Anyone else think Steam Machines are going to be a massive flop?

[Dr.Henry_Killinger]

bonzobanana said:
I'm really looking forward to steam os.

It will bring down the price of PCs by not needing a licensed windows operating system,

literally penies on the dollar, I got W8 for like 15 dollars, also many functional OS of the Unix variety are free.

improve optimisation of games and give users a gui much more orientated towards end consumers in the home.

You mean gamers. Not just general consumers.

They already claim 100s of titles run natively on steam os and there will be streaming support for others.

As the operating system becomes established I'm sure many will buy a steam box but that won't make up the majority of the market.

SteamBox is just a branding, SteamOS is free and has no exlusivity

Windows is so utterly awful, destroying much of the performance of PC's with its bloated size and overly complicated processes. A fast lean operating system for x86 would be hugely beneficial to most consumers.

It would but its not going to change much of anything. OSX has been trying to overtake Windows for years. SteamOS benefits come from when its running on the system either through dual boot or it being your main installation. Considering PCs are NOT dedicated gaming devices, its rather unlikely to switch OSes just to play games. Especailly with consoles being the lead dev platform, if PC's were being outperformed cross the board by some kind of secret sauce, maybe then MantleSteamOS might be useful.

I would urge people to support Steam OS because PC gaming will improve because of it. It might take 3-4 years to become established but at the end of that time I doubt there will be many that want to go back to Windows.

SteamOS has no exclusives, all it has is performance. Compared to the one time purchase of an OS. No Chance. Especially not with the casuals. And you don't need a branded box to get it too so the Steam Boxes are pretty extraneous.

It makes no sense to use a business/productivity type operating system for the basis of a gaming system.

It makes no sense to use a PC as solely a gaming machine, unless ofc money is no object to you.