Valve surprised everyone with their take on consoles. Steam controller, steam os and steam machine were intended to capture the target market occupited by consoles. But as time is going we keep hearing less and less about steam machine. Now I am going to point out some key points about it and it future. Would appreciate any logical argument.

I think steam controller, os and machine wont be a successful product.

1. Steam controller might face more competition against xbox 360 / one controller as I can see most of my PC only friends are still using xbox 360 as their primary controller (except RTS and MMO games).

2. Steam OS might get some traction but it depends on many things. And if microsoft makes their next OS more user friendly then I dont see steam OS taking off.

3. By the time steam machines launches (full scale launch) main competitors (PS4 and Xbox One) will have $299 price tag. And their game library will be rich and have some awesome exclusives. It is possible to make a decent PC at that price range but when it comes to easyness, friends (psn / xlive) and must have exclusives (Halo MCC, Bloodborne, Uncharted 4 etc) "console" only gamers will have even less interest in steam machines.

4. Steam machines lies in the grey area. It is not a console nor a PC (if you install windows then its PC but it goes against the basic formula of PC gaming; heavily customization). But something vague and with less appeal.

Well; it sums up my thoughts perfectly. I dont think steam machine, os and controller will get much traction. The possibility of it getting successful is very very slim.

Uses Linux which many games don't support, horribly fragmented, confusing and limited hardware configurations, getting a normal PC is usually much cheaper.

Yeah. I wish they used that cash for game development. Its a missed opportunity.

I agree there. Steam would and will do just fine with normal PCs for the vast majority of Steam users. The Steam Machines hardly compete with the consoles.

Steam machines are made for a world where people that buy consoles actually really would have preferred a PC.

Unfortunately, that world doesn't exist. It doesn't help that they probably realized that the more console like you make a PC, the more of a console it becomes. Funny thing about that is that I could have told them that if they asked me, probably would have saved them millions in R&D.

it has no demographic whatsoever. i don't see how it can be a success at all.

They goofed, very hard

It's a stupid investment in my opinion. It is doomed to fail and it'll fail without helping anyone in the end. Why? It's too expensive, Linux = barely any games, and you might as well get a PC..

it was a response to the win 8 store, since they feared that ms would force pc gaming into it, but since win8 flopped, valve has probably lost the interest in it

I really don't know who the Steam Machine supposed to appeal to!