Steam Machine Prices Announced
(twitter.com)
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One of the comments sums things up quite well.
We're using it for stupid shit, israel using it for psychological warfare.
To be fair, using it for "stupid shit" would make it fun. When AI was hitting mainstream people were making shitposts where they faked Presidents saying dumb shit and having remixes of songs done.
When it's used for humor, it's great.
It's when the fucking ( ( ( THEM ) ) ) at the corpos thought that going after AI was the next gold(stein) mine.
Yeah, the main use cases is definitely the corporates thinking it's going to solve all their problems and allow them to get rid of the whites and the Indians. I know some former coworkers who still work at the big megacorp I worked for a long time. One of them came across like a usage dashboard of AI tokens. They are spending tens of millions on AI tokens basically encouraging their employees to use AI to make their own jobs redundant.
tl;dr
To anyone wondering, if you tried to make an equivalent computer as a DIY, you'd be paying about the same prices.
Yeah, that's kinda what I was wondering. With the insane price of RAM and SSD, is that not just decent game PC prices?
Huge pass on this.
Those prices are insane.
Not that I needed one anyway, but it would have been a nice little project to have to experiment more with Linux. But those are absurd bundle prices.
I've been thinking about upgrading my Steam Deck instead... but then again, I have all the emulators and roms on it that I could possibly want, and none of my library demands anything more than what it offers. So I'll be sitting out this generation of overpriced hardware.
The part that gets me too, I mean I suspect real gaming performance isn't that far off my current gaming PC. Which was a 2022 HTPC build for if I had to guess $1049 is right around what I spent but with easily an extra $200 in the 4TB SSD over a 512GB and buying a super overpriced HTPC case. I mean this Steam machine might outperform me a bit, but not by much and I suspect the supports 4k/60 with FSR is a total pipe dream at best. I get eaten up on VRAM before that happens currently.
Isn't this an APU too? So yeah, hardware prices have gone up but it still seems overpriced to me.
You could install steamos on your machine if you're using an amd gpu and check it out. I heard it needs its own drive though.
I'm on Nobara which is pretty close I think to Steam OS if I tell it to boot into the gaming mode. I've been on Linux for approaching two years for games now. I didn't end up using the gaming mode (the Steam console type thing) because it was just too finicky to set up for all my GOG games, my emulation, if I want to web browse, the headset I don't use a ton, etc.
It's there though, and if you're a Steam-only PC gamer it's quite nice. I've had almost zero special configuration required for Steam games on Linux. I've spent most of my setup time setting up obscure old games, many of which Windows fights too, or setting up emulators.
I'm dual boot with something like a 250GB Win 11 partition that honestly I can't remember the last time I booted in to. I'm close to a full Linux gaming evangelist at this point. I love I never have to screw with GPU driver updates and the AMD control panel and such garbage.
For my GoG games I install them in desktop mode with Heroic, and then Heroic has an option to add them to Steam. After doing that, I can launch them from the Steam Deck's gaming mode. It's still a hassle, but a minor one.
I've been doing it with Lutris. I'm sure with a little tweaking I could make it work. I think I just ended up not messing with it anymore. It's a TV PC but I was already set up for years for TV-front gaming. I can totally play KB/M games on it if I want, comfortably. So messing with the gaming mode was just a novelty at best. I also tried Bazzite first, then Arch, before settling on Nobara for the last year or so and I'd kinda gotten used to being past that.
I do need to play with Heroic someday. I've never cared too much to have a mega game launcher though. I actually prefer my emulators to stand alone in particular.
I think of Heroic as more like my GoG launcher, I know it can do other things but I don't really do any of that.
The important thing, to me, is that it handles GoG achievements with no further fuckery. Even when I launch a game via the shortcuts it makes in Steam.
Worst time possible given RAM and storage insane prices.
This was supposed to be a sleek console-replacement for your living room or a desktop replacement to game on a small budget without having to Do It Yourself. So it fails from the start with price.
Valve sent Gamers Nexus a review unit and they benchmarked it.
Performace would be acceptable if it was ~$600 for what is a compact, very quiet box. It's a 1080p machine ( or higher for lighter / older titles ). ( Otherwise building your own in a larger case will be cheaper and perform better. )
I don't think there are enough fake frames and upscalling on Earth to make this output the playable 4k 60FPS Valve tried to claim it would.
Oh and you're not actually getting one even if you want it because ''lol the cube looks cool''. You'll be asking to be put on a waiting list.
P.S. : They have alot of time to fix the problems, but Gamers Nexus found alot of jank and bugs. Like how Steam thinks it's a Steam Deck and tries to default to that when it shouldn't. Or that some games will default to installing a shitty Linux compatible version that performs worse than using the Proton translation layer.
Yeah I think they totally missed the mark. I mean it sort of needed to compete at least in a middle ground with consoles and not immediately have videos comparing it to similar/slightly cheaper DIY PCs that would out perform it. Consoles have always had the edge of being (even now, what $650 or a PS5?) the easy option with a consistent experience for low end PC price.
This is offering really none of that, and honestly I don't totally buy that it's only due to hardware prices, they just think they will sell it anyway so they jacked the price up. I haven't dug around, but there's loads of mini PC manufacturers now and I bet if not already it's not long before they dump the same CPU/GPU chips on a board and sell it for $300 less.
600 would've been a contender against the consoles in the living room
It feels like Nintendo is winning by default, and they don't know what to do with that. Everyone else is spending themselves broke, and can't make a full hit like they used to. Nintendo says most games will be on switch 2. Nintendo is barely trying, but being frugal, and it's winning.
The heck!?