave
By the time it arrives you won’t even be able to buy the memory for whatever the Steam Machine ends up costing.
Gaming consoles exist because some prefer to use a controller instead of mouse and keyboard
I feel this is where the steam box misses it’s target console audience
It is trying to be a “PC” instead of being a console.
I don’t see the appeal personally
If it was inexpensive and dialed in for gaming it makes sense for PC gamers
But as a console gamer myself I’m not going to sit on the couch and play with mouse and keyboard or I’m not going to play with a controller against others with mouse and keyboard advantage.
If it was any other company then Steam everyone would be laughing at it. “Dell wants me to pay $500+ to just have an inferior PC hooked up in my living room?”
Have you considered, that the vast majority of gamers are not COD kiddies? I’d love to play Elden Ring, Minecraft, Skyrim or Satisfactory on my TV, while cuddling with my gf.
And the best part? You get an arch install that doesn’t randomly break because you haven’t paid enough attention during the last pacman update! I seriously expect Valve to understand that pacnew files and mandatory forum readups are not a good concept for OS maintenance.
Writing this from my phone because the last update probably removed the encrypt hook from my initframes. God, I love using linux!
Not every game is a competitive online shooter. You can also just play Elden Ring on your Linux box.
If Dell will make a $500+ computer that can just hook up to whatever screen you have and allow you to play vast majority of all the games ever, they will be instantly industry leaders. They can’t though. Valve, however, can.
I saw someone complain that there weren’t enough customisation possibilities with the Steam Machine. As if they couldn’t just build it however they want right now.
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.
…it doesn’t come with a huge cost of time. Literally no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. Where is the time cost?
No no it’s takes hundreds of hours to take a pc plug it into the HDMI at your tv and connect a Bluetooth controller.
In fact I just stepped away from doing that now. It was my new years resolution to do this. Hope to finally get it done by 2026.
These people just have more money than sense. I wish I had this problem. Cheaper to spend 900 for a separate machine than to hook up a $30 cable, or pick up 3 lb PC.
100% This, I work in IT all day. The last thing I want to do with my personal time is build and support a home built machine attached to my TV that my kids or wife will use to watch Netflix or play a few games. Especially if I am out of town and something stops working.
That’s why I own a PlayStation and pay a premium for their games on an inferior platform compared to PC. It generally just works with out me having to fuck with it all the time. I’d get a Steam box for the same reason.
I have game consoles, but I don’t use them regularly. Every time I turn them on, they want an hour of updates and a password reset just to use the dvd player.
A PC just works.
I bet a Steam Machine would just work too, because Valve aren’t as incompetent as the competition.
To be fair, if you would use your PC as rarely as you seem to use your gaming console, it’s probably also want to take an hour to update…
I could still play games or watch DVDs while it updates
PCs do not just work. They require updates a lot more than your average game console especially if you’re cursed to use Windows.
I can use my PC’s DVD player while I wait for sudo pacman -Syu, or I can even not update it at all if I want. I can do the thing I wanted to do and then update it when I’m done.
You can literally just move the computer? I have a computer in my living room. In fact that is where it stays all day everyday.
But if you don’t want to physically move it. You can run a single fiber optic cable, or if you have Ethernet - connect a balun at the PC and at the TV…
An hdmi extender, routing a cable, and getting some wireless peripherals (which you’d need anyway) is a huge cost of time?
Unless you live in a mansion, I guess…
I like the steam box but idk
Covid, the wire company makes a wireless 4k HDMI extender, the EHW-200. There’s a 1080 one too, the EHW-100 for half the cost. Plug and play, no app. They’re pretty cool.
What is the latency on that?
I just used a $30 HDMI balun and a single patch cable to connect the Ethernet running from Living Room to PC. Just removed the router from the connection between the two and it works fantastic. No latency issues and Cat6 is more than capable.
I actually don’t know, our customers use them for presenting mostly. We usually use the HDMI over HDBaseT. I actually don’t know all the specs, I am in the Procurement side, they just send me lists to order. I just saw the wireless units and thought they were pretty slick.
EDIT looked it up 90-120ms a bit laggy, probably not good for gaming.
All this tells me is you don’t frequently mess with your computer enough to break it.
I want a steam box because my PC is always in some state of me fucking with it. I don’t want that to get in the way of my gaming.
??? What are you on about? Stop breaking your shit and then acting like the issue is the fact that it’s a PC and not the fact that you’re actively choosing to mess with it?
Like, what is breaking in the first place?
Bro probably broke his first RAM tab holder because he thought only one of them opens
Baby steps
I used to have my PC plugged in to my TV, steam box style, but it’s back on my desk now… with a long ass HDMI cable running to that TV so I get the best of both worlds. Steam box is definitely cool, I don’t understand the hate for it. Sometimes I think people are just whiners.
Yea that thing is rad. I’m thinking I’ll get it for my nephew someday if they release a new version when he’s old enough to play.
Either that or I torture him with Linux Mint and Lutris I haven’t decided yet.
Lol yea okay I just opened up my DAD’S laptop yesterday to clean it. I went as far as taking apart the fan to clean it properly, and the quirky M.2 setup in his T470p as well, just to get everything out. I also just bought a “broken” webcam, and fixed it for my own use.
But I dON’t mESs WiTH mY coMPutER eNOuGh
I’m just…not a dummy
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.
The key difference is that the Steam Machine can be controlled 100% for the controller with a OS built to be controlled by the controller, and seen on a TV.
Windows doesn’t do that. It fuckin sucks to see on a TV because the UI is so small, and the controller only works in-game.
I am most excited for the OS progress. I will be putting whatever on my living room pc as soon as it’s released. I can’t stand using a mouse and keyboard in the living room and having to scoot close to the TV
Maybe its the games I have played but my last pc was connected to my tv exclusively for 5 years and never saw that UI issue. I definitely had issues that sometimes needed addressing, but that wasnt one. I thought it worked good enough, but yeah the keyboard and mouse was always annoying. I used the Logitech all in one which was pretty small and mouse pad on the right side from the couch. For the most part I used it more for video playback though so I was in Kodi a lot and I would then use my phone as the remote control.
But the Steam Box comes with Linux so it must better :)
Choose: Big, bulky, shining with full RGB spectrum monster (low-end)
Or small funny box that Just Works.
Lol, I also hate the RGB as well. I built mine a few years ago and it was annoying how badly it is just integrated into most parts now. Some had options where I could buy the same part without it, but some it was either buy it with it or get something else that was either lower end or higher end and not what I wanted at all. In the end it has a low glow and I just face that open window at a wall. Why can’t everything have a boring option like noctua fans.
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.
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.
NGL, I kinda want one as a desktop. I have better gaming systems, but having a little borg cube on my desk with an ok amount of horsepower pushing two monitors would be pretty neat. I’d either give it a Tardis siege mode skin or a borg cube skin
And it will be a development target, meaning devs will put in some effort to get their games working nicely on it.
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.
This article says absolutely nothing except here say from a YouTuber?
They didn’t confirm anything?
With the prices of RAM…
Valve would have secured a pipeline prior to announcing the news at least for the first however many thousand/million/whatever units
Not just the highest bidder. All bidders.
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.
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.
It’s a linux gaming PC where you do not have to worry about hardware compatibility.
But can you mod games like on PC?
Many mods work. I have tried some GTA SA mods, and have seen people using Minecraft mods.
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.
