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chris_wing on 06 January 2014
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disolitude said:
chris_wing said:

It's a better option for people who's time is worth more money then they could save buy researching and building their own.

So is "This" the Steam Machine or the Steam OS, because you suggested that I would just build my own using the Steam OS.

Prebuilt PC's aren't required either, but people buy them by the million.

Edit: Sorry for the back to back posting.

They can just go out and buy an actual gaming uptimized PCs for $100-$200 bucks more with similar or better specs and much more functionality, including the ability to run Steam Big Picture, which is pretty much all that Steambox offers.

Who out there would say - "hmm, I want to buy a gaming machine and spend 500 bucks. I want the one with less functionality and less games."

If it was $299 or less I'd understand the model and market for this but at 500 bucks it has no chance on the PC or console side IMO.

You do get a unique controller that almost makes it worthwhile in my eyes, but knowing Valve, they will make this controller available for Big Picture on the PC and if that is the case, there is no point to these devices at all.

The Steam Machine (Steambox isn't a thing) is PC hardware running a custom release of Linux that is currently barebones & in alpha release.  The PC hardware is fully capable of dual booting a second free OS like Ubuntu which gives you tons of functunality, but hopefully Steam OS itself gets a software manager to install things like Chrome, Libra Office, Transmit, VLC, Gimp etc, since those apps alone do 95% of my common PC tasks.  The current lack of a software manager is the only thing keeping me from making a Steam Machine rather then making a new Ubuntu machine + Steam, like I currently have.  The open source nature of Linux however means that driver and software advances made on Steam OS will migrate to other Linux distros, so even if I stay with Ubuntu I will still benifit from Steam OS existing & the advances made there.

Yes Linux, or any other platform for that matter has no chance of competing with the PC games library.  That's a fact I can't talk my way around, but it's not a deal breaker, just like it's not a deal breaker on any of the other consoles either.

With the ever increasing power of the AMD APU's it won't be more then a couple years, if that, before high power Steam Machines are hitting the market at $299, you could even build a low end Steam machine for less.  Yah, that controller is awesome isn't it, and yes Valve is making it available to all Steam platforms.

If you don't personally have an interest that's fine, Valve has said that this isn't meant to replace your desktop PC.  Steam Machines are meant to bring Steam to the Living room.  We havn't even talked about the PC game streaming.  I have no interest in the Xbox, but I'm not going to assume everyone has the same interests as me.