Steam machines official brochure

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I feel like I'm posting OFN but I didn't see this anywhere and I guess this is the right forum for this.
http://media.steampowered.com/store/steammachines/SteamMachinesBroc_WEB.PDF

 

[snoturtle]

Prices seem too high to me
Why would the average person buy this over a console?

are they going to sell just the controllers?
Can build your own than

 

[crashtestdummy]

Prices seem too high to me
Why would the average person buy this over a console?

are they going to sell just the controllers?
Can build your own than

I suspect some of the price is the steam controller itself ($100-ish). It's a little ironic, because part of the appeal of the Steam machine was supposed to be avoiding the $100 cost of the operating system.

That said, if you're willing to use a non-steam controller, there's really no reason you can't make yourself a steam box right now.

Edit: When I work out a system that should match the $500 boxes, I come only about $50 cheaper, without the controller. That's honestly not bad. I could probably save another $30 by going microATX instead of miniITX, but otherwise it seems on the money.

 

[cbrunny]

If nothing else, this does prove that Steam was right in one respect: Other vendors will be building these things. They'll be on the market!

 

[dmoney1980]

Am I the only one who thinks that the steam controller looks funky? How are those 2 control "pads" going to work?

 

[cbrunny]

Respectfully, literally every other person who has seen the controller has the exact same concern. It is widely documented as confusing.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Price is way too high. Why would I buy this and ditch my PC if I'm a PC gamer?

 

[crashtestdummy]

Price is way too high. Why would I buy this and ditch my PC if I'm a PC gamer?

You don't. But when your next upgrade cycle comes about, or when you get bored with the Xbox one in five years, you might decide that this is not a bad option, and you don't need to spend an extra $100 on windows.

 

[gorcorps]

You don't. But when your next upgrade cycle comes about, or when you get bored with the Xbox one in five years, you might decide that this is not a bad option, and you don't need to spend an extra $100 on windows.

I'll gladly spend $100 to not have to worry about which games are compatible

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Respectfully, literally every other person who has seen the controller has the exact same concern. It is widely documented as confusing.

It's two track pads vs. two thumbsticks, I don't know what's confusing about it, and it looks like exactly the kind of thing that would make playing a FPS on a gamepad tolerable.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I'll gladly spend $100 to not have to worry about which games are compatible

Yes, not to mention being able to run all windows programs as well. I am still confused as to what games Steam OS will run. Will it run *all* the games in the steam library, or just a certain part of them?

I have to say though, that I dont really see the Steam Machine as a compelling option unless it is markedly cheaper (doesnt seem to be), or clearly faster than gaming on windows (nobody knows yet). Even then, if the OS is free and open, I would rather just install it on a PC, unless, like I said, a steam machine is markedly cheaper for a second system or something.

 

[crashtestdummy]

Yes, not to mention being able to run all windows programs as well. I am still confused as to what games Steam OS will run. Will it run *all* the games in the steam library, or just a certain part of them?

I have to say though, that I dont really see the Steam Machine as a compelling option unless it is markedly cheaper (doesnt seem to be), or clearly faster than gaming on windows (nobody knows yet). Even then, if the OS is free and open, I would rather just install it on a PC, unless, like I said, a steam machine is markedly cheaper for a second system or something.

I think it's best to look at the Steam Machines as a long-term play, not a short one. I honestly wouldn't recommend that anyone but developers buy a Steam Machine without Windows right now. Think of this as a five years down the road kind of thing. But its mere existence now gives developers a push and a reason to make their games Linux compatible, so that 5 years from now most games will run on one of these things and the gap between the Windows catalog and the Linux catalog won't look so big.

Consider this also a hedge against a Microsoft walled-garden OS. If what they've done with the metro side of Windows 8 (and Windows RT) is any indication, they would love it if we could only buy our software through them. I've heard many people say "that'll be the day I stop using Windows", but where will you go for PC gaming if there isn't a viable alternative?

 

[Qwertilot]

Medium term anyway. The ones they're producing now are 'just' rebadged custom built computers (+ controller etc) from known makers of the same. Never going to cause an earthquake but not really trying to. Just taking their time to work things out.

Not really a risk for anyone - the hardware folk will very likely get their money back from the few people who might get one just to have the linux compatability sorted/curiosity.

Interesting to wonder what it might to do the consoles in the medium/long term. Obviously dreaming of replacing them totally is a bit mad, taking some of the market probably not.

The side effects could be more noticeable on either end of the console cycle. Most obviously, if they start taking a chunk of the market then the quick replacement of parts in the steam boxes could force a faster console refresh cycle than they'd otherwise like.

The other would be really attacking the sales of old consoles like the 360/ps3. Mobile SOC's are seemingly due to catch those in GPU performance quite soon - with desktop architectures. You could definitely port steamOS to one to make a very cheap, small, quiet machine. That could be non trivially disruptive.

 

[trasixes]

You don't. But when your next upgrade cycle comes about, or when you get bored with the Xbox one in five years, you might decide that this is not a bad option, and you don't need to spend an extra $100 on windows.

Honestly, who pays $100 for Windows anymore? I mean, I'm sure the average Joe might, but tech savvy folks that run the latest and greatest hardware surely doesn't spend that much. Or They shouldn't lol

 

[nForce2]

Honestly, who pays $100 for Windows anymore? I mean, I'm sure the average Joe might, but tech savvy folks that run the latest and greatest hardware surely doesn't spend that much. Or They shouldn't lol

Where are you finding it cheaper?

 

[Doppel]

Where are you finding it cheaper?

Legally and/or not getting some spare OEMs left over in the IT area I'm not sure, either.

--

I've read several Steam threads and frankly very few people understand the point of this or think it's a very good idea. Case in point I'm thinking currently of getting an entry level PC for gaming to supplement the PS3/PS4 and I wouldn't dream for a second of getting a Steam machine, it just makes no sense at all.

 

[you2]

I might be mistaken; but I think part of the strategy is to provide a common platform for developers (of games) to target. Linux has a lot of nice properties but the truth with the eons of distributions it can be difficult for developers to understand the target software platform.

 

[Imaginer]

Consider this also a hedge against a Microsoft walled-garden OS. If what they've done with the metro side of Windows 8 (and Windows RT) is any indication, they would love it if we could only buy our software through them. I've heard many people say "that'll be the day I stop using Windows", but where will you go for PC gaming if there isn't a viable alternative?

Desktop side of things are still business as usual (as with many games running in that area anyways for PC gaming). I do not buy the hedge against the Windows Store mentality that Valve (Gabe) has, for he has already established his store years before, and even better than the Marketplace options that existed in some periods of time alongside Steam.

 

[Imaginer]

Honestly, who pays $100 for Windows anymore? I mean, I'm sure the average Joe might, but tech savvy folks that run the latest and greatest hardware surely doesn't spend that much. Or They shouldn't lol

$100 is small in terms of other software I will run on top of it. Not counting my cost of ALL Steam games, but things like art and drawing programs, to CAD programs, and even Visual Studio Professional runs that number out of the field.

And, I paid that much for 7. I got in on 8 for as much as a Steam game for a short period of time.

If you can afford expensive hardware, but can't do much with it without additional effort and time (your time to find and develop a solution / rely on compiling open source components together ) versus a chump change in getting functionality (to a degree) off the gate, then your priorities are skewed.

Hardware is HALF the solution. Software is what counts in the end.

 

[Doppel]

Even the brochure is depressing. 15 MB for what 4-5 pages? Plus it has no content and TBA pricing and what not, it's just whipped up and sad.

 

[rhx123]

Yeah, I have a feeling this is a horribly missed opportunity by Valve.

They could have made their own SteamBox, sold it at cost (or below cost) undercutting all other prebuilts and made the money back through Steam sales, but instead we've ended up with a splattering of normal Mini-ITX prebuilts at normal with the Steam name tacked on, and a few interesting custom form factor yet still way overpriced.

Valve is the only company really that could make the sell-at-a-loss-and-recoup-by-game-sales lark work in the PC sector, and they've fluffed it up big time in my opinion.

If they aren't competing with the consoles in price, who are they targeted at? Enthusiasts who are capable of building their own SFF machines themselves for cheaper?

 

[Lonyo]

I think it's best to look at the Steam Machines as a long-term play, not a short one. I honestly wouldn't recommend that anyone but developers buy a Steam Machine without Windows right now. Think of this as a five years down the road kind of thing. But its mere existence now gives developers a push and a reason to make their games Linux compatible, so that 5 years from now most games will run on one of these things and the gap between the Windows catalog and the Linux catalog won't look so big.

Consider this also a hedge against a Microsoft walled-garden OS. If what they've done with the metro side of Windows 8 (and Windows RT) is any indication, they would love it if we could only buy our software through them. I've heard many people say "that'll be the day I stop using Windows", but where will you go for PC gaming if there isn't a viable alternative?

You are just trading on evil for another, but without even doing that at all.
It's not a hedge against Microsoft, it's basically committing yourself to Steam, which is no better. Sure, you might reduce some level of dependency by not using Windows and Steam, but Steam is the thing you should be concerned about more than Microsoft/Windows, since that's the thing which already walls off your games.
Even if the next Windows did something funky, hey, you don't have to buy it.
If Steam does something funky, you've already given it control over your games, so you're screwed. And you want to hedge against an MS walled garden?

 

[Lonyo]

Even the brochure is depressing. 15 MB for what 4-5 pages? Plus it has no content and TBA pricing and what not, it's just whipped up and sad.

Some of the pictures are awful as well, like where there are dust or fingerprint marks on cases.
Horribly unprofessional and crappy.

 

[Johnmcl7]

Of course Microsoft would like you buy all your software through their store but they don't have a chance of forcing that any time soon on their X86 operating systems as it's also one of their biggest advantages currently.

Still it's understandable Valve want to have their own OS they can have more control over but their strategy so far seems very strange. When they announced the streaming capability that SteamOS would have, I thought this was a good approach as that gave it a useful selling point that could appeal to existing PC gamers. Hence I thought the first Steam box would be something small, fairly simple and cheap that could function gor streaming games, have some games capability of its own (games with suitably low requirements could be badged on Steam as being suitable) and some general media player and TV catchup functionality.

That way they could get SteamOS into people's houses and build up a user base which would in turn encourage support for Steam OS which they could then grow to add more powerful Steam boxes intended for gaming in their own right.

Either that or I expected three Steam machines with hardware at different fixed levels as one of the problems I see frequently with PC gaming is that non-PC people have difficulty understanding requirements for games which you can't blame them for as current hardware can be difficult to follow. So having set and named levels of specification which were referred to in Steam itself would make that a lot easier and potentially the market much more accessible.

As it stands there seems to be no consistency between the Steam boxes which have hugely varying levels of hardware and different physical sizes. I'm also puzzled at the choice of AMD parts, I know Nvidia said recently they're going to be making more effort in the Steam community but unless it's changed a lot recently, AMD Linux support is not good.

I did like the idea of some more compact gaming systems as right now very few cases seem to allow the graphics card to be mounted horizontally which forces the case into a larger cube shape rather than a slimmer design that is better suited to under the TV (bar the pricey Asrock M8). So far though it doesn't look good, either the devices are bulky or the smaller ones are inflexible as apparently the AW box is not going to be upgradeable and doesn't look like the Scan NC10 will be either.

John

 

[Qwertilot]

The strategy for the first wave of machines was surely just to get system builders to offer badged versions of their relevant small form factor machines?
(As far as I could see only the Scan one looks custom designed.).

So essentially zero risk on behalf of the hardware people. Not ambitious I admit but probably sane in context