The analysis seems mostly[1] solid but the conclusions are all wrong. The steam machine was sold out and wait-listed. Value doesn't charge until you are removed from the wait-list so these numbers reflect the number of manufactured units per week (e.g. manufacturing capacity and/or distribution strategy) of the steam machine and not demand. This is only a minimum demand. To get the demand you would need to derive info about the length of the waiting list.
[1] The unit mix would be what valve picked as the initial mix and not necessarily the market average. Also, the sales numbers would include the steam controller if you selected that option but I don't know if there is good data on whether any of the initial reservations had the steam controller.
I read the analysis and I don’t see anywhere that it claims to measure demand.
It seems pretty clear it’s about how many units Valve is selling (charging for, shipping) and explicitly not about reservations or demand.
Valve is being smart here. It is far better to be supply constrained at launch than to have enough capacity to meet initial demand (and then far too much capacity when demand slows over time).
Ya, the article doesn't specifically use the word demand but in the final section Is It Good? says "The estimated 12k to 15k weekly sales volume reflects the fact that this is not a mainstream home run." this implies that the 12k-15k is a demand number but we can't reach that conclusion with this data.
> On top of that, Valve may be constrained in the number of units they can actually ship, so there may be downward pressure on a higher demand. We don’t know for sure.
That's the point the root comment was making: The numbers only tell us how many units Valve is able to manufacture/ship, it doesn't tell us about the demand beyond that.
So it's not clear what point you were trying to make with your "it also says" comment.
One interesting point I've seen online is that the steam machine is more of a budget Mac than a pc. As valve controls the whole stack including the OS which creates a very streamlined experience that just works.
Linux has gone mainstream a long time ago - from dvd players to android phones. It just hasn’t succceeded on old preexisting markets ( personal computers ) but has taken large parts of most of the newly created ones ( servers , mobile devices , embedded devices etc )
I feel like this is a little nitpicky. Clearly they are talking about mainstream for the average home computer user as a daily driver OS. Even with the steam deck it’s barely touching 5%. It’s still obscure and mysterious to the vast majority of the population in a way windows and macOS aren’t.
I've been a techie my whole life, and for me, the mysterious OS is macOS. I haven't used it since high school (late 90s), which is when I picked up linux at home.
I was never able to afford mac products as a young person, and now that I can, I wouldn't part with linux.
To many people the internet and internet explorer ( or edge ) are the same thing, and for almost everyone I know , the daily driver is the phone or tablet OS not the laptop/desktop OS. And I’m not even talking about the ones who live in a browser.
I started using Linux in 96 and for many years it was going to be the year of Linux on the desktop. It never happened , and I’m not sure it’s that important these days , given the gigantic presence Linux has, and the way people interact with computing devices in general these days .
Edit / clarification : there are a lots of computer professionals on HN, and as such see actual pcs / Macs etc a lot. Many people don’t and just see their phones.
The core difference there being, those settings will stick on Linux, and Microsoft will happily revert them next Windows feature update without telling you.
Yes, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct driver for Linux and set it up. Having steam machine be start and play like steam deck really brings the console feel on PC. Moreover it's still Linux which you can use for other things, so people doesn't feel loss for this.
Nvidia has been historically tricky, but in the last two years or so (maybe longer), I have not needed to do any manual work for drivers. Sometimes, you may see some diminished performance on hardware that is brand new until drivers catch up, but that is usually just about waiting for an update on driver you already have.
I've been of the belief that 2026 has been year of the Linux desktop. As a user of MacOS for work and Linux at home, and being a former user of Windows for decades for video games, Linux has come so far that I think it has surpassed the mainstream OSes in terms of experience. The barrier to entry isn't really troubleshooting anymore, it is that we don't have any dominant desktop environment. Which is "bad" for adoption, but has been great for iteration by teams who are not bogged down by the need to support legacy users who don't want things to change.
> Yes, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct driver for Linux and set it up.
It's interesting that you say that, because it isn't how drivers normally work on Linux. Finding, downloading and installing drivers is very much a Windows thing.
Valve's vertical control over SteamOS, the UI, and the hardware specs indeed gives the Steam Machine that taste of Mac. Not sure if Apple would have gone for something like that if they ever made a console: one key difference is that Valve keeps it open like a regular PC which is a major benefit to keep the device alive down the road for years to come.
It is great timing in a way. There is a backlash with consoles and now more than ever the energy around AAA studios feels pretty low. You don't need incredible horsepower to play really fun games that still look visually appealing.
And the price is steep but in my opinion, you really do get a lot of value here - especially with the fact that you instantly pull a ton of your library in seamlessly. If you've been in this ecosystem for a while that's a huge selling-point - or, at least it was for me!
Agree. I suspect others who use steam are thinking the same thing.
When I heard the news for playstation my mind instantly jumped to silly digital prices for games forever. I look at the nintendo switch store and they will sell a digital copy for new retail price for years after even if you can pickup a used copy on ebay for half the price or less.
The steam machine handily beats apple in terms of dollar per TFLOP and dollar per GB memory. It's also easier to upgrade, making it likely to last longer.
Unified memory puts Apple in it's own category for certain workloads however, but since we're talking about gaming here, and not local LLMs, Apple simply cannot compete on any kind of value comparison
It’s not a terrible price for a unified device that will just work with your steam library. You could save a few hundred building your own but it will be a larger form factor and take a little more messing with to run.
Yeah PC is sort of the "forever" console, I mean it's not strictly, there is always the upgrade grind, but new hardware tends to run old software fine(ish) and many(most if you play a lot of the smaller indie stuff) new games work fine on older hardware.
It is a huge mess compared to consoles but that is often the price of freedom and I am happy that at least one system escaped control of a single corporation.
I still think the best bang for your buck. Even now with inflated prices. I can’t remember when I picked up my 1080, maybe 2018. I just upgraded last year. Obviously I missed out on beat in class graphics but it kept kicking and doing a decent job for such a long time.
I got one and I am considering switching everything to SteamOS. Unfortunately I still have nvidia cards around, but the experience is amazing for videogames.
As for the desktop experience, having access to linux is way better than windows.
I run Windows on all my computers but was pleasantly surprised by the desktop mode on SteamOS. The incredible number of options on a simple config dialog such as changing the keyboard layout was incredibly impressive (which isn’t SteamOS specific but rather a Gnome thing?).
A few months ago I got tired of waiting for the steam machine and built my own. Geekom box on sale (note: would NOT buy from them again) and then a quick hour or so to get Bazzite running. The hardest part was purchasing a thumb drive (had 3 in a row fail to deliver from amazon—that’s never happened to me before). Despite all that, Bazzite has been amazing. And for the kind of gaming I do, this little machine is more than enough. The Steam machine is likely overkill for me, honestly.
Can you explain what the point of Bazzite is? I don't really understand what it adds over installing Lutris onto whatever distro you would otherwise have used
You can indeed install everything manually (it won't be just lutris though, there are many possible tweaks).
SteamOS/Bazzite/uBlue project are Linux distros with immutable core. The immutable part is tweaked, tested, fixed in time and can be easily switched/rolled back. Many people (me included) find it much nicer experience to get some battery included base that someone more competent put together and that can't be easily broken. So instead of figuring out how to put linux parts together you find immutable distro that fits most of what you need and then install just what is missing.
It’s just an opinionated, gaming-centric build of Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite. It ships with everything preconfigured for typical gamers that just want a low barrier to entry and low maintenance burden. It’s extremely plug-and-play.
I like my steam deck and got tired of waiting for the steam machine. I asked one of the AIs for something similar and it told me to install Bazzite. Took me an hour and I got the Steam-like UI that I wanted. I did not explore other options because my problem was solved.
This is why I would never make it in business. I just don't see the consumer case for buying a Steam Machine. They're too expensive for the console niche they're intended to occupy.
The sad thing is, they're not. A lot of people have not been paying attention to PC costs. This is what they cost now. I've seen a few "make your own" builds online. If you use new parts, you might save 80$, and you generally don't get the form factor, efficiency, integrated Steam Controller puck, or visual appearance with those builds, plus, you know, you're building then yourself which should be counted for at least some cost in most cases. Anything that saves more than that involves used parts or parts the person making the video/article already had, which is fine if you have them but not generally comparable.
You can get a better deal on some consoles at the moment, but I wouldn't count on that to last. The Switch 2 has a price increase scheduled. The Xbox line has a price increase scheduled. PlayStation did one earlier this year. Rather than being a permanent situation this feels like everything going up, just irregularly rather than smoothly, so sometimes one thing feels like a better deal, sometimes another, but it's not obvious that any of them are much better on a longer time frame. If you're looking out at the console versus Steam Machine and thinking the consoles look better for your use case, you don't already have one, and you're interested in one of them, I suggest moving sooner rather than later.
The Steam Machine is what got noticed, and earthed a lot of anger about prices, but it's not particularly out of line or especially expensive. The whole market is screwed up.
It was still overpriced when it was rumored to be ~$700 with the rest of the market priced commensurately, and I go online right now and buy significantly more powerful prebuilts for less, albeit without the integrated puck (which does nothing without buying the non-included controller anyways), HDMI CEC (probably want to hold off on that for a patch cycle or three if the complaints on r/SteamMachine are any indication), and the size (ok ya got me there).
If those prebuilts are desktop sized, I don't think they count as being the same. The form factor has a price associated with it, and has for a long time. If you're willing to let the size drift up you can do better... which is exactly what I did. I bought a prebuilt a few months ago when it became clear I didn't like the Steam Machine's value proposition, and put Bazzite on it. It has a much better bang-for-the-buck ratio partially because I have a place to drop a full-sized desktop into my setup without it bothering anyone, and much better upgradability. I might upgrade to the latest AMD later for VR if it ends up helping.
Which I suppose I'd add to point out I'm not a "Steam Machine partisan"... I was interested but bailed out about 3 months ago, before the price was even announced.
As for HDMI CEC, the machine I bought has an AMD 9060XT in it, and HDMI CEC seems to work fine. I didn't do much to make it happen. Maybe I flipped a switch to turn it on in the UI, but that was it. I've had a couple of people ask me why it works and all I can say is I don't know, because I didn't do much (if anything) to turn it on.
Valve very obviously isn't enjoying a fat margin on Steam Machines, but they're not a public company so profit is profit. And people who buy Steam Machines are more encouraged to buy games on Steam and pay that nice juicy 30%.
This is part of the controller, not the Machine. Unless you mean software integration, then it's on SteamOS and the Steam client, both of which can run on custom hardware.
The selling point, for me, is that it's a console in both form factor (not a PC tower, smaller than small PC cases) and easy of use (you plug it in, you play games, no shopping around for parts), yet because it's a PC you have control over it (load non-Steam games, use the desktop to do whatever, install a different OS even).
Clearly not for everyone, but for someone like me who wants a more powerful box than the Steam Deck or Switch under a TV, yet hates the locked-down nature of the traditional console makers (which are just slowly getting worse, viz. Sony's announcement to kill physical media and the control it brings owners).
As a kid who grew up absolutely loving their GameCube, this is a perfect computer to me. Yes, I already built my own LAN cube ~2 years ago that fits in my carry-on and is significantly more powerful for a comparable price point... but the Steam Machine is WAY smaller! I can fit it in my backpack and still have room for a monitor, work laptop, peripherals, Steam Deck, and clothing. It's just not possible to build a DIY machine of this size + quality without resorting to extremes as a consumer.
Consoles are quite expensive too these days. I think if not for the whole AI hypetrain and subsequent chip shortage, price for Steam Machine would have been more friendly.
The global inflation caused by the the AI wild ride is so underestimated. Also, so many consumer products that cannot exist in the current economy. Really looking forward for all of that hype to calm down
Not only do you have to build them, but in all those builds the cases are several times larger than the Steam Machine, so they are not actually equivalent. If you care about the form factor, there is nothing directly comparable.
These options are up to 10 times bigger than the SteamMachine, approach almost twice the power draw, and are up to 2.8 times louder than the SteamMachine. They aren't even close to comparable... so why exactly are they making this apples to oranges comparison? No one is assembling a PC to put under their TV, and even if they are, ignoring the obvious form factor, heat and loudness issues... they'll most likely still want to install SteamOS for a "console-like" experience, which is still a win for Valve...
First option:
* 35 litre case (~10 times bigger than the SteamMachine)
* ~250W power draw (vs. ~185W SteamMachine)
* 32-36 dBA (vs. ~23 dBA SteamMachine)
Second option:
* 35 litre case (~10 times bigger than the SteamMachine)
* ~285W power draw (vs. ~185W SteamMachine)
* 32-36 dBA (vs. ~23 dBA SteamMachine)
Third option:
* 19.2 litre case (~5.5 times bigger than the SteamMachine)
* ~295W power draw (vs. ~185W SteamMachine)
* 34-38 dBA (vs. ~23 dBA SteamMachine)
Fourth option:
* 19.2 litre case (~5.5 times bigger than the SteamMachine)
* ~275W power draw (vs. ~185W SteamMachine)
* 32-35 dBA (vs. ~23 dBA SteamMachine)
The power consumption is a little silly to compare unless you are operating solely off-grid. It would take a few years of gaming daily for a couple of hours a day to make up for the price difference (assuming $0.20/kWh).
Physical size is definitely a bigger concern, nothing can beat the Steam Machine. But I do prefer the long and thin design like the PlayStation series has always used. It's easier to fit that on the shelves inside a TV stand that were designed to hold cable boxes and DVD players or it can fit upright behind a TV. I'm not sure if I actually have room to put a Steam Machine behind my TV without it overhanging the edge a bit.
As for loudness, that's a bit more subjective. It depends on how far away you are from the PC and how loud you play sound or if you're using a headset. Just totally based on my experience, games that are very quiet are usually the low-resource indie games that wouldn't be pushing my GPU to max fan speed anyway. The games I have that really push my GPU tend to have pretty loud sound design.
This is the old “why buy a prebuilt PC when you can DIY for less”. Which is true, but completely misses the point that may people will happily pay to 1) not have to build it, and 2) have e2e warranty, and 3) have someone else do the software setup.
We can debate if it’s the most efficient use of money for a technical person, but it’s indisputable that many people get enough value to pay for the prebuilt.
I've had a Steam Deck since it was released and now an owner if a Steam Machine and controllers.
It's easily worth the price.
Factor in the amount of quality games you can get for cheap on Steam then it's not even expensive compared to other consoles. Switch games are ludicrously expensive for example.
They looked at the global chart, but did they take into account that the Steam Machine isn't available everywhere?
It's also a single point in time while the chart is constantly changing. Right now for example the Steam Machine is in 3rd place behind Palworld, while in their calculation it was above it.
Very interesting, it didn't occur to me that hardware products would show up on Steam's top-sellers list.
At this rate, the Steam Machine will probably turn out to be a modest success. Remember, it's a PC, not a console. Unlike a console, it doesn't need to use hardware sales to convince game developers to ship games for the platform; the PC platform does not depend on the Steam Machine selling like hotcakes. Also unlike a console, Valve isn't selling these at a loss; Sony can sell you hardware at a loss because they claw that money back via online subscriptions and platform licensing fees. Valve will likely be happy enough if they can sell 100,000 by the end of the year, and based on these estimates they may already be about halfway there.
Why would we assume otherwise? Valve, with all its flaws, is the one mainstream company that I'm aware of that is consumer friendly and has no issues disclosing real metrics.
This makes no sense. Valve can already just advertise the Steam Machine on the homepage, the page that everyone sees when they open Steam. They don't need to manipulate any rankings on the top-sellers list, the page that no ordinary person regularly looks at.
Funny enough, I literally looked at the top sellers list last night, for the first time in probably years. I decided to look after I saw Palworld topping the charts, which I thought was interesting since it released early access 2 years ago. Turns out it just released v1.0.
The analysis seems mostly[1] solid but the conclusions are all wrong. The steam machine was sold out and wait-listed. Value doesn't charge until you are removed from the wait-list so these numbers reflect the number of manufactured units per week (e.g. manufacturing capacity and/or distribution strategy) of the steam machine and not demand. This is only a minimum demand. To get the demand you would need to derive info about the length of the waiting list.
[1] The unit mix would be what valve picked as the initial mix and not necessarily the market average. Also, the sales numbers would include the steam controller if you selected that option but I don't know if there is good data on whether any of the initial reservations had the steam controller.
I read the analysis and I don’t see anywhere that it claims to measure demand.
It seems pretty clear it’s about how many units Valve is selling (charging for, shipping) and explicitly not about reservations or demand.
Valve is being smart here. It is far better to be supply constrained at launch than to have enough capacity to meet initial demand (and then far too much capacity when demand slows over time).
Ya, the article doesn't specifically use the word demand but in the final section Is It Good? says "The estimated 12k to 15k weekly sales volume reflects the fact that this is not a mainstream home run." this implies that the 12k-15k is a demand number but we can't reach that conclusion with this data.
it also says:
> On top of that, Valve may be constrained in the number of units they can actually ship, so there may be downward pressure on a higher demand. We don’t know for sure.
Given that the waitlist still exists, I think we can be pretty sure.
Yes, but it does not tell you if the demand is 3x what the supply is right now or simply slightly above supply.
That's the point the root comment was making: The numbers only tell us how many units Valve is able to manufacture/ship, it doesn't tell us about the demand beyond that.
So it's not clear what point you were trying to make with your "it also says" comment.
One interesting point I've seen online is that the steam machine is more of a budget Mac than a pc. As valve controls the whole stack including the OS which creates a very streamlined experience that just works.
Maybe its what will make Linux more mainstream!
Linux has gone mainstream a long time ago - from dvd players to android phones. It just hasn’t succceeded on old preexisting markets ( personal computers ) but has taken large parts of most of the newly created ones ( servers , mobile devices , embedded devices etc )
I feel like this is a little nitpicky. Clearly they are talking about mainstream for the average home computer user as a daily driver OS. Even with the steam deck it’s barely touching 5%. It’s still obscure and mysterious to the vast majority of the population in a way windows and macOS aren’t.
I've been a techie my whole life, and for me, the mysterious OS is macOS. I haven't used it since high school (late 90s), which is when I picked up linux at home.
I was never able to afford mac products as a young person, and now that I can, I wouldn't part with linux.
I really don’t feel like I need to explain how this is not what I’m talking about.
I know but I’m not sure it actually matters.
To many people the internet and internet explorer ( or edge ) are the same thing, and for almost everyone I know , the daily driver is the phone or tablet OS not the laptop/desktop OS. And I’m not even talking about the ones who live in a browser.
I started using Linux in 96 and for many years it was going to be the year of Linux on the desktop. It never happened , and I’m not sure it’s that important these days , given the gigantic presence Linux has, and the way people interact with computing devices in general these days .
Edit / clarification : there are a lots of computer professionals on HN, and as such see actual pcs / Macs etc a lot. Many people don’t and just see their phones.
The percentage of computers involved running Windows when you Google, Netflix, Amazon, Bank, Email on your Windows laptop is less then 50%.
As I said to the other person, I really don’t feel like I need to explain how this is not what we are talking about.
Go ask 100 random people to name 1 Linux distro.
Go ask 100 people what operating system they're using and if they do say windows, ask them what version.
While not exactly the same, I guarantee you more people will know the answer to that than the Linux distro question.
With the steam deck 5% is around 300% to 500% growth over the last 5 years
Yes - but this will be the year of Linux on the desktop.
one of the more interesting things about the harnesses and agents is that they solve a lot of the ops issues in both linux and windows desktops.
A prompt with - "disable telemetry, disable useless services and memory hogging ones, disable auto restart" makes windows quite bearable.
And then on the next Windows update they will all be turned back on again.
The core difference there being, those settings will stick on Linux, and Microsoft will happily revert them next Windows feature update without telling you.
Not when you have disabled the updates and put the script in scheduled tasks.
Sysiphus be like
Linux kernel is an implementation detail on Android, not exposed to userspace.
Consumers don't care what kernel runs on their electronics.
Yes, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct driver for Linux and set it up. Having steam machine be start and play like steam deck really brings the console feel on PC. Moreover it's still Linux which you can use for other things, so people doesn't feel loss for this.
Nvidia has been historically tricky, but in the last two years or so (maybe longer), I have not needed to do any manual work for drivers. Sometimes, you may see some diminished performance on hardware that is brand new until drivers catch up, but that is usually just about waiting for an update on driver you already have.
I've been of the belief that 2026 has been year of the Linux desktop. As a user of MacOS for work and Linux at home, and being a former user of Windows for decades for video games, Linux has come so far that I think it has surpassed the mainstream OSes in terms of experience. The barrier to entry isn't really troubleshooting anymore, it is that we don't have any dominant desktop environment. Which is "bad" for adoption, but has been great for iteration by teams who are not bogged down by the need to support legacy users who don't want things to change.
> Yes, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct driver for Linux and set it up.
It's interesting that you say that, because it isn't how drivers normally work on Linux. Finding, downloading and installing drivers is very much a Windows thing.
Valve's vertical control over SteamOS, the UI, and the hardware specs indeed gives the Steam Machine that taste of Mac. Not sure if Apple would have gone for something like that if they ever made a console: one key difference is that Valve keeps it open like a regular PC which is a major benefit to keep the device alive down the road for years to come.
It doesn't control the games though, hence Proton.
If they controlled the whole stack Linux native games would be a requirement.
It was always the disconnect between the people who made it work and the people who couldn’t that prevented wider adoption.
It is great timing in a way. There is a backlash with consoles and now more than ever the energy around AAA studios feels pretty low. You don't need incredible horsepower to play really fun games that still look visually appealing.
And the price is steep but in my opinion, you really do get a lot of value here - especially with the fact that you instantly pull a ton of your library in seamlessly. If you've been in this ecosystem for a while that's a huge selling-point - or, at least it was for me!
Agree. I suspect others who use steam are thinking the same thing.
When I heard the news for playstation my mind instantly jumped to silly digital prices for games forever. I look at the nintendo switch store and they will sell a digital copy for new retail price for years after even if you can pickup a used copy on ebay for half the price or less.
Yep. A large part of the value prop for me is easy portability of the same games and saves to couch or PC with zero effort or re-purchase.
I never want to see HN complaining about Apple prices ever again now that I see multiple folks calling the Steam Machine a great value.
The steam machine handily beats apple in terms of dollar per TFLOP and dollar per GB memory. It's also easier to upgrade, making it likely to last longer.
Unified memory puts Apple in it's own category for certain workloads however, but since we're talking about gaming here, and not local LLMs, Apple simply cannot compete on any kind of value comparison
It’s not a terrible price for a unified device that will just work with your steam library. You could save a few hundred building your own but it will be a larger form factor and take a little more messing with to run.
A great value if you pirate games.
Great value if you buy games in steam sales, which are so common and deep that it leaves any console way back.
Yeah PC is sort of the "forever" console, I mean it's not strictly, there is always the upgrade grind, but new hardware tends to run old software fine(ish) and many(most if you play a lot of the smaller indie stuff) new games work fine on older hardware.
It is a huge mess compared to consoles but that is often the price of freedom and I am happy that at least one system escaped control of a single corporation.
I still think the best bang for your buck. Even now with inflated prices. I can’t remember when I picked up my 1080, maybe 2018. I just upgraded last year. Obviously I missed out on beat in class graphics but it kept kicking and doing a decent job for such a long time.
The Nintendo Switch was a great console for pointing that out as well. fun games on older mobile hardware even at the time it came out.
I got one and I am considering switching everything to SteamOS. Unfortunately I still have nvidia cards around, but the experience is amazing for videogames.
As for the desktop experience, having access to linux is way better than windows.
I run Windows on all my computers but was pleasantly surprised by the desktop mode on SteamOS. The incredible number of options on a simple config dialog such as changing the keyboard layout was incredibly impressive (which isn’t SteamOS specific but rather a Gnome thing?).
SteamOS uses KDE! GNOME has very little configuration available (sorry, I am a KDE fan).
It is incredible in desktop mode, in modern times it can literally provide all the computing a normal user needs, which is kinda ironic.
SteamOS uses KDE Plasma for the desktop mode, not Gnome.
There's an Nvidia branch of Bazzite, and it works great. I'm even surprisingly able to play Star Citizen, which is notoriously finicky.
A few months ago I got tired of waiting for the steam machine and built my own. Geekom box on sale (note: would NOT buy from them again) and then a quick hour or so to get Bazzite running. The hardest part was purchasing a thumb drive (had 3 in a row fail to deliver from amazon—that’s never happened to me before). Despite all that, Bazzite has been amazing. And for the kind of gaming I do, this little machine is more than enough. The Steam machine is likely overkill for me, honestly.
I am aware, that was my second choice!
I heard though Valve is working closely with nvidia to get steamos working, so I am holding for that one instead
Can you explain what the point of Bazzite is? I don't really understand what it adds over installing Lutris onto whatever distro you would otherwise have used
You can indeed install everything manually (it won't be just lutris though, there are many possible tweaks).
SteamOS/Bazzite/uBlue project are Linux distros with immutable core. The immutable part is tweaked, tested, fixed in time and can be easily switched/rolled back. Many people (me included) find it much nicer experience to get some battery included base that someone more competent put together and that can't be easily broken. So instead of figuring out how to put linux parts together you find immutable distro that fits most of what you need and then install just what is missing.
It’s just an opinionated, gaming-centric build of Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite. It ships with everything preconfigured for typical gamers that just want a low barrier to entry and low maintenance burden. It’s extremely plug-and-play.
I like my steam deck and got tired of waiting for the steam machine. I asked one of the AIs for something similar and it told me to install Bazzite. Took me an hour and I got the Steam-like UI that I wanted. I did not explore other options because my problem was solved.
This is why I would never make it in business. I just don't see the consumer case for buying a Steam Machine. They're too expensive for the console niche they're intended to occupy.
The sad thing is, they're not. A lot of people have not been paying attention to PC costs. This is what they cost now. I've seen a few "make your own" builds online. If you use new parts, you might save 80$, and you generally don't get the form factor, efficiency, integrated Steam Controller puck, or visual appearance with those builds, plus, you know, you're building then yourself which should be counted for at least some cost in most cases. Anything that saves more than that involves used parts or parts the person making the video/article already had, which is fine if you have them but not generally comparable.
You can get a better deal on some consoles at the moment, but I wouldn't count on that to last. The Switch 2 has a price increase scheduled. The Xbox line has a price increase scheduled. PlayStation did one earlier this year. Rather than being a permanent situation this feels like everything going up, just irregularly rather than smoothly, so sometimes one thing feels like a better deal, sometimes another, but it's not obvious that any of them are much better on a longer time frame. If you're looking out at the console versus Steam Machine and thinking the consoles look better for your use case, you don't already have one, and you're interested in one of them, I suggest moving sooner rather than later.
The Steam Machine is what got noticed, and earthed a lot of anger about prices, but it's not particularly out of line or especially expensive. The whole market is screwed up.
It was still overpriced when it was rumored to be ~$700 with the rest of the market priced commensurately, and I go online right now and buy significantly more powerful prebuilts for less, albeit without the integrated puck (which does nothing without buying the non-included controller anyways), HDMI CEC (probably want to hold off on that for a patch cycle or three if the complaints on r/SteamMachine are any indication), and the size (ok ya got me there).
If those prebuilts are desktop sized, I don't think they count as being the same. The form factor has a price associated with it, and has for a long time. If you're willing to let the size drift up you can do better... which is exactly what I did. I bought a prebuilt a few months ago when it became clear I didn't like the Steam Machine's value proposition, and put Bazzite on it. It has a much better bang-for-the-buck ratio partially because I have a place to drop a full-sized desktop into my setup without it bothering anyone, and much better upgradability. I might upgrade to the latest AMD later for VR if it ends up helping.
Which I suppose I'd add to point out I'm not a "Steam Machine partisan"... I was interested but bailed out about 3 months ago, before the price was even announced.
As for HDMI CEC, the machine I bought has an AMD 9060XT in it, and HDMI CEC seems to work fine. I didn't do much to make it happen. Maybe I flipped a switch to turn it on in the UI, but that was it. I've had a couple of people ask me why it works and all I can say is I don't know, because I didn't do much (if anything) to turn it on.
> If you use new parts, you might save 80$
Valve very obviously isn't enjoying a fat margin on Steam Machines, but they're not a public company so profit is profit. And people who buy Steam Machines are more encouraged to buy games on Steam and pay that nice juicy 30%.
> integrated Steam Controller puck
This is part of the controller, not the Machine. Unless you mean software integration, then it's on SteamOS and the Steam client, both of which can run on custom hardware.
No, it's part of the Machine. Direct quote from the Steam Machine page:
"Steam Controller's wireless adapter is built right into Steam Machine for direct pairing. "
It has dedicated hardware for pairing with Steam Controllers without needing a puck adapter plugged into a USB port.
I've got a Machine + Controller and you don't need to use the puck (it's integrated).
The selling point, for me, is that it's a console in both form factor (not a PC tower, smaller than small PC cases) and easy of use (you plug it in, you play games, no shopping around for parts), yet because it's a PC you have control over it (load non-Steam games, use the desktop to do whatever, install a different OS even).
Clearly not for everyone, but for someone like me who wants a more powerful box than the Steam Deck or Switch under a TV, yet hates the locked-down nature of the traditional console makers (which are just slowly getting worse, viz. Sony's announcement to kill physical media and the control it brings owners).
As a kid who grew up absolutely loving their GameCube, this is a perfect computer to me. Yes, I already built my own LAN cube ~2 years ago that fits in my carry-on and is significantly more powerful for a comparable price point... but the Steam Machine is WAY smaller! I can fit it in my backpack and still have room for a monitor, work laptop, peripherals, Steam Deck, and clothing. It's just not possible to build a DIY machine of this size + quality without resorting to extremes as a consumer.
- People already have a large steam library they want to access in a console-way
- games on steam are very often discounted, that makes it way, way cheaper in the long term than a console
Consoles are quite expensive too these days. I think if not for the whole AI hypetrain and subsequent chip shortage, price for Steam Machine would have been more friendly.
The global inflation caused by the the AI wild ride is so underestimated. Also, so many consumer products that cannot exist in the current economy. Really looking forward for all of that hype to calm down
They've said as much.
Agreed. Those guys put together as many as four configurations that are cheaper than the Steam Machine https://www.digitalfoundry.net/features/build-your-own-steam...
Not only do you have to build them, but in all those builds the cases are several times larger than the Steam Machine, so they are not actually equivalent. If you care about the form factor, there is nothing directly comparable.
These options are up to 10 times bigger than the SteamMachine, approach almost twice the power draw, and are up to 2.8 times louder than the SteamMachine. They aren't even close to comparable... so why exactly are they making this apples to oranges comparison? No one is assembling a PC to put under their TV, and even if they are, ignoring the obvious form factor, heat and loudness issues... they'll most likely still want to install SteamOS for a "console-like" experience, which is still a win for Valve...
First option:
* 35 litre case (~10 times bigger than the SteamMachine) * ~250W power draw (vs. ~185W SteamMachine) * 32-36 dBA (vs. ~23 dBA SteamMachine)
Second option:
* 35 litre case (~10 times bigger than the SteamMachine) * ~285W power draw (vs. ~185W SteamMachine) * 32-36 dBA (vs. ~23 dBA SteamMachine)
Third option:
* 19.2 litre case (~5.5 times bigger than the SteamMachine) * ~295W power draw (vs. ~185W SteamMachine) * 34-38 dBA (vs. ~23 dBA SteamMachine)
Fourth option:
* 19.2 litre case (~5.5 times bigger than the SteamMachine) * ~275W power draw (vs. ~185W SteamMachine) * 32-35 dBA (vs. ~23 dBA SteamMachine)
The power consumption is a little silly to compare unless you are operating solely off-grid. It would take a few years of gaming daily for a couple of hours a day to make up for the price difference (assuming $0.20/kWh).
Physical size is definitely a bigger concern, nothing can beat the Steam Machine. But I do prefer the long and thin design like the PlayStation series has always used. It's easier to fit that on the shelves inside a TV stand that were designed to hold cable boxes and DVD players or it can fit upright behind a TV. I'm not sure if I actually have room to put a Steam Machine behind my TV without it overhanging the edge a bit.
As for loudness, that's a bit more subjective. It depends on how far away you are from the PC and how loud you play sound or if you're using a headset. Just totally based on my experience, games that are very quiet are usually the low-resource indie games that wouldn't be pushing my GPU to max fan speed anyway. The games I have that really push my GPU tend to have pretty loud sound design.
This is the old “why buy a prebuilt PC when you can DIY for less”. Which is true, but completely misses the point that may people will happily pay to 1) not have to build it, and 2) have e2e warranty, and 3) have someone else do the software setup.
We can debate if it’s the most efficient use of money for a technical person, but it’s indisputable that many people get enough value to pay for the prebuilt.
I've had a Steam Deck since it was released and now an owner if a Steam Machine and controllers.
It's easily worth the price.
Factor in the amount of quality games you can get for cheap on Steam then it's not even expensive compared to other consoles. Switch games are ludicrously expensive for example.
Not going to buy one but I am stoked. The more energy flows into Linux gaming the better
I'm not sure about their methodology.
They looked at the global chart, but did they take into account that the Steam Machine isn't available everywhere?
It's also a single point in time while the chart is constantly changing. Right now for example the Steam Machine is in 3rd place behind Palworld, while in their calculation it was above it.
It’s selling to collectors not genuine players. It’ll catch dust after week 1. Sales will crash out.
This is why you never wait to sell a product once the work is done.
Once the buyer has the card out do the deal. Never stall. You are never too big to fail.
Very interesting, it didn't occur to me that hardware products would show up on Steam's top-sellers list.
At this rate, the Steam Machine will probably turn out to be a modest success. Remember, it's a PC, not a console. Unlike a console, it doesn't need to use hardware sales to convince game developers to ship games for the platform; the PC platform does not depend on the Steam Machine selling like hotcakes. Also unlike a console, Valve isn't selling these at a loss; Sony can sell you hardware at a loss because they claw that money back via online subscriptions and platform licensing fees. Valve will likely be happy enough if they can sell 100,000 by the end of the year, and based on these estimates they may already be about halfway there.
The steam deck has been on the top sellers list on and off for some time now.
This assumes Valve isn't artifically bumping up the Steam Machine for more exposure.
They already can't make enough to keep up with demand. Inducing more demand at this point doesn't make them any more money.
Why would we assume otherwise? Valve, with all its flaws, is the one mainstream company that I'm aware of that is consumer friendly and has no issues disclosing real metrics.
why would we assume a corporate entity wouldn't manipulate popularity numbers on an owned and unregulated platform that sells their own goods?
https://80.lv/articles/former-valve-developer-claims-steam-l...
owning 'the list' for a thing makes a company, it's why billboard still has any relevance.
That guy basically saying that sampling bias is the problem, not the company steering numbers for games.
This makes no sense. Valve can already just advertise the Steam Machine on the homepage, the page that everyone sees when they open Steam. They don't need to manipulate any rankings on the top-sellers list, the page that no ordinary person regularly looks at.
Funny enough, I literally looked at the top sellers list last night, for the first time in probably years. I decided to look after I saw Palworld topping the charts, which I thought was interesting since it released early access 2 years ago. Turns out it just released v1.0.
Agree with the rest but I pretty regularly look at the top selling and new & upcoming.
Exactly. Plus, Valve is the last company that I know of that IA transparent about metrics.