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LurkerJ on 07 November 2015
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ganoncrotch said:
LurkerJ said:

On the other hand, with $50-60 you can buy a lot of games if you are willig to wait for sales and offers like humble bundles on PC. 

Anyhow, looks like the cheap steam machines are gonna struggle to run games, even the mid rangers don't sound like a good deal. As I said, benchmarks and faster/slower comparisons are useless when you know games aren't as optimized for the hardware, if you want something cheap and reliable, a console is still the safest bet. 

Oh yeah for sure, for the sake of the $1 humble bundle you can pick up steam keys for a handful of games every few weeks, I know of course there is also a ton more free to play games on the PC side of things but I was just pointing out that online play isn't the only thing that you got from the €50 a year psn/xbl sub.

I love the concept of something like a steam machine but I really have issues seeing the market they are aiming for, I think those who love PC gaming definitely will stay away from them since an educated PC gamer will know how to put together their own custom PC and a Console gamer would be less likely imo to go for a PC with a limited Steam OS rather than make the jump to buying a standard windows PC and at least have full PC functionality. Could be wrong of course, there seems to be a lot of companies putting resources into Steam Machines so they wont have pushed money into something without knowing it'll give them a return.


Gabe is very clear about the steam machine mission, he wants to knock down the barriers that drives the average Joe away from PC gaming by offering a console-like experience on a ... PC.

Yes, it is true that the PS4 is for hardcore gamers but the fact is, most console buyers are always going to be parents getting something for their kids to play. That's his target.

As for the resources put into steam machines by third parties, they are as minimal as they can get. All companies are using existing technologies collected in a box that's pre-loaded with software offered by Steam. So they don't have to worry a lot about the hardware and they don't have to worry at all about the software. I think the risk of making and selling Steam Machines is minimum, really. 

On another note, usually when a product with multiple models laucnh at the same time, you get a comprehensive table that illustrates the products and the differences between them. Where is my table, Gabe?