Eliminatus said:
AgDev01 said:
there is not going to be a huge market for a $800 machine that is weaker than the original PS5. The only case where this machine would excel - multiplayer shooters - is rendered moot due to it running Linux.
I think you are misjudging the target demographic. I doubt Steam cares about directly competing with super sweaty competitive gamers. Their strength is their massive catalog. Most of which won't need massive power. They are just open to all gamers, period. Like a modern Wii even. There is a marketable group of people that like slower cozier games that would never think to buy a PS5 or Xbox but would be open to something like this for the family room. I know several in fact.
And when crunching raw numbers, this won't be THAT far behind in total power. Even head to head in CPU. And all of that smooshed into a 6x6x6 box with the power brick inside as well. Pretty impressive. Then add on Gabe's passion for keeping everything completely open source and that gives it an edge for those who care about such things.
I'm not trying to blindly defend or white knight here. I honestly don't care about companies bottom lines and sales figures. Even Steams. But just saying we don't know yet how this will do. I just think there will probably be considerable interest.
Depends on how you define "considerable interest". I think it's like a Steam Deck situation, but even more niche. Steam Deck has sold a few million copies.
For Valve, that may be enough to justify. It's profitable and adds a new element to their ecosystem. But by the numbers, it's not a big seller.
The Xbox Series was seen as a failure and it sold 30M units, which is far more than the Steam Machines will sell; however, Steam obviously doesn't depend nearly as much on Steam Machines as its a side project.
This device mostly is appealing to those already invested in the Steam Ecosystem that don't otherwise have a more powerful PC, or to those that have a powerful PC but would want an adjacent device for the TV despite it being weaker.
This device is pretty decently behind in raw power. CPU isn't really the limiting factor. The GPU and RAM are considerably hamstrung in comparison to something like the PS5 or XSX and that's going to make a far bigger difference on visuals.
BUT, Valve knows that even this weaker piece of hardware is more powerful than MOST of their current audience. So there's plenty of PC users who could see this as a jumping point to upgrade. HOWEVER, given that I think this will end up being $700+ in price, at that point it makes you wonder why not just upgrade your PC in a few years when better cards are going to come out (2027). This thing is pretty ancient and dated, and will look even moreso by the time PS6 rolls out in two years.
