8 ms·

I don’t need a Steam Machine

145 points by ingve 11mo ago

kator 11mo ago
Read all the way to the end: "I’m getting one." So will I, if anything to support the effort, and check it out maybe I'll buy more for my kids or something.
- ThatPlayer 11mo ago
  Yeah, I could make a similar post for similar reasons. I already have a bunch of mini-PCs I collect like Raspberry Pis. I already have a mITX build with Bazzite installed on it that I would use over a Steam Machine because it's faster. And like OP, I'd probably get anyways. Assuming price is ~800$ (with controller)
Aeolun 11mo ago
All of this is true, but Valve is one of the best companies I know and for now, I’ll happily give them money. It’s not about the fact that I’m actually going to use it. It’s about the fact that I want people to keep making things like this. It’s about the fact I want to reward them for not locking it down completely.
- RamRodification 11mo ago
  I wish I had that kind of money. Making a purchase solely for such reasons is completely out of the question for me. And for most people I'd assume?
  - pcdoodle 11mo ago
    [dead]
  - porridgeraisin 11mo ago
    There's also another way to interpret that. For me for example, I have the same PC for 5 years now, and before that I had the same one for 10 years. Basically, I run it till I really really can't. I can afford replacements more than once every 10 years, but I don't buy it simply cos it's not necessary. But in this situation if I had a similar fondness for valve, I might go ahead and buy it and cut short my not-for-affordability-reasons wait. I know a lot of people that behave this way with phone purchases.
  - ikr678 11mo ago
    Ultimately every purchase you make is a vote in support of the company/org you are buying from. Why do you go to one grocery store vs another? One hairdresser vs another?
    - RamRodification 11mo ago
      Maybe I'm misinterpreting the blog and/or comment, but if I don't need groceries, and can list 20+ reasons why I don't need groceries, I'm not going to get groceries anyway just because I like the grocery store very very much.
- cubefox 11mo ago
  You wouldn't like Valve so much if you explicitly saw the 30% Steam tax, I mean fee, declared every time you bought a PC game on Steam. Imagine if Microsoft did that. +30% for every Windows software. Like iOS. Then Steam games would be +60% rather than +30%.
  - input_sh 11mo ago
    You don't have to imagine anything, Microsoft also takes 30% of every purchase made via Microsoft Store.
    - kokada 11mo ago
      Yes, AFAIK this is an industry standard, both Sony and Nintendo also takes a similar approach.
    - cubefox 11mo ago
      Apparently they don't, this says 12% to 15%: https://www.techradar.com/pro/microsoft-just-dropped-its-store-fees-for-windows-developers https://www.techradar.com/pro/microsoft-just-dropped-its-sto... That's still higher than what seems reasonable for a simple store front, but they aren't as bad as Valve or Apple. Note that Valve is a relatively small company with only a few hundred employees, but with one of the most extreme revenue-per-employee ratios in the world, estimated at $19 million per employee: https://upptic.com/valve-structure-employment-numbers-revenue-revealed-in-lawsuit/ https://upptic.com/valve-structure-employment-numbers-revenu... That's orders of magnitude higher than companies like Apple, Elsevier or Nintendo. Steam is basically free money for Valve. Valve is extracting huge rents (around 6.5 billion yearly revenue) for negligible expenses (only 79 people working on Steam).
      - Yokolos 11mo ago
        > That's still higher than what seems reasonable Based on what? Your arbitrary standards. I still don't understand what's wrong with 30% for everything Steam provides as a platform. It's perfectly acceptable. It's not making indie developers poorer. It helping to ensure Valve can focus on the things that matter to them and do things like invest in Steam Input, Proton, SteamOS, and Steam Deck/Machine/Controller/Frame/etc. And it's still significantly better than the times when your only option was brick and mortar, where you maybe got 10-30% as the developer. Every other digital storefront does far less and still takes 15-30%. Why is Valve the big boogey man and everybody else is free to charge whatever they want on developers while doing fuck all for anybody but themselves?
- udev4096 11mo ago
  Valve is still evil, just like any for-profit tech corps. They have made a fortune in csgo gambling boxes
  - bdangubic 11mo ago
    there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of for-profit companies that are not “evil” - making money is not evil endeavor, you provide goods and services in exchange for money :)
    - udev4096 11mo ago
      I highly doubt it. Maybe not at the surface level but if you dig, you'll always find the dirt on any for-profit endeavor
      - bdangubic 11mo ago
        dirt != evil
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - SubmarineClub 11mo ago
    I guess we have different definitions of ‘evil.’
    - udev4096 11mo ago
      Average HN user has happily chugged the sugar coated propaganda from valve, which paints them as a saint which they clearly aren't
      - blszczkwsk 11mo ago
        Valve has done good things, but I feel like the whole gambling drama went over people's heads for some reason
- wayeq 11mo ago
  first world.. solutions?
tatjam 11mo ago
I'm looking for it as a general development machine, sometimes I do stuff that requires GPUs so if they can get a competitive price wrt. building a custom PC then I'm all in for the convenient form factor!
- baq 11mo ago
  The steam machine as they’re marketing it doesn’t have enough RAM to be a proper development box once you start running IDEs, language servers and debuggers. They’d need to release a 64 or 128 gig sku, unless RAM is easily upgradable.
  - zihotki 11mo ago
    RAM is upgradable according to Linus LTT, standard modules fit. But you can't upgrade graphics/cpu AFAIR.
    - chupasaurus 11mo ago
      > But you can't upgrade graphics/cpu AFAIR It's a laptop APU with graphics card moved to a daughter board, hence "semi-custom".
  - 59nadir 11mo ago
    > [...] proper development box [...] "Proper" is very subjective here. My entire workflow for developing 3D engines is covered a couple of times over with the announced Steam Machine specs. In fact, even when I was working in web backend development it would've covered it as a dedicated development machine and that was with some pretty pathological dev setups, language servers that ate up way too much memory, etc..
sm0ke21 11mo ago
I don't need it either. I want it so I'm going to get it. I also don't need the controller and the VR headset. But again, I am going to get it. I am the master of my life. Whatever I say goes. I am getting all 3. But I don't need them. No, no no.
confident_inept 11mo ago
I've been using a somewhat low-spec PC to play games and for general desktop usage. Finding stuff in this form factor, that you can guarantee will be well put together and worth the money is a rarity. Highly likely this could replace my desktop, as I don't need something much more powerful, just with more modern hardware. I don't do much AAA gaming and nearly game in my Steam library would run on this just fine. My regular daily computing needs can reasonably be satisfied with the compute power of a Raspberry Pi. I can swap flatpak based immutable SteamOS with plain Arch without losing the advantages (i.e. custom hardware settings integration) that one might sacrifice doing so on the Steam Deck. This is going to be a no-brainer for my next upgrade.
- lanfeust6 11mo ago
  Ditto, I don't need to pull double duty for desktop plus gaming. One device for each works.
- benjiro 11mo ago
  > I don't do much AAA gaming and nearly game in my Steam library would run on this just fine. I think that this is the issue with most people these days... The combination of work, seen it all, and frankly, often disappointing AAA games. The time spend is often on more smaller studios that do something creative, and those are often not triple A graphical monsters anyway. > This is going to be a no-brainer for my next upgrade. Really depends on the price... Do not forget that its going to be released in 2026... At that time we get new Zen 6 CPUs (remember, this Steam Deck is Zen4), what will drive the prices of the old Zen4 down even more. Same with new GPUs. Like, the Steam deck was incredible pricing for the hardware you got when released and sure, its still a good value for a handheld console, but from a hardware point of view, its really old now (zen2 cores).
0x073 11mo ago
I think the Steam Machine has to succeed for SteamOS on Linux to keep growing, and for the niche of the Linux desktop to become larger. Steam has already failed at this once, and it won’t try a third time. (And Windows is currently at its lowest point, so it’s the perfect opportunity.)
- timschmidt 11mo ago
  > won’t try a third time I see no evidence for this, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Notably, after the initially failed Steam Machines, we now have Steam Deck, Steam Machine Mark II, Steam Frame, Steam Controller Mark II, etc. And critically, Valve seems to be learning, iterating, and the Steam Deck and Steam Controller Mark II are both much more enjoyable to use than the first Steam Controller. From their perspective, Valve are otherwise dependent on Microsoft or Apple who see them as competition to squeeze out. Success of the Steam hardware platforms is their only way to change that situation. Therefore all evidence points to Valve continuing to iterate until they find success. They are a private company, so they can afford to do so indefinitely without worrying about pissing off a board or investors.
  - 0x073 11mo ago
    Because steam/valve ist bound to gabe, not sure who comes after him. (10 years between the steam machines) But such changes are mostly more negative.
    - timschmidt 11mo ago
      Eh... again, Valve being a private company plays a role here. Whoever succeeds Gabe will likely be chosen by Gabe, not some board or activist investor looking to maximize short term profit. There is much more freedom in private orgs to make long term strategic decisions. The 10 years Valve took between Steam machines was invested (wisely, I think) in Linux infrastructure like Wayland, Wine/Proton, GPU and audio drivers, etc. None of which Valve will have to repeat. To make my point, there was only 1.5 years between the release of the Steam Deck, and Steam Deck OLED, and that involved a new silicon tapeout.
chocalot 11mo ago
Fair reasons. I won't be getting one, because the Steam Deck is enough for me. > It’s Steam, not Good Old Games. Sure it can run GOG games but the Machine is primarily designed to run Steam. You avoid purchasing from Steam like the plague, yet you’re willing to buy a Machine dedicated to it? Are you crazy? I prioritise getting games on GOG, and the Steam Deck experience with it is good. I use Heroic Launcher to install them, and Steam mode to play it. > You don’t have time to fiddle with configuration. Button and trackpad mappings to get the controls just right enough to play strategy games designed to be played with keyboard and mouse will only leave you frustrated. +1. I don't bother with configuration. If a game only supports keyboard and mouse I just play it when docked. > Fuck it, I’m getting one. Haha.
koolala 11mo ago
I need a VR linux environment. With eye tracking letting you use a mouse without taking your hands off the keyboard.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
sylens 11mo ago
I have been trying for a long time to find a way to play my PC games from my couch without dragging my desktop into the living room. Steam Link works okay but is still noticeable for some games. Docking a Steam Deck wasn’t powerful enough. Running a long HDMI cable isn’t feasible in my current living space. So I’m very intrigued to have this lower powered cube sit under my TV for when I just want to do some couch co-op or play something more casual to wind down at night.
- telman17 11mo ago
  Moonlight/Sunshine is a great steam link alternative if you have a tv box (like an apple tv or similar) that has the Moonlight app available. I'm able to run both steam and non steam games pretty well.
mariopt 11mo ago
Steam Machines can become an existencial crisis for PlayStation and Xbox. A “console” that I can use as a PC? I am in 100%. You’ll get the world biggest game library at a discount, this is why I sold my PlayStation after spending 200 euros and watching it becoming useless. I also suspect a lot of game devs will optimize for steam machine and finally we’ll get a console like experience on PC. Don’t let the “low specs” fool you, it has the same specs or better as 70% of steam users. Given Valve gave money to a lot of open source maintainers , it’s also great for Linux. Just take my money
- 0x073 11mo ago
  Then sony produce ps only exclusive s. No pc ports anymore.
  - dangus 11mo ago
    I don’t think that’s true. The whole reason they’re producing PC ports is to sell the most profitable part (software) to those who to haven’t been giving them money. Sony makes zero dollars off of the consoles, and while they do enjoy taking their PS Store royalties rather than giving it up to Steam, they also have a huge collection of first party studios that might even be a more important business. And it’s not like Sony is giving their big console releases PC ports on day one, if you want to own them right away you have to buy a PlayStation.
    - firesteelrain 11mo ago
      You are mostly right about the broad strategy but a few of the claims are too absolute. Sony does make money on hardware later in the cycle even if margins are small. They also care about PC ports for more than just pure profit such as extending the IP footprint and keeping franchises visible between major releases. The part about delayed PC ports is completely correct. PlayStation is still the primary window and PC is the secondary revenue phase once the console market is saturated.
    - philistine 11mo ago
      How could you believe that Sony would give up 30% of every Call of Duty, Madden, Fortnite sale for the measly PC sales of Slapper-Man 2 and God of Warm? Every Steam Machine sold that plays Sony's exclusives is a genuine threat to Sony's control over the gaming market. The more I think about it, the more I believe Sony's games coming to PC is over since yesterday's announcement.
seanalltogether 11mo ago
I'm also one of those people who does everything on my mac laptop, but hits a kvm switch to jump onto a PC to play games at night (when I have time, which I don't). At this point I've stopped pretending that I want a PC that I can upgrade and swap out parts. I just want a little box that doesn't make any noise and works as is. Framework desktop and now this steam machine look like good options. I'm a bit disappointed at the 8gb gpu though.
- lopatin 11mo ago
  Same here. I like the end result of having a gaming/ML PC with all the specs that I chose out but assembling PCs is not a hobby that I enjoy, and gaming seems to be partying ways with ML anyways. The new world might well end up being DGX for ML, and Steam machine for games.
mrec 11mo ago
I don't understand the "You can’t buy this without buying the Steam Controller." bit. If you want one, great, if not, it's no more necessary than with any other PC. I've been gaming for ~40 years without ever touching a controller, why would I start now?
- few 11mo ago
  Because people on the internet will call you a fake gamer if you don't play souls like games and those are best experienced on a controller?
- b112 11mo ago
  Early PC gaming, such as the mid 80s (40 years ago) was dominated by the need for a joystick, which is the parent to modern controllers. Regardless, some games are far better with a joystick, some with mouse. If we care for gaming experiences, it should be whatever is best.
  - mrec 11mo ago
    I absolutely get (and happily used) joysticks, but if a game needs a joystick I'll use a joystick, not a controller in the modern console sense. I'm sure those are good for something, but it's not something I've ever played.
  - lopatin 11mo ago
    Rocket league is an example. The pros play on pcs but hook a controller into it
- nobodyandproud 11mo ago
  I am also in the same category, but some games are made for the controller. Admittedly, the only one I can think of at the moment is Eldenring: The PC (mouse+keyboard) experience was terrible. I still passed on a controller but the controller first experience was glaring.
  - aigen01 11mo ago
Surac 11mo ago
Kudos to the author. I also will not buy a steam Box. But i appreciate the effect it will have on gaming and Linux. I use Mint and use steam to play my games just fine. For some games it is a little bit shaky. Game company’s now have a incentive to make gaming just feel right on a Linux machine much more than like the switch deck. Just my thinking of course
- navane 11mo ago
  if you read to the end, you'll see he gets one anyway
phito 11mo ago
It's the same as the steam deck: I don't enjoy video games anymore, I've actually never really enjoyed gaming except for a handful of titles. But I'll be damned, I love that Valve is bringing gaming to Linux and I'll buy the hardware just to support the cause. The people in my life that have been using the "I need Windows for my games" reason (or excuse ;)) to not switch to Linux are now slowly but surely leaving Windows!
- luqtas 11mo ago
  wait, your going to buy Steam hardware to support Linux gaming? WFT. isn't the multi-million yatch Gabe bought enough? go donate to khronos or the wine team. maybe even Godot, which treats Linux as a 1° class citizen
  - phito 11mo ago
    Good point, I just made a donation to the wine team. I still think buying Steam hardware is a good way to signal to the market that I want to see more of this.
  - retrochameleon 11mo ago
    Gabe buying a yacht makes the company evil or something? What's your point? Valve has single-handedly massively contributed to Linux gaming. Buying their products is obviously beneficial to Linux gaming as a whole. It's in their best interest to continue their trend of supporting and improving Linux gaming.
    - d3Xt3r 11mo ago
      I think it's important to note that it's not just gaming, but the improvements have cascaded over to regular desktop users as well: I'm taking about improvements in the kernel (for AMD CPUs mainly), improvements in the graphics stack (Mesa, amdgpu drivers), improvements in KDE and of course, improvements to the Wine project in general (which goes beyond gaming). Anyone who's been closely following the FOSS scene can see how the progress in these projects have exploded exponentially over the past 3-4 years, thanks to Valve. And with the most recent announcements, we can expect to see a similar sort of growth in the FEX emulator and general ARM support for various projects, which is all every exciting even as a non-gamer.
constantcrying 11mo ago
The Steam Machine is "just" a normal Linux PC, with good integration. The point is the target demographics. And, just like the Steam Deck, this is not something for power users. Most people on here know how to build a PC and install Linux with KDE on it, which is the same experience you would get with a Steam Machine. Valve is selling this to an audience of gamers, specifically those who want an easy gaming experience on low end hardware. This is the same demographic which Sony and Microsoft are selling to.
- ekianjo 11mo ago
  > This is the same demographic which Sony and Microsoft are selling to. Steam has nowhere near the same name recognition as Playstation or Xbox in the general public.
  - constantcrying 11mo ago
    Which means what exactly? Inserting a random factoid does not make a sentence have a point.
    - ekianjo 11mo ago
      Which means that you can "target" all that you want, if you don't have the dozens of millions of USD of advertising budget that your competitors have, you don't really stand a chance against the incumbents.
      - constantcrying 11mo ago
        Steam has a larger user base than the PSN. It is not like Valve is some unknown company unheard of in Gaming circles. Valve also does not need to advertise to the general public, the general public is not their demographic.
  - Yokolos 11mo ago
    Their audience is Steam users primarily. There are millions of them and all they need to do is market it on Steam. And as Valve had said (and shown with their hardware survey), the vast majority of users have shitty PC's. People keep mentioning in these comments "oh who is this for? I just built a gaming PC with an RX 9070". Good for you. Then you don't need it. However, there are millions of Steam users who do not have a 9070.
dangus 11mo ago
I was kind of annoyed at the blog post for being kind of pointless until the last line, which cracked me up. The Steam Machine is surely meant to be somewhere between mainstream and niche. It’s going to be cheap enough to be a pretty good deal for what it is, but I think those who are already PC builders (at least, those who aren’t unusually high-income and will toss money at a novelty) might not jump on it. The device does offer some unique features you can’t get on the PC market like HDMI-CEC, which will make it a great living room box. Perhaps it’s even being somewhat underrated as a PC on your desk type of solution. Perhaps the type of person who wants a small form factor plug and play solution at their desk and isn’t a small form factor expert would want it. The only barrier there is that SteamOS doesn’t bring you to desktop mode instantly, but in that case the user could install their own OS like Bazzite or Windows.
- zeld4 11mo ago
  I'm on the fence for SM bc of 8GB GPU RAM, but I just enjoy the tsunami of chinese followups after it, so guess I just have to buy one SM to make the wave work.
shantara 11mo ago
It ultimately comes down to the price. If it’s low enough, I’ll get Steam machine as a living room indie box and for streaming from my main desktop. I would feel bad for overpaying for 8 gigs of VRAM in 2026.
hollowturtle 11mo ago
> In two years, you’ll upgrade your M1 to an M4+: there’s the power upgrade. Only to play almost nothing or very badly if not supported natively. And no devs won't support mac games there is no incentive. Emulation is subpar compared to Proton on Linux, Apple people should really start stop thinking macbooks can do modern gaming, excepts for a couple of Capcom portings that were paid by apple to have them and some retro gaming
- vablings 11mo ago
  Supporting games on Mac is a huge hassle for developers for several reasons. It is painfully annoying to compile any MacOS application without actually having a machine with Xcode installed. The server solutions you can get a hold of are bad because apple will not sell any rack mounted servers to the public and the machines they do sell are restricted to a max of two instances of OSX virtualized. Your best bet is to rent a Mac server from one of these providers who just hoarde mac minis and throw them in custom datacenter racks
yoz-y 11mo ago
Back during Covid I bought a PC tower just to play PC games. Later I also bought a PlayStation because the couch experience is better. If the steam machine was available I’d definitely opt for that instead of both. If steam continues the way it is, it will be hard for me to justify having a gaming PC and a console instead of just one machine.
- TheRoque 11mo ago
  Yeah I think what they'll miss is a small tool to stream your games to your TV (well maybe it's already possible ?) because the drawback of having just 1 machine as PC and console is that it can't be both at your desk and in next to your TV
  - RamRodification 11mo ago
    There's a Steam app on my Samsung smart TV that I think can do this, with a USB-controller connected to a USB-port on the TV. Haven't tried it though. But I think the best way to do it is to have a cheap PC (or maybe an Android TV device or something?) connected to your TV. You can stream games to it from your gaming PC in the other room: https://store.steampowered.com/remoteplay https://store.steampowered.com/remoteplay
  - Manfred 11mo ago
    Do you mean Steam Remote Play and Steam Link?
    - TheRoque 11mo ago
      Rightttt steam link, as I wrote this I wasn't sure it existed already or not. Perfect !
  - vladvasiliu 11mo ago
    I've fixed that with a long HDMI cable and wireless controller. It works great. The main issue which has kept me at the desk for games, however, is that I'm way too used to keyboard & mouse and the controller experience is frustrating.
torginus 11mo ago
When I first saw the Arduino I didn't see the point - after all there were boards that cost less, did more, and the Arduino IDE seemed very barebones compared to what you could do with GCC and a custom toolchain. Then eventually I saw how much community support, ready made hardware emerged around it, to the point that after a while, not going the Arduino route was a decision you needed to justify heavily. Same thing with the Raspberry Pi - there are commercial devices now running or more or less stock Pi hardware with some accomodations - the power of the community is just too large - you can either spend an insane amount of time getting things working on your custom SBC, or get something well-supported for free. I hope that the same thing will happen with the Steam Machine - the pull of the community will result in a well-supported 'default' device where people (and Valve) will put in the effort to create a comparable desktop experience to the commercial OSes. Valve already helped immensely with Wayland - it's crazy to think that the project was stared cca. 2008, and today there's still arguments to be made it's not mature yet - by investing the necessary energy to make sure games run well, the drivers are optimized, and there's a high-quality end-user library (wlroots) for writing compositors has been the push that Wayland needed.
- tormeh 11mo ago
  > a comparable desktop experience to the commercial OSes Isn't it alteady comparable? My Linux desktop has almost the same game compatibility that Windows has, and none of the advertising and jank. Gone are the legendary days of xorg.conf. Linux has less problems than Windows now. Support from professional software vendors (Dassault, Autodesk, et al) and Nvidia could be better, admittedly, but these restrictions aren't very relevant to me. As for Mac OS it's fine, I guess, but I strongly dislike the settings program, and it's not like you can install an nvidia card there.
  - zavec 11mo ago
    > Support from professional software vendors (Dassault, Autodesk, et al) and Nvidia could be better, admittedly, but these restrictions aren't very relevant to me. I think that's maybe what GP was getting at. If you know how to debug stuff and such then Linux is perfectly serviceable today. With something like this, between Valve presumably publishing some docs and a big community for a single platform it should become a lot easier for people who are less familiar to search "I got xyz error on my steam box what do I do" and get help they can use. For mass adoption I think that's a big step. And then from there they can start venturing further out, if they want.
rvz 11mo ago
I think working on "AGI" is more important than getting a Steam Machine or any other console these days.
- jaennaet 11mo ago
  What are you doing on Hacker News? You should be working on "AGI". This may come as a surprise to you, but us humans need entertainment
jchw 11mo ago
Fully agree with the sentiments here in terms of "you might not need this", and for many of us the Steam Machine is not really marketed toward us in particular. I think it's not marketed away from us, though. For me, I am considering it, depending on the price. I already have a small form factor PC that I run Bazzite on in the living room. The problem? There's some kind of hardware issue. Unfortunately, it might be the Intel CPU. It results in sporadic issues including periods of time where memory errors spike like crazy. I love the PC ecosystem for what it is, but here's the problem: without redundant parts, I can't reasonably isolate the problem to figure out what to RMA. It's not abundantly clear, because the problem is sporadic. I'd need to replace parts one-by-one. So I've just been working around it for now. But the Steam Machine is sold as a single unit, and it already runs the KDE desktop that I'm used to using on my TV. (It's better than you'd expect, with a couple of tweaks, though I hope the SteamOS version that ships with the Steam Machine moves to a Wayland session as my TV supports HDR.) If I have a problem with the hardware, I can send it back to Valve. Even better, I kind of actually trust Valve. So for me it totally depends on price point. I don't game all that much on TV, but I do want a box connected to my TV that can game. Plus, bonus points if it's able to achieve a better idle power usage than my current small form factor build. Plus, even better, the device ships with native HDMI CEC support, which is fairly rare on PC graphics cards, requiring very frustrating workarounds. This is clearly a potential killer option for people who want a living room PC setup for their TV. (Aside: if you are wondering what the experience with using a living room PC with KDE is like, it's not too bad. You have to crank up the scale factor a bit, but with a Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad device, it's pretty easy to use. There's no easy way to support receiving Chromecasts, though, though there is Shanocast, but it's a bit sketchy. Funny enough, I believe Apple's AirPlay is less locked down and you can use UxPlay to receive AirPlay requests. I mostly just use Librewolf with some quality of life extensions like YouTube Shorts Block and Sponsorblock and the like. It is a little clunky but my previous weapon of choice was Android TV and it has been horrifically enshittified, so those devices are basically ewaste now.) If they manage an under $800 price point and deliver on performance, thermals and noise, you simply won't be able to beat this thing in almost any dimension buying parts new to make a build yourself. It is significantly smaller than anything you can build, and it theoretically packs significant power per inch in the sub-$1000 price point. As long as you don't mind paying Valve, I absolutely think this is a potential killer deal for many use cases that will involve barely ever actually using Steam. (But, despite the end of this article, it is definitely worth some consideration whether you really need one. Even if you ultimately decide you want it anyways :P)
zmmmmm 11mo ago
What's truly crazy is the VR headset is the same architecture as the Steam Machine. As in, it's a completely open Linux system you can wear on your face. They are literally telling the community to go nuts and hack it and install whatever you want on there. If there's any time for people who believe in open systems and open software to step up and buy the hell out of something, this it it. It will be very interesting to see if the play works out our not.
- safety1st 11mo ago
  The Frame announcement was certainly the one that blew my mind. A VR headset with an ARM CPU which runs a full fledged Linux operating system, can play x86 games via Proton, and can sideload Android APKs? What? Man, those guys have been busy.
  - delfinom 11mo ago
    Valve probably also spent a small fraction of the absurd billions meta spent on VR.
- pcdoodle 11mo ago
  [dead]
ntoskrnl_exe 11mo ago
I too won't be getting one, especially since I already have enough power at my desk. But I love how amazing of an idea it is. A form factor and ease-of-setup of a console that brings all the best features of PC gaming (inter-generational compatibility, free multiplayer...) into the living room. And unlike with the original Steam Machine, the market is ready this time.
avyeed_desa 11mo ago
Why can't i just shake the feeling that Steam Machines will Valve's gateway to release Half-Life 3 as a Steam Machine title exclusive? Furthermore, HL will only be Linux exclusive, at least for the first few months to put pressure on Sony, MS and Nintendo and the GTA6 launch.
- AlienRobot 11mo ago
  Why it feels like "this year will be the year of Linux desktop" didn't sound absurd enough for you so you went and upgraded the idea to "HL3 will be a Linux exclusive."
- zorked 11mo ago
  Are people who know of or remember Half Life even a significant fraction of the market anymore? At this point it's like releasing a new Fred Astaire musical. A new episode of The Lone Ranger.
- blszczkwsk 11mo ago
  I just don't see that happening, aren't linux users only like 5% of the user base? Releasing their most anticipated title only for the minority would make them lose out on a hefty amount of money. The more realistic option I see is that they offer some exclusive content (add-on or cosmetics) for SteamOS users.
komali2 11mo ago
A lot of notes about Switch 2 on there. I'm a Nintendo fanboy. Untold thousands from my wallet to their pockets over the last 30 years. NES on up, we've had every console except the virtual boy and specific iterations of mobile consoles (e.g switch but not switch lite). 512gb sd in the switch to fit all the games I bought on it. My house has 5 3DSs in it, which I maintain to this day is the best console ever made. Sadly though I'll not spend another dollar on a Nintendo product for the rest of my life. Their aggressive targeting of emulation developers and their litigiousness in general I believe is harmful to the videogame industry. Nintendo imo makes some of the best games ever made, but that's ok, there's still lots of other really good ones that run on my steam deck or my PC, and I can do whatever I want with the save files for those games, play them on my own terms.
poopiokaka 11mo ago
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Yoric 11mo ago
Let me be that guy: we live in a time of collapse, for both the environment and international relationships – do we really need more gaming rigs?
- garretraziel 11mo ago
  OK, but do you expect Valve to do anything about first two problems you have mentioned? (OK, saying “our next console will be a bunch of refurbished PCs we have sourced from local junkyard” would be a flex)
  - timschmidt 11mo ago
    Both the CPU and GPU Valve chose for the Steam Machine are cut down ("binned") versions of silicon AMD likely had lying around. The CPU is a laptop part which didn't sell in huge volume and has had the GPU fused off. The GPU has several CUs disabled compared to top-of-the-line. This indicates to me that Valve is using silicon which AMD either couldn't use otherwise, or couldn't sell for top price. You can see the alternative with PS5 and Xbox, where AMD designed and produced large bespoke custom chips. Versions of these chips which don't fully pass QA could have a few defective cores or CUs fused off and used elsewhere, but we don't see that outside of some very niche Chinese motherboards. Valve's approach instead allows them to re-use standard PC components which just didn't quite meet muster. So in effect, "our next console will be a bunch of refurbished PCs we have sourced from local junkyard" is exactly what Valve did here.
  - Yoric 11mo ago
    No, I don't. But the OP didn't discuss "Should Valve do something about the sorry state of the world", it discussed whether we individually should buy a Steam Machine.
- hnlmorg 11mo ago
  Yes. Because if unrelated industries decide to give up then a theoretical collapse becomes an unavoidable economic collapse. And history has proven that war usually follows economic collapses. So literally the best thing Valve could do here is carry on like usual.
ibizaman 11mo ago
I was going through the list, nodding as I read all the reasons, agreeing with them all. But also thinking each time I’ll get one anyway. I guess I agree with the last sentence of the post haha. If anything, I’ll justify this by saying I want to choose with my money and encourage this further. But that’s really just to give me good conscience.
dingi 11mo ago
I don't really need one either, but I'll buy it anyway, mostly because I want to support vendors who make hacker-friendly hardware and software. For that reason alone, Valve gets my money.
ramon156 11mo ago
all that matters is price. if it's a bang-for-your-buck (similar to the steamdeck) then i'm in. I don't have a PC in my current living space and it takes up as much space as my laptop, if not less.
ClimatePaywall 11mo ago
[dead]
whitehexagon 11mo ago
I'm doing a Needs-only-November - Non to 'wants'. But this was top of my list of 2026 'wants'. Your list has hopefully saved me ~300eur thanks. And to add to your list, hopefully it comes non-upgradable, choca full of adverts, forced AI, spyware/root-kit/anti-cheat, mandatory age verified account requirements, and all the other modern essentials to make me never ever want one. Still, it is kinda cute.
haunter 11mo ago
Funnily Valve doesn’t need it either to some extent. It’s almost like a pet project. They won’t sell it retail, no ads, so certainly won’t even hurt the sales of Switch 2 and PS5. Mind you the former just sold more than 10m units in less than 6 months. Secondly Valve makes disgusting amount of money from the lootboxes and the unregulated underage gambling market (estimated billions) which are almost a 0 effort system. Running an API and releasing a new lootbox every 2nd month or so are peanuts compared to the development, manifacturing, and distribution of the Steam Machine
- baq 11mo ago
  Tail risk for valve is they get locked out of the windows ecosystem via the App Store or some other trusted computing shenanigans. Steam hardware running windows games on an open OS mitigates this.
d--b 11mo ago
For those who didn't read til the end: > Fuck it, I'm getting one.
- zeld4 11mo ago
  reading the comments on HN, guess most did not really read to the end. lol
ivanjermakov 11mo ago
> With The Steam Machine, you might be able to finally properly run DOOM Eternal and all of the Assassin’s Creed games. That you don’t like playing. In my experience, relation of game's hardware requirements to the amount of fun it provides is inversely proportional. Best games of all time (opinionated, of course) run well on integrated graphics.
accrual 11mo ago
I think the author could use another TV if they have the space. Solves both the missing HDMI input and the "TV in use" error. :)
ivanjermakov 11mo ago
> You can’t buy this without buying the Steam Controller. Oh, this is ugly! Haven't noticed this being mentioned anywhere.
- kokada 11mo ago
  AFAIK one Steam Controller is included in the purchase of a Steam Machine already. Also, I find it unlikely that the Steam Machine is not going to work with other controllers, since the SteamOS works with pretty much any controller out there (Xbox, PS4/PS5, Switch, 8-bit Do, you name it). Not sure what the author meant here. Maybe they're referring for the fact that you can't purchase a cheaper version of Steam Machine without the Steam Controller.
bovermyer 11mo ago
This list actually convinced me to get one, since I'm almost the opposite of every list item, haha.
kokada 11mo ago
I am kind having a similar dilemma as the author of the blog post. Gabe Cube is the least interesting announcement that Valve did for me if I look at an objective level since I just built a PC that runs Jovian-NixOS (basically SteamOS, but running with NixOS as a base). My PC is way more powerful than the Gabe Cube too (at least in GPU, a Radeon 9070), and it is already connect to my TV since SteamOS makes this easy even if you're running the software in a unsupported configuration like I do. But the Gabe Cube just lives rent free in my head. It looks sleek. I know that the software experience is going to be top-notch since I have a Steam Deck. I know that it is only going to get better with time (when the Steam Deck was released I barely touched it since lots of things didn't work well, but this year the Steam Deck is by far my most played machine). Also I am finding gaming fun again since on Steam I can play lots of good and cheap games, since they're almost always on sale and there are lots of indie games that never get released in console. I want to sell all my other consoles and just invest in the Steam ecosystem, especially nowadays that almost all games will eventually be multi-platform (even the ones from Xbox and PlayStation). It is not like I like to play lots of AAA games anyway, and at least the ones I am interested are already available or will be available in PC eventually (like Final Fantasy VII Remake, MGS3: Remake, etc). I also don't care about online multiplayer for the lack of kernel anti-cheat on SteamOS/Linux to be a problem. I am seriously considering buying another TV (we only have one in our home right now) just to justify buying a Gabe Cube.
- rkomorn 11mo ago
  I greatly enjoy the single-purpose aspect of consoles: no upgrades, no other software to manage, etc. So a single-purpose PC-based console basically made for Steam? That sounds great to me. I don't even have a 4K TV so the performance might be just what I need.
tjpnz 11mo ago
>In two years, you’ll upgrade your M1 to an M4+: there’s the power upgrade. >If CrossOver is struggling to run that particular game you so badly want to play, it’ll be buttery smooth in a few years. You’re going to do the laptop upgrade anyway regardless of the Steam Machine. The only times I've heard the fan come on on my M4 were with games like Kerbal Space Program and Cities Skylines. Having tried both of them on a variety of MBPs over the years (both Intel and Apple Silicon) I'm not convinced they'll ever run well - in fact they both play worse on my M4. Newer games like CP2077 and No Man's Sky do put in a good showing but they've been optimized for Metal.
cardanome 11mo ago
My only problem is that the hardware looks downright antiquated compared to the near-silent and power efficient setup offering world leading single-core performance that you get with a Mac Mini. Especially when both run ARM so you have a apple(s) to apples comparison. I still hope they succeed. Steam is the one good monopolists that will probably only go full evil when Gabe dies. My dream would be Steam OS on hardware that can rival apple silicone.
- porridgeraisin 11mo ago
  Steam machine is x86
goda90 11mo ago
I built myself a new gaming desktop and set up my old one next to our TV, telling myself I'd get it all situated with controllers and my large library of split screen games. We have a Shield TV for most streaming, so the desktop is pretty much only used for two things: My wife watching Chinese shows on random websites and watching movies remotely with friends over SyncLounge[0]. So while the Steam Machine is intriguing, I really don't have a good reason to buy one. That being said, I like the idea of supporting this kind of hardware development. [0]https://github.com/synclounge/synclounge https://github.com/synclounge/synclounge
- embedding-shape 11mo ago
  I don't have much reasons to buy one either, besides "It'll be fun to thinker with" and "I want to support any company trying to make Linux go mainstream, because ultimately that'll make my desktop experience better". But those two feel more than enough, and I'm happy to open my wallet for them.
- lanfeust6 11mo ago
  If I purchase one it is effectively a console-killer for the big screen. The fact that the PS5 is now in the twilight phase is making me consider it. The era of exclusives is almost over as basically everything I want to play on PS5 is also available on PC. At the same time I don't need a living room machine to be a full-fledged desktop. Nor is that desirable with kids.
npteljes 11mo ago
@dang The title is now "Why I Don't Need a Steam Machine"
udev4096 11mo ago
> You don’t have time to play games anyway. Yes. Games are a complete waste of time and the sooner you realize it the better
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
  Why reading a fantasy book would be less of a waste of time?
  - udev4096 11mo ago
    Most modern "AAA" games are meant to hook you up. It's an addictive cycle, most games are also only on steam which means steam owns you. It has profiled you, your voice chats, your friends, your game habits, etc. If you'd think for even a minute, you'd realize what a shitshow modern gaming is. It's nothing but a masqueraded attempt for mass surveillance from steam and other major game stores
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
      To me it seems you are conflicting multiplayer games with single player games. The two have very different business incentives. And Steam has my gaming habits because I want it to have them: it provides good tips in what to buy. Steam has none of my voice chats and the last 260 hours I played videogames, it doesn't think I even logged in. My favorite game of the year barely shows up on my profile page because I use it through a mod. I agree on multiplayer games, but that's due to the business, single player games don't have that incentive. And Steam is full of beautiful work of arts in the indie game space
Kiro 11mo ago
Couldn't relate to a single argument.
DeathArrow 11mo ago
I don't want my kids to spend too much time on screens. They already watch too much cartoons.
- reanimated 11mo ago
  Have a limited screen time per-day rule, and let them choose whether they want to spend it watching cartoons OR playing video games.
jccalhoun 11mo ago
My conspiracy theory: Microsoft knew the Steam Machine was coming and decided to get out of the console market.
butz 11mo ago
Tiny form factor, simple design and, most important, no external power brick, has already sold the Steam Machine for me.
hiddencost 11mo ago
I'm considering moving my desktop to SteamOS, not just for gaming (web browsing, streaming from my jellyfin server). I have a laptop for embedded programming (and anything I do that needs serious compute I run on a cloud VM), I have dedicated hardware for Home Assistant. I want to quit windows, but I'm always disappointed by running Linux that isn't backed by a company. I think Valve might be one of the companies I trust the most. I kinda wonder if someone will start selling productivity tools on steam...
KronisLV 11mo ago
SteamCube would have honestly been such a cool name. My current PC has a Ryzen 7 5800X and an Intel Arc B580 and I don't really have the need for a device to connect to a TV (which I also don't have), but I can definitely see the appeal to something that is both okay at games, as well as has hardware that the software works really well with, with minimal amounts of driver weirdness. Not everyone views building or buying PC as non-intimidating, especially because of how many different parts of different specs and vendors are there. I ended up getting a MacBook (M1 Air) and an iPhone (SE 2022) for some work stuff a while back, and while my use cases of those particular devices are a bit limited, I appreciate how most of the computing and updates out of the box... just work (at least for now, in contrast I got a bit unlucky with Windows updates on my main PC so I had to mess around with where the disk partitions are, otherwise it refused to boot after one update, no idea what's up with that). Plus maybe it'll push developers in the direction of optimize their games a bit more (or at least add more performance oriented presets). I just hope that they won't pull an Intel Core Ultra with the pricing, which will probably make or break the Steam Machine as something that'd see widespread usage.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
cjonas 11mo ago
> The Steam Machine is not a Switch: you can’t switch to handheld mode Buy a gamsir g8 and now you have a Switch (via steam link).
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
fithisux 11mo ago
Is the steam machine coming with open source drivers or specifications?
welcome_dragon 11mo ago
Ok so the author isn't a target demographic for this. I don't really see why it's warranted a blog post
deafpolygon 11mo ago
me too, i just hope the pricing is reasonable. the big draw for me is a reliable, small unit that i can relegate gaming to, without building my own PC.
morshu9001 11mo ago
The only reason I know about the Steam Machine is HackerNews. Probably most people are "living under a rock" according to the author.
rpigab 11mo ago
I don't need any of the 3 announced Steam hardware products, I already have a decent gaming PC running Steam on Ubuntu, a VR headset (Meta Quest 3, that I would not have bought had I known earlier, though it works wonders streaming PCVR games through ALVR+SteamVR) and a classic Steam controller that is more reliable that my Xbox One one on BLE. But I do benefit from the announcement, because this means Valve will continue investing in the GNU/Linux ecosystem, and this will net more Linux players, which in turn means better software overall. Yay!

145 points by ingve 11mo ago

kator 11mo ago

Read all the way to the end: "I’m getting one." So will I, if anything to support the effort, and check it out maybe I'll buy more for my kids or something.

ThatPlayer 11mo ago
Yeah, I could make a similar post for similar reasons. I already have a bunch of mini-PCs I collect like Raspberry Pis. I already have a mITX build with Bazzite installed on it that I would use over a Steam Machine because it's faster. And like OP, I'd probably get anyways. Assuming price is ~800$ (with controller)

Aeolun 11mo ago

All of this is true, but Valve is one of the best companies I know and for now, I’ll happily give them money. It’s not about the fact that I’m actually going to use it. It’s about the fact that I want people to keep making things like this. It’s about the fact I want to reward them for not locking it down completely.

RamRodification 11mo ago
I wish I had that kind of money. Making a purchase solely for such reasons is completely out of the question for me. And for most people I'd assume?
- pcdoodle 11mo ago
  [dead]
- porridgeraisin 11mo ago
  There's also another way to interpret that. For me for example, I have the same PC for 5 years now, and before that I had the same one for 10 years. Basically, I run it till I really really can't. I can afford replacements more than once every 10 years, but I don't buy it simply cos it's not necessary. But in this situation if I had a similar fondness for valve, I might go ahead and buy it and cut short my not-for-affordability-reasons wait. I know a lot of people that behave this way with phone purchases.
- ikr678 11mo ago
  Ultimately every purchase you make is a vote in support of the company/org you are buying from. Why do you go to one grocery store vs another? One hairdresser vs another?
  - RamRodification 11mo ago
    Maybe I'm misinterpreting the blog and/or comment, but if I don't need groceries, and can list 20+ reasons why I don't need groceries, I'm not going to get groceries anyway just because I like the grocery store very very much.
cubefox 11mo ago
You wouldn't like Valve so much if you explicitly saw the 30% Steam tax, I mean fee, declared every time you bought a PC game on Steam. Imagine if Microsoft did that. +30% for every Windows software. Like iOS. Then Steam games would be +60% rather than +30%.
- input_sh 11mo ago
  You don't have to imagine anything, Microsoft also takes 30% of every purchase made via Microsoft Store.
  - kokada 11mo ago
    Yes, AFAIK this is an industry standard, both Sony and Nintendo also takes a similar approach.
  - cubefox 11mo ago
    Apparently they don't, this says 12% to 15%: https://www.techradar.com/pro/microsoft-just-dropped-its-store-fees-for-windows-developers https://www.techradar.com/pro/microsoft-just-dropped-its-sto... That's still higher than what seems reasonable for a simple store front, but they aren't as bad as Valve or Apple. Note that Valve is a relatively small company with only a few hundred employees, but with one of the most extreme revenue-per-employee ratios in the world, estimated at $19 million per employee: https://upptic.com/valve-structure-employment-numbers-revenue-revealed-in-lawsuit/ https://upptic.com/valve-structure-employment-numbers-revenu... That's orders of magnitude higher than companies like Apple, Elsevier or Nintendo. Steam is basically free money for Valve. Valve is extracting huge rents (around 6.5 billion yearly revenue) for negligible expenses (only 79 people working on Steam).
    - Yokolos 11mo ago
      > That's still higher than what seems reasonable Based on what? Your arbitrary standards. I still don't understand what's wrong with 30% for everything Steam provides as a platform. It's perfectly acceptable. It's not making indie developers poorer. It helping to ensure Valve can focus on the things that matter to them and do things like invest in Steam Input, Proton, SteamOS, and Steam Deck/Machine/Controller/Frame/etc. And it's still significantly better than the times when your only option was brick and mortar, where you maybe got 10-30% as the developer. Every other digital storefront does far less and still takes 15-30%. Why is Valve the big boogey man and everybody else is free to charge whatever they want on developers while doing fuck all for anybody but themselves?
udev4096 11mo ago
Valve is still evil, just like any for-profit tech corps. They have made a fortune in csgo gambling boxes
- bdangubic 11mo ago
  there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of for-profit companies that are not “evil” - making money is not evil endeavor, you provide goods and services in exchange for money :)
  - udev4096 11mo ago
    I highly doubt it. Maybe not at the surface level but if you dig, you'll always find the dirt on any for-profit endeavor
    - bdangubic 11mo ago
      dirt != evil
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- SubmarineClub 11mo ago
  I guess we have different definitions of ‘evil.’
  - udev4096 11mo ago
    Average HN user has happily chugged the sugar coated propaganda from valve, which paints them as a saint which they clearly aren't
    - blszczkwsk 11mo ago
      Valve has done good things, but I feel like the whole gambling drama went over people's heads for some reason
wayeq 11mo ago
first world.. solutions?

tatjam 11mo ago

I'm looking for it as a general development machine, sometimes I do stuff that requires GPUs so if they can get a competitive price wrt. building a custom PC then I'm all in for the convenient form factor!

baq 11mo ago
The steam machine as they’re marketing it doesn’t have enough RAM to be a proper development box once you start running IDEs, language servers and debuggers. They’d need to release a 64 or 128 gig sku, unless RAM is easily upgradable.
- zihotki 11mo ago
  RAM is upgradable according to Linus LTT, standard modules fit. But you can't upgrade graphics/cpu AFAIR.
  - chupasaurus 11mo ago
    > But you can't upgrade graphics/cpu AFAIR It's a laptop APU with graphics card moved to a daughter board, hence "semi-custom".
- 59nadir 11mo ago
  > [...] proper development box [...] "Proper" is very subjective here. My entire workflow for developing 3D engines is covered a couple of times over with the announced Steam Machine specs. In fact, even when I was working in web backend development it would've covered it as a dedicated development machine and that was with some pretty pathological dev setups, language servers that ate up way too much memory, etc..

sm0ke21 11mo ago

I don't need it either. I want it so I'm going to get it. I also don't need the controller and the VR headset. But again, I am going to get it. I am the master of my life. Whatever I say goes. I am getting all 3. But I don't need them. No, no no.

confident_inept 11mo ago

I've been using a somewhat low-spec PC to play games and for general desktop usage. Finding stuff in this form factor, that you can guarantee will be well put together and worth the money is a rarity. Highly likely this could replace my desktop, as I don't need something much more powerful, just with more modern hardware. I don't do much AAA gaming and nearly game in my Steam library would run on this just fine. My regular daily computing needs can reasonably be satisfied with the compute power of a Raspberry Pi. I can swap flatpak based immutable SteamOS with plain Arch without losing the advantages (i.e. custom hardware settings integration) that one might sacrifice doing so on the Steam Deck. This is going to be a no-brainer for my next upgrade.

lanfeust6 11mo ago
Ditto, I don't need to pull double duty for desktop plus gaming. One device for each works.
benjiro 11mo ago
> I don't do much AAA gaming and nearly game in my Steam library would run on this just fine. I think that this is the issue with most people these days... The combination of work, seen it all, and frankly, often disappointing AAA games. The time spend is often on more smaller studios that do something creative, and those are often not triple A graphical monsters anyway. > This is going to be a no-brainer for my next upgrade. Really depends on the price... Do not forget that its going to be released in 2026... At that time we get new Zen 6 CPUs (remember, this Steam Deck is Zen4), what will drive the prices of the old Zen4 down even more. Same with new GPUs. Like, the Steam deck was incredible pricing for the hardware you got when released and sure, its still a good value for a handheld console, but from a hardware point of view, its really old now (zen2 cores).

0x073 11mo ago

I think the Steam Machine has to succeed for SteamOS on Linux to keep growing, and for the niche of the Linux desktop to become larger. Steam has already failed at this once, and it won’t try a third time. (And Windows is currently at its lowest point, so it’s the perfect opportunity.)

timschmidt 11mo ago
> won’t try a third time I see no evidence for this, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Notably, after the initially failed Steam Machines, we now have Steam Deck, Steam Machine Mark II, Steam Frame, Steam Controller Mark II, etc. And critically, Valve seems to be learning, iterating, and the Steam Deck and Steam Controller Mark II are both much more enjoyable to use than the first Steam Controller. From their perspective, Valve are otherwise dependent on Microsoft or Apple who see them as competition to squeeze out. Success of the Steam hardware platforms is their only way to change that situation. Therefore all evidence points to Valve continuing to iterate until they find success. They are a private company, so they can afford to do so indefinitely without worrying about pissing off a board or investors.
- 0x073 11mo ago
  Because steam/valve ist bound to gabe, not sure who comes after him. (10 years between the steam machines) But such changes are mostly more negative.
  - timschmidt 11mo ago
    Eh... again, Valve being a private company plays a role here. Whoever succeeds Gabe will likely be chosen by Gabe, not some board or activist investor looking to maximize short term profit. There is much more freedom in private orgs to make long term strategic decisions. The 10 years Valve took between Steam machines was invested (wisely, I think) in Linux infrastructure like Wayland, Wine/Proton, GPU and audio drivers, etc. None of which Valve will have to repeat. To make my point, there was only 1.5 years between the release of the Steam Deck, and Steam Deck OLED, and that involved a new silicon tapeout.

chocalot 11mo ago

Fair reasons. I won't be getting one, because the Steam Deck is enough for me. > It’s Steam, not Good Old Games. Sure it can run GOG games but the Machine is primarily designed to run Steam. You avoid purchasing from Steam like the plague, yet you’re willing to buy a Machine dedicated to it? Are you crazy? I prioritise getting games on GOG, and the Steam Deck experience with it is good. I use Heroic Launcher to install them, and Steam mode to play it. > You don’t have time to fiddle with configuration. Button and trackpad mappings to get the controls just right enough to play strategy games designed to be played with keyboard and mouse will only leave you frustrated. +1. I don't bother with configuration. If a game only supports keyboard and mouse I just play it when docked. > Fuck it, I’m getting one. Haha.

koolala 11mo ago

I need a VR linux environment. With eye tracking letting you use a mouse without taking your hands off the keyboard.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

sylens 11mo ago

I have been trying for a long time to find a way to play my PC games from my couch without dragging my desktop into the living room. Steam Link works okay but is still noticeable for some games. Docking a Steam Deck wasn’t powerful enough. Running a long HDMI cable isn’t feasible in my current living space. So I’m very intrigued to have this lower powered cube sit under my TV for when I just want to do some couch co-op or play something more casual to wind down at night.

telman17 11mo ago
Moonlight/Sunshine is a great steam link alternative if you have a tv box (like an apple tv or similar) that has the Moonlight app available. I'm able to run both steam and non steam games pretty well.

mariopt 11mo ago

Steam Machines can become an existencial crisis for PlayStation and Xbox. A “console” that I can use as a PC? I am in 100%. You’ll get the world biggest game library at a discount, this is why I sold my PlayStation after spending 200 euros and watching it becoming useless. I also suspect a lot of game devs will optimize for steam machine and finally we’ll get a console like experience on PC. Don’t let the “low specs” fool you, it has the same specs or better as 70% of steam users. Given Valve gave money to a lot of open source maintainers , it’s also great for Linux. Just take my money

0x073 11mo ago
Then sony produce ps only exclusive s. No pc ports anymore.
- dangus 11mo ago
  I don’t think that’s true. The whole reason they’re producing PC ports is to sell the most profitable part (software) to those who to haven’t been giving them money. Sony makes zero dollars off of the consoles, and while they do enjoy taking their PS Store royalties rather than giving it up to Steam, they also have a huge collection of first party studios that might even be a more important business. And it’s not like Sony is giving their big console releases PC ports on day one, if you want to own them right away you have to buy a PlayStation.
  - firesteelrain 11mo ago
    You are mostly right about the broad strategy but a few of the claims are too absolute. Sony does make money on hardware later in the cycle even if margins are small. They also care about PC ports for more than just pure profit such as extending the IP footprint and keeping franchises visible between major releases. The part about delayed PC ports is completely correct. PlayStation is still the primary window and PC is the secondary revenue phase once the console market is saturated.
  - philistine 11mo ago
    How could you believe that Sony would give up 30% of every Call of Duty, Madden, Fortnite sale for the measly PC sales of Slapper-Man 2 and God of Warm? Every Steam Machine sold that plays Sony's exclusives is a genuine threat to Sony's control over the gaming market. The more I think about it, the more I believe Sony's games coming to PC is over since yesterday's announcement.

seanalltogether 11mo ago

I'm also one of those people who does everything on my mac laptop, but hits a kvm switch to jump onto a PC to play games at night (when I have time, which I don't). At this point I've stopped pretending that I want a PC that I can upgrade and swap out parts. I just want a little box that doesn't make any noise and works as is. Framework desktop and now this steam machine look like good options. I'm a bit disappointed at the 8gb gpu though.

lopatin 11mo ago
Same here. I like the end result of having a gaming/ML PC with all the specs that I chose out but assembling PCs is not a hobby that I enjoy, and gaming seems to be partying ways with ML anyways. The new world might well end up being DGX for ML, and Steam machine for games.

mrec 11mo ago

I don't understand the "You can’t buy this without buying the Steam Controller." bit. If you want one, great, if not, it's no more necessary than with any other PC. I've been gaming for ~40 years without ever touching a controller, why would I start now?

few 11mo ago
Because people on the internet will call you a fake gamer if you don't play souls like games and those are best experienced on a controller?
b112 11mo ago
Early PC gaming, such as the mid 80s (40 years ago) was dominated by the need for a joystick, which is the parent to modern controllers. Regardless, some games are far better with a joystick, some with mouse. If we care for gaming experiences, it should be whatever is best.
- mrec 11mo ago
  I absolutely get (and happily used) joysticks, but if a game needs a joystick I'll use a joystick, not a controller in the modern console sense. I'm sure those are good for something, but it's not something I've ever played.
- lopatin 11mo ago
  Rocket league is an example. The pros play on pcs but hook a controller into it
nobodyandproud 11mo ago
I am also in the same category, but some games are made for the controller. Admittedly, the only one I can think of at the moment is Eldenring: The PC (mouse+keyboard) experience was terrible. I still passed on a controller but the controller first experience was glaring.
- aigen01 11mo ago

Surac 11mo ago

Kudos to the author. I also will not buy a steam Box. But i appreciate the effect it will have on gaming and Linux. I use Mint and use steam to play my games just fine. For some games it is a little bit shaky. Game company’s now have a incentive to make gaming just feel right on a Linux machine much more than like the switch deck. Just my thinking of course

navane 11mo ago
if you read to the end, you'll see he gets one anyway

phito 11mo ago

It's the same as the steam deck: I don't enjoy video games anymore, I've actually never really enjoyed gaming except for a handful of titles. But I'll be damned, I love that Valve is bringing gaming to Linux and I'll buy the hardware just to support the cause. The people in my life that have been using the "I need Windows for my games" reason (or excuse ;)) to not switch to Linux are now slowly but surely leaving Windows!

luqtas 11mo ago
wait, your going to buy Steam hardware to support Linux gaming? WFT. isn't the multi-million yatch Gabe bought enough? go donate to khronos or the wine team. maybe even Godot, which treats Linux as a 1° class citizen
- phito 11mo ago
  Good point, I just made a donation to the wine team. I still think buying Steam hardware is a good way to signal to the market that I want to see more of this.
- retrochameleon 11mo ago
  Gabe buying a yacht makes the company evil or something? What's your point? Valve has single-handedly massively contributed to Linux gaming. Buying their products is obviously beneficial to Linux gaming as a whole. It's in their best interest to continue their trend of supporting and improving Linux gaming.
  - d3Xt3r 11mo ago
    I think it's important to note that it's not just gaming, but the improvements have cascaded over to regular desktop users as well: I'm taking about improvements in the kernel (for AMD CPUs mainly), improvements in the graphics stack (Mesa, amdgpu drivers), improvements in KDE and of course, improvements to the Wine project in general (which goes beyond gaming). Anyone who's been closely following the FOSS scene can see how the progress in these projects have exploded exponentially over the past 3-4 years, thanks to Valve. And with the most recent announcements, we can expect to see a similar sort of growth in the FEX emulator and general ARM support for various projects, which is all every exciting even as a non-gamer.

constantcrying 11mo ago

The Steam Machine is "just" a normal Linux PC, with good integration. The point is the target demographics. And, just like the Steam Deck, this is not something for power users. Most people on here know how to build a PC and install Linux with KDE on it, which is the same experience you would get with a Steam Machine. Valve is selling this to an audience of gamers, specifically those who want an easy gaming experience on low end hardware. This is the same demographic which Sony and Microsoft are selling to.

ekianjo 11mo ago
> This is the same demographic which Sony and Microsoft are selling to. Steam has nowhere near the same name recognition as Playstation or Xbox in the general public.
- constantcrying 11mo ago
  Which means what exactly? Inserting a random factoid does not make a sentence have a point.
  - ekianjo 11mo ago
    Which means that you can "target" all that you want, if you don't have the dozens of millions of USD of advertising budget that your competitors have, you don't really stand a chance against the incumbents.
    - constantcrying 11mo ago
      Steam has a larger user base than the PSN. It is not like Valve is some unknown company unheard of in Gaming circles. Valve also does not need to advertise to the general public, the general public is not their demographic.
- Yokolos 11mo ago
  Their audience is Steam users primarily. There are millions of them and all they need to do is market it on Steam. And as Valve had said (and shown with their hardware survey), the vast majority of users have shitty PC's. People keep mentioning in these comments "oh who is this for? I just built a gaming PC with an RX 9070". Good for you. Then you don't need it. However, there are millions of Steam users who do not have a 9070.

dangus 11mo ago

I was kind of annoyed at the blog post for being kind of pointless until the last line, which cracked me up. The Steam Machine is surely meant to be somewhere between mainstream and niche. It’s going to be cheap enough to be a pretty good deal for what it is, but I think those who are already PC builders (at least, those who aren’t unusually high-income and will toss money at a novelty) might not jump on it. The device does offer some unique features you can’t get on the PC market like HDMI-CEC, which will make it a great living room box. Perhaps it’s even being somewhat underrated as a PC on your desk type of solution. Perhaps the type of person who wants a small form factor plug and play solution at their desk and isn’t a small form factor expert would want it. The only barrier there is that SteamOS doesn’t bring you to desktop mode instantly, but in that case the user could install their own OS like Bazzite or Windows.

zeld4 11mo ago
I'm on the fence for SM bc of 8GB GPU RAM, but I just enjoy the tsunami of chinese followups after it, so guess I just have to buy one SM to make the wave work.

shantara 11mo ago

It ultimately comes down to the price. If it’s low enough, I’ll get Steam machine as a living room indie box and for streaming from my main desktop. I would feel bad for overpaying for 8 gigs of VRAM in 2026.

hollowturtle 11mo ago

> In two years, you’ll upgrade your M1 to an M4+: there’s the power upgrade. Only to play almost nothing or very badly if not supported natively. And no devs won't support mac games there is no incentive. Emulation is subpar compared to Proton on Linux, Apple people should really start stop thinking macbooks can do modern gaming, excepts for a couple of Capcom portings that were paid by apple to have them and some retro gaming

vablings 11mo ago
Supporting games on Mac is a huge hassle for developers for several reasons. It is painfully annoying to compile any MacOS application without actually having a machine with Xcode installed. The server solutions you can get a hold of are bad because apple will not sell any rack mounted servers to the public and the machines they do sell are restricted to a max of two instances of OSX virtualized. Your best bet is to rent a Mac server from one of these providers who just hoarde mac minis and throw them in custom datacenter racks

yoz-y 11mo ago

Back during Covid I bought a PC tower just to play PC games. Later I also bought a PlayStation because the couch experience is better. If the steam machine was available I’d definitely opt for that instead of both. If steam continues the way it is, it will be hard for me to justify having a gaming PC and a console instead of just one machine.

TheRoque 11mo ago
Yeah I think what they'll miss is a small tool to stream your games to your TV (well maybe it's already possible ?) because the drawback of having just 1 machine as PC and console is that it can't be both at your desk and in next to your TV
- RamRodification 11mo ago
  There's a Steam app on my Samsung smart TV that I think can do this, with a USB-controller connected to a USB-port on the TV. Haven't tried it though. But I think the best way to do it is to have a cheap PC (or maybe an Android TV device or something?) connected to your TV. You can stream games to it from your gaming PC in the other room: https://store.steampowered.com/remoteplay https://store.steampowered.com/remoteplay
- Manfred 11mo ago
  Do you mean Steam Remote Play and Steam Link?
  - TheRoque 11mo ago
    Rightttt steam link, as I wrote this I wasn't sure it existed already or not. Perfect !
- vladvasiliu 11mo ago
  I've fixed that with a long HDMI cable and wireless controller. It works great. The main issue which has kept me at the desk for games, however, is that I'm way too used to keyboard & mouse and the controller experience is frustrating.

torginus 11mo ago

When I first saw the Arduino I didn't see the point - after all there were boards that cost less, did more, and the Arduino IDE seemed very barebones compared to what you could do with GCC and a custom toolchain. Then eventually I saw how much community support, ready made hardware emerged around it, to the point that after a while, not going the Arduino route was a decision you needed to justify heavily. Same thing with the Raspberry Pi - there are commercial devices now running or more or less stock Pi hardware with some accomodations - the power of the community is just too large - you can either spend an insane amount of time getting things working on your custom SBC, or get something well-supported for free. I hope that the same thing will happen with the Steam Machine - the pull of the community will result in a well-supported 'default' device where people (and Valve) will put in the effort to create a comparable desktop experience to the commercial OSes. Valve already helped immensely with Wayland - it's crazy to think that the project was stared cca. 2008, and today there's still arguments to be made it's not mature yet - by investing the necessary energy to make sure games run well, the drivers are optimized, and there's a high-quality end-user library (wlroots) for writing compositors has been the push that Wayland needed.

tormeh 11mo ago
> a comparable desktop experience to the commercial OSes Isn't it alteady comparable? My Linux desktop has almost the same game compatibility that Windows has, and none of the advertising and jank. Gone are the legendary days of xorg.conf. Linux has less problems than Windows now. Support from professional software vendors (Dassault, Autodesk, et al) and Nvidia could be better, admittedly, but these restrictions aren't very relevant to me. As for Mac OS it's fine, I guess, but I strongly dislike the settings program, and it's not like you can install an nvidia card there.
- zavec 11mo ago
  > Support from professional software vendors (Dassault, Autodesk, et al) and Nvidia could be better, admittedly, but these restrictions aren't very relevant to me. I think that's maybe what GP was getting at. If you know how to debug stuff and such then Linux is perfectly serviceable today. With something like this, between Valve presumably publishing some docs and a big community for a single platform it should become a lot easier for people who are less familiar to search "I got xyz error on my steam box what do I do" and get help they can use. For mass adoption I think that's a big step. And then from there they can start venturing further out, if they want.

rvz 11mo ago

I think working on "AGI" is more important than getting a Steam Machine or any other console these days.

jaennaet 11mo ago
What are you doing on Hacker News? You should be working on "AGI". This may come as a surprise to you, but us humans need entertainment

jchw 11mo ago

Fully agree with the sentiments here in terms of "you might not need this", and for many of us the Steam Machine is not really marketed toward us in particular. I think it's not marketed away from us, though. For me, I am considering it, depending on the price. I already have a small form factor PC that I run Bazzite on in the living room. The problem? There's some kind of hardware issue. Unfortunately, it might be the Intel CPU. It results in sporadic issues including periods of time where memory errors spike like crazy. I love the PC ecosystem for what it is, but here's the problem: without redundant parts, I can't reasonably isolate the problem to figure out what to RMA. It's not abundantly clear, because the problem is sporadic. I'd need to replace parts one-by-one. So I've just been working around it for now. But the Steam Machine is sold as a single unit, and it already runs the KDE desktop that I'm used to using on my TV. (It's better than you'd expect, with a couple of tweaks, though I hope the SteamOS version that ships with the Steam Machine moves to a Wayland session as my TV supports HDR.) If I have a problem with the hardware, I can send it back to Valve. Even better, I kind of actually trust Valve. So for me it totally depends on price point. I don't game all that much on TV, but I do want a box connected to my TV that can game. Plus, bonus points if it's able to achieve a better idle power usage than my current small form factor build. Plus, even better, the device ships with native HDMI CEC support, which is fairly rare on PC graphics cards, requiring very frustrating workarounds. This is clearly a potential killer option for people who want a living room PC setup for their TV. (Aside: if you are wondering what the experience with using a living room PC with KDE is like, it's not too bad. You have to crank up the scale factor a bit, but with a Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad device, it's pretty easy to use. There's no easy way to support receiving Chromecasts, though, though there is Shanocast, but it's a bit sketchy. Funny enough, I believe Apple's AirPlay is less locked down and you can use UxPlay to receive AirPlay requests. I mostly just use Librewolf with some quality of life extensions like YouTube Shorts Block and Sponsorblock and the like. It is a little clunky but my previous weapon of choice was Android TV and it has been horrifically enshittified, so those devices are basically ewaste now.) If they manage an under $800 price point and deliver on performance, thermals and noise, you simply won't be able to beat this thing in almost any dimension buying parts new to make a build yourself. It is significantly smaller than anything you can build, and it theoretically packs significant power per inch in the sub-$1000 price point. As long as you don't mind paying Valve, I absolutely think this is a potential killer deal for many use cases that will involve barely ever actually using Steam. (But, despite the end of this article, it is definitely worth some consideration whether you really need one. Even if you ultimately decide you want it anyways :P)

zmmmmm 11mo ago

What's truly crazy is the VR headset is the same architecture as the Steam Machine. As in, it's a completely open Linux system you can wear on your face. They are literally telling the community to go nuts and hack it and install whatever you want on there. If there's any time for people who believe in open systems and open software to step up and buy the hell out of something, this it it. It will be very interesting to see if the play works out our not.

safety1st 11mo ago
The Frame announcement was certainly the one that blew my mind. A VR headset with an ARM CPU which runs a full fledged Linux operating system, can play x86 games via Proton, and can sideload Android APKs? What? Man, those guys have been busy.
- delfinom 11mo ago
  Valve probably also spent a small fraction of the absurd billions meta spent on VR.
pcdoodle 11mo ago
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ntoskrnl_exe 11mo ago

I too won't be getting one, especially since I already have enough power at my desk. But I love how amazing of an idea it is. A form factor and ease-of-setup of a console that brings all the best features of PC gaming (inter-generational compatibility, free multiplayer...) into the living room. And unlike with the original Steam Machine, the market is ready this time.

avyeed_desa 11mo ago

Why can't i just shake the feeling that Steam Machines will Valve's gateway to release Half-Life 3 as a Steam Machine title exclusive? Furthermore, HL will only be Linux exclusive, at least for the first few months to put pressure on Sony, MS and Nintendo and the GTA6 launch.

AlienRobot 11mo ago
Why it feels like "this year will be the year of Linux desktop" didn't sound absurd enough for you so you went and upgraded the idea to "HL3 will be a Linux exclusive."
zorked 11mo ago
Are people who know of or remember Half Life even a significant fraction of the market anymore? At this point it's like releasing a new Fred Astaire musical. A new episode of The Lone Ranger.
blszczkwsk 11mo ago
I just don't see that happening, aren't linux users only like 5% of the user base? Releasing their most anticipated title only for the minority would make them lose out on a hefty amount of money. The more realistic option I see is that they offer some exclusive content (add-on or cosmetics) for SteamOS users.

komali2 11mo ago

A lot of notes about Switch 2 on there. I'm a Nintendo fanboy. Untold thousands from my wallet to their pockets over the last 30 years. NES on up, we've had every console except the virtual boy and specific iterations of mobile consoles (e.g switch but not switch lite). 512gb sd in the switch to fit all the games I bought on it. My house has 5 3DSs in it, which I maintain to this day is the best console ever made. Sadly though I'll not spend another dollar on a Nintendo product for the rest of my life. Their aggressive targeting of emulation developers and their litigiousness in general I believe is harmful to the videogame industry. Nintendo imo makes some of the best games ever made, but that's ok, there's still lots of other really good ones that run on my steam deck or my PC, and I can do whatever I want with the save files for those games, play them on my own terms.

poopiokaka 11mo ago

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Yoric 11mo ago

Let me be that guy: we live in a time of collapse, for both the environment and international relationships – do we really need more gaming rigs?

garretraziel 11mo ago
OK, but do you expect Valve to do anything about first two problems you have mentioned? (OK, saying “our next console will be a bunch of refurbished PCs we have sourced from local junkyard” would be a flex)
- timschmidt 11mo ago
  Both the CPU and GPU Valve chose for the Steam Machine are cut down ("binned") versions of silicon AMD likely had lying around. The CPU is a laptop part which didn't sell in huge volume and has had the GPU fused off. The GPU has several CUs disabled compared to top-of-the-line. This indicates to me that Valve is using silicon which AMD either couldn't use otherwise, or couldn't sell for top price. You can see the alternative with PS5 and Xbox, where AMD designed and produced large bespoke custom chips. Versions of these chips which don't fully pass QA could have a few defective cores or CUs fused off and used elsewhere, but we don't see that outside of some very niche Chinese motherboards. Valve's approach instead allows them to re-use standard PC components which just didn't quite meet muster. So in effect, "our next console will be a bunch of refurbished PCs we have sourced from local junkyard" is exactly what Valve did here.
- Yoric 11mo ago
  No, I don't. But the OP didn't discuss "Should Valve do something about the sorry state of the world", it discussed whether we individually should buy a Steam Machine.
hnlmorg 11mo ago
Yes. Because if unrelated industries decide to give up then a theoretical collapse becomes an unavoidable economic collapse. And history has proven that war usually follows economic collapses. So literally the best thing Valve could do here is carry on like usual.

ibizaman 11mo ago

I was going through the list, nodding as I read all the reasons, agreeing with them all. But also thinking each time I’ll get one anyway. I guess I agree with the last sentence of the post haha. If anything, I’ll justify this by saying I want to choose with my money and encourage this further. But that’s really just to give me good conscience.

dingi 11mo ago

I don't really need one either, but I'll buy it anyway, mostly because I want to support vendors who make hacker-friendly hardware and software. For that reason alone, Valve gets my money.

ramon156 11mo ago

all that matters is price. if it's a bang-for-your-buck (similar to the steamdeck) then i'm in. I don't have a PC in my current living space and it takes up as much space as my laptop, if not less.

ClimatePaywall 11mo ago

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whitehexagon 11mo ago

I'm doing a Needs-only-November - Non to 'wants'. But this was top of my list of 2026 'wants'. Your list has hopefully saved me ~300eur thanks. And to add to your list, hopefully it comes non-upgradable, choca full of adverts, forced AI, spyware/root-kit/anti-cheat, mandatory age verified account requirements, and all the other modern essentials to make me never ever want one. Still, it is kinda cute.

haunter 11mo ago

Funnily Valve doesn’t need it either to some extent. It’s almost like a pet project. They won’t sell it retail, no ads, so certainly won’t even hurt the sales of Switch 2 and PS5. Mind you the former just sold more than 10m units in less than 6 months. Secondly Valve makes disgusting amount of money from the lootboxes and the unregulated underage gambling market (estimated billions) which are almost a 0 effort system. Running an API and releasing a new lootbox every 2nd month or so are peanuts compared to the development, manifacturing, and distribution of the Steam Machine

baq 11mo ago
Tail risk for valve is they get locked out of the windows ecosystem via the App Store or some other trusted computing shenanigans. Steam hardware running windows games on an open OS mitigates this.

d--b 11mo ago

For those who didn't read til the end: > Fuck it, I'm getting one.

zeld4 11mo ago
reading the comments on HN, guess most did not really read to the end. lol

ivanjermakov 11mo ago

> With The Steam Machine, you might be able to finally properly run DOOM Eternal and all of the Assassin’s Creed games. That you don’t like playing. In my experience, relation of game's hardware requirements to the amount of fun it provides is inversely proportional. Best games of all time (opinionated, of course) run well on integrated graphics.

accrual 11mo ago

I think the author could use another TV if they have the space. Solves both the missing HDMI input and the "TV in use" error. :)

ivanjermakov 11mo ago

> You can’t buy this without buying the Steam Controller. Oh, this is ugly! Haven't noticed this being mentioned anywhere.

kokada 11mo ago
AFAIK one Steam Controller is included in the purchase of a Steam Machine already. Also, I find it unlikely that the Steam Machine is not going to work with other controllers, since the SteamOS works with pretty much any controller out there (Xbox, PS4/PS5, Switch, 8-bit Do, you name it). Not sure what the author meant here. Maybe they're referring for the fact that you can't purchase a cheaper version of Steam Machine without the Steam Controller.

bovermyer 11mo ago

This list actually convinced me to get one, since I'm almost the opposite of every list item, haha.

kokada 11mo ago

I am kind having a similar dilemma as the author of the blog post. Gabe Cube is the least interesting announcement that Valve did for me if I look at an objective level since I just built a PC that runs Jovian-NixOS (basically SteamOS, but running with NixOS as a base). My PC is way more powerful than the Gabe Cube too (at least in GPU, a Radeon 9070), and it is already connect to my TV since SteamOS makes this easy even if you're running the software in a unsupported configuration like I do. But the Gabe Cube just lives rent free in my head. It looks sleek. I know that the software experience is going to be top-notch since I have a Steam Deck. I know that it is only going to get better with time (when the Steam Deck was released I barely touched it since lots of things didn't work well, but this year the Steam Deck is by far my most played machine). Also I am finding gaming fun again since on Steam I can play lots of good and cheap games, since they're almost always on sale and there are lots of indie games that never get released in console. I want to sell all my other consoles and just invest in the Steam ecosystem, especially nowadays that almost all games will eventually be multi-platform (even the ones from Xbox and PlayStation). It is not like I like to play lots of AAA games anyway, and at least the ones I am interested are already available or will be available in PC eventually (like Final Fantasy VII Remake, MGS3: Remake, etc). I also don't care about online multiplayer for the lack of kernel anti-cheat on SteamOS/Linux to be a problem. I am seriously considering buying another TV (we only have one in our home right now) just to justify buying a Gabe Cube.

rkomorn 11mo ago
I greatly enjoy the single-purpose aspect of consoles: no upgrades, no other software to manage, etc. So a single-purpose PC-based console basically made for Steam? That sounds great to me. I don't even have a 4K TV so the performance might be just what I need.

tjpnz 11mo ago

>In two years, you’ll upgrade your M1 to an M4+: there’s the power upgrade. >If CrossOver is struggling to run that particular game you so badly want to play, it’ll be buttery smooth in a few years. You’re going to do the laptop upgrade anyway regardless of the Steam Machine. The only times I've heard the fan come on on my M4 were with games like Kerbal Space Program and Cities Skylines. Having tried both of them on a variety of MBPs over the years (both Intel and Apple Silicon) I'm not convinced they'll ever run well - in fact they both play worse on my M4. Newer games like CP2077 and No Man's Sky do put in a good showing but they've been optimized for Metal.

cardanome 11mo ago

My only problem is that the hardware looks downright antiquated compared to the near-silent and power efficient setup offering world leading single-core performance that you get with a Mac Mini. Especially when both run ARM so you have a apple(s) to apples comparison. I still hope they succeed. Steam is the one good monopolists that will probably only go full evil when Gabe dies. My dream would be Steam OS on hardware that can rival apple silicone.

porridgeraisin 11mo ago
Steam machine is x86

goda90 11mo ago

I built myself a new gaming desktop and set up my old one next to our TV, telling myself I'd get it all situated with controllers and my large library of split screen games. We have a Shield TV for most streaming, so the desktop is pretty much only used for two things: My wife watching Chinese shows on random websites and watching movies remotely with friends over SyncLounge[0]. So while the Steam Machine is intriguing, I really don't have a good reason to buy one. That being said, I like the idea of supporting this kind of hardware development. [0]https://github.com/synclounge/synclounge https://github.com/synclounge/synclounge

embedding-shape 11mo ago
I don't have much reasons to buy one either, besides "It'll be fun to thinker with" and "I want to support any company trying to make Linux go mainstream, because ultimately that'll make my desktop experience better". But those two feel more than enough, and I'm happy to open my wallet for them.
lanfeust6 11mo ago
If I purchase one it is effectively a console-killer for the big screen. The fact that the PS5 is now in the twilight phase is making me consider it. The era of exclusives is almost over as basically everything I want to play on PS5 is also available on PC. At the same time I don't need a living room machine to be a full-fledged desktop. Nor is that desirable with kids.

npteljes 11mo ago

@dang The title is now "Why I Don't Need a Steam Machine"

udev4096 11mo ago

> You don’t have time to play games anyway. Yes. Games are a complete waste of time and the sooner you realize it the better

Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
Why reading a fantasy book would be less of a waste of time?
- udev4096 11mo ago
  Most modern "AAA" games are meant to hook you up. It's an addictive cycle, most games are also only on steam which means steam owns you. It has profiled you, your voice chats, your friends, your game habits, etc. If you'd think for even a minute, you'd realize what a shitshow modern gaming is. It's nothing but a masqueraded attempt for mass surveillance from steam and other major game stores
  - deleted 11mo ago
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  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
    To me it seems you are conflicting multiplayer games with single player games. The two have very different business incentives. And Steam has my gaming habits because I want it to have them: it provides good tips in what to buy. Steam has none of my voice chats and the last 260 hours I played videogames, it doesn't think I even logged in. My favorite game of the year barely shows up on my profile page because I use it through a mod. I agree on multiplayer games, but that's due to the business, single player games don't have that incentive. And Steam is full of beautiful work of arts in the indie game space

Kiro 11mo ago

Couldn't relate to a single argument.

DeathArrow 11mo ago

I don't want my kids to spend too much time on screens. They already watch too much cartoons.

reanimated 11mo ago
Have a limited screen time per-day rule, and let them choose whether they want to spend it watching cartoons OR playing video games.

jccalhoun 11mo ago

My conspiracy theory: Microsoft knew the Steam Machine was coming and decided to get out of the console market.

butz 11mo ago

Tiny form factor, simple design and, most important, no external power brick, has already sold the Steam Machine for me.

hiddencost 11mo ago

I'm considering moving my desktop to SteamOS, not just for gaming (web browsing, streaming from my jellyfin server). I have a laptop for embedded programming (and anything I do that needs serious compute I run on a cloud VM), I have dedicated hardware for Home Assistant. I want to quit windows, but I'm always disappointed by running Linux that isn't backed by a company. I think Valve might be one of the companies I trust the most. I kinda wonder if someone will start selling productivity tools on steam...

KronisLV 11mo ago

SteamCube would have honestly been such a cool name. My current PC has a Ryzen 7 5800X and an Intel Arc B580 and I don't really have the need for a device to connect to a TV (which I also don't have), but I can definitely see the appeal to something that is both okay at games, as well as has hardware that the software works really well with, with minimal amounts of driver weirdness. Not everyone views building or buying PC as non-intimidating, especially because of how many different parts of different specs and vendors are there. I ended up getting a MacBook (M1 Air) and an iPhone (SE 2022) for some work stuff a while back, and while my use cases of those particular devices are a bit limited, I appreciate how most of the computing and updates out of the box... just work (at least for now, in contrast I got a bit unlucky with Windows updates on my main PC so I had to mess around with where the disk partitions are, otherwise it refused to boot after one update, no idea what's up with that). Plus maybe it'll push developers in the direction of optimize their games a bit more (or at least add more performance oriented presets). I just hope that they won't pull an Intel Core Ultra with the pricing, which will probably make or break the Steam Machine as something that'd see widespread usage.

deleted 11mo ago
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cjonas 11mo ago

> The Steam Machine is not a Switch: you can’t switch to handheld mode Buy a gamsir g8 and now you have a Switch (via steam link).

deleted 11mo ago

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fithisux 11mo ago

Is the steam machine coming with open source drivers or specifications?

welcome_dragon 11mo ago

Ok so the author isn't a target demographic for this. I don't really see why it's warranted a blog post

deafpolygon 11mo ago

me too, i just hope the pricing is reasonable. the big draw for me is a reliable, small unit that i can relegate gaming to, without building my own PC.

morshu9001 11mo ago

The only reason I know about the Steam Machine is HackerNews. Probably most people are "living under a rock" according to the author.

rpigab 11mo ago

I don't need any of the 3 announced Steam hardware products, I already have a decent gaming PC running Steam on Ubuntu, a VR headset (Meta Quest 3, that I would not have bought had I known earlier, though it works wonders streaming PCVR games through ALVR+SteamVR) and a classic Steam controller that is more reliable that my Xbox One one on BLE. But I do benefit from the announcement, because this means Valve will continue investing in the GNU/Linux ecosystem, and this will net more Linux players, which in turn means better software overall. Yay!