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potato_hamster on 02 March 2016
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Soundwave said:
potato_hamster said:

You don't actually believe you need to spend $1500 on a PC in order to have a decent gaming PC, do you? You can get by just fine for years on a PC that costs $800. And who says anything about having a "giant PC tower" under their PC. Don't be so obtuse. Alienware's version of the Steam Machine is smaller than the Xbox One and cost $450. You can also get a version that runs Windows 10 instead of steam OS... for $400. So there you go. PC gaming in your living room on a box made for use on your TV for a whopping $400.  And, the Alienware version isn't even the cheapest steam box! The costs are astromical I say! And while it's true it probably won't be able to run much of anything in 3-4 years time, that pretty much puts you in the same boat as this proposed X1 model, except, oh wait - the Alienware box is upgradable.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-alpha/pd?~ck=mn%E2%80%8B

But what's that? You already have a high end PC and you don't want to buy another computer to use on your couch! Fear not: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Steam-Link-Streaming-Device For $50 you can use your PC on your couch. For another $60 you can even use a Xbox One controller to play your games. It's like so hard to do though, it's literally a little more difficult than actually hooking up an Xbox One - too much for the average console gamer.

The business model is already out there and was already pushed quite heavily by valve. It bombed, and bombed hard. It continues to bomb. So please spare me that there's been no middle ground. There's been a middle ground for years that has been completely ignored because no one wants it. But here's where valve was wrong. Instead of pushing a valve pushing for a PC under the TV, people need Microsoft to push their PC under the TV instead. I mean it's not like steam has more active users than Xbox live.

Ohh wait.

Yes you can get a decent PC for $800 but if you want something that significantly outperforms a PS4 you need to go higher than that. 

Yes there are Alienware PCs ... but it's a for a niche audience.

When the *AVERAGE CONSUMER* thinks "build a PC" they think a giant freaking PC with 8000 wires all over the place. Most normal people don't want to do that.

STEAM is welcome to subsidize/take losses on their Steamboxes if they want, my guess is they don't want to, in which case, Microsoft has a huge, huge advantage. 

$500 gets you shit in PC terms, but $400-$500 today would let MS release an XBox that takes a giant shit all over the PS4. 

If it's something you don't like or want ... great. Don't buy it. But let the consumer decide, we've never been offered anything other than the same tired console model from the 1980s. I for one welcome something that offers me a *choice*.

As a consumer I'm tired of being treated like I'm a 12 year old or a broke 18 year old college kid by this industry who needs mommy/daddy to buy him a console. I would prefer to be able to upgrade on my own terms, I am getting a 4K TV this year ... it would be nice to be able to play console games in a resolution above 1080P before 20freaking19 just because Sony tells me that's how long I should wait. Fuck that. 

When the average consumer thinks console they think something they buy every 6-8 years that plays the lastest games for 10 years. Most normal people don't want a console that doesn't do that.

I'm also not talking about your conventional Alienware PC. I'm talking about a steam machine that just so happens to be made by Alienware. The are steam machines made by dozens of hardware manufacturers. there's a whole bunch:

http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-announces-some-stuff/

How is a PC under your television that runs xbox games less niche than PC under your television that runs steam games?

But we haven't been offered anything but the same old tired console. What about the Sega genesis - Sega Cd - Sega 32X. Not the same old tired consoles, but those add ons were abysmal failures. How about the memory expansion for the N64? Another abysmal failure, and that was just a little block you had to pop in the top of your console. It left the average console gamer confused, and angry that they had to buy this $30 add on just to play a handful of games. How about the "new 3DS" and the "new 3DS" only Xenoblade chronicles?  Failure. Then there was all of those PSP models that were actually more powerful than the last, and the digital-only PSP Go. Again, failures. You're acting as if its a novel idea to segment your userbase mid-console generation. It really isn't - it just hasn't ever been successful.