crustygabe³ half-life 3 confirmed
Can anyone tell me why anyone would want to buy a Steam Machine? Serious question.
It may not he for you, but there’s a huge potential audience. Somebody who is used to the console experience and wants that simplicity for playing on the couch, but wants access to PC gaming platforms like Steam.
I like tinkering with my PC, but a lot of people don’t. They like consoles because they can pick up the controller, push a button, and it powers on and works, and they never have to worry if a game will run. If it’s released on the console, it should work.
Yeah, there’s 1001 ways to get a PC running on the TV, but none of them are as dumb-simple as turning on an Xbox. This device solves that issue.
Captain AggravatedHell, even consoles aren’t as easy as they used to be. They require accounts with Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo, they require updates for the console itself as well as individual games, most games have to be “installed,” you still have to think about internal storage…
I’ve been PC gaming for 20 years and always wanted to be able to play them on my TV. Yes, the methods exist, but it feels needlessly complex- right now I have long cables running through my small apartment just to play on my TV… with latency. It feels like to get everything running you need specific dongles, cables, hardware, ports, and then there’s compatibility issues on top of that.
I’m not a computer savant who runs a home network and meticulously manages their home tech. I’m also not a total noob- I can troubleshoot issues, setup mods, do some basic tinkering, etc. which puts me ahead of many, many typical users. That said, I have other hobbies and things I want to do, and the amount of work it takes to get this stuff minimally functional just isn’t worth the time and frustration for me (inb4 someone replies “just try xyz!”).
The Steam Machine is something I’ve always wanted. A one-stop shop I can plug into my TV, hook up my controller, and boom- steam library at my fingertips. No worries about compatibility, cable runs, or any of that crap. Plus, it could get someone like my partner (a lifelong Mac user who hates computers in general, can’t troubleshoot, and loves Nintendo games) into PC gaming.
But you still have to know about it.
Whereas the Steam Maclhine - like a Playstation, Xbox, or Nintendo - just plugs into the TV and works.
Plug in the power, run the HDMI cable to the and log into the wifi after powering it on.
I don’t have a smart TV
idunnololzIt’s half the reason I got a steam deck. It can’t play everything but it can play a good portion of my games and I can plug it into a TV.
Yes! I was considering it, just feels a bit pricy and I don’t think I’d use the handheld mode. Hoping the Steam machine could be a cool no frills option
I see. Thanks for the reply. You sound a lot like me actually. But one of the many things I like to build is computers and when I heard that the CPU was soldered on, I thought, well that just gets thrown in the trash as soon as it’s outdated. And it seemed like it wasn’t as good as a different computer running the same stuff, but I hadn’t heard anything about it until now and that’s ALL I’m hearing, so I figured I must have missed something.
That’s a fair point re: CPU, although I’m not patient enough to build a PC (my friends built mine ages ago 😂) so it won’t make much difference to me… hopefully. But for sure I think if upgrade-ability and/or final price are of concern, then building your own box to the same specs would be much better
I can see several different niches for it.
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PC gamers who want an HTPC. Which isn’t really a niche that is served without building an ITX machine, with parts that are premium priced for no reason I can think of. If you want to play some of your PC games on a television, well, there aren’t a lot of great solutions.
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Console gamers looking to convert. Consoles have come up in price significantly, the “turn on and play” aspects have eroded to the point a console is a slightly discounted mi-tier gaming PC that can’t spreadsheet. The Steam Machine will be at a little bit of a price premium, but you get a console-like user experience with all the benefits of the PC ecosystem, like mods, streaming, self-hosted multiplayer, etc.
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IT professionals who just want to play games in their spare time. I’ve heard a lot of sysadmins and developers and folks rage at the idea of coming home from a long day at the IT mines only to futz around with PCIe lanes and EFI settings. The most hacker dude I know showed me his personal phone: a non-jailbroken iPhone.
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Noobs that are sick of Microsoft. There’s people out there who would like a gaming PC without Windows, but for one reason or another can’t move past the need to buy a computer with an OS installed from a for-profit company.
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Parents buying kids a gaming PC.