Honestly that makes me like Steam even more. Any company that is willing to put up that much money to serve a niche market earns my respect. Sure they’re doing it for the simple reason of Steam machine owners being guaranteed Steam gaming customers but it’s still serving a subset of their customers like few companies do these days.
Comment on Steam Machine pricing announced (from $1049-$1428 USD), reservation lists open
PonyOfWar@pawb.social 4 hours agoI wonder how many people there are that fall in that category but who wouldn’t just buy a much cheaper console instead.
Angryhumanoid@fedinsfw.app 4 hours ago
grue@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Sure they’re doing it for the simple reason of Steam machine owners being guaranteed Steam gaming customers
That isn’t even the most important reason, IMO. I think they’re doing it mostly to actively push Steam OS and normalize Linux for gaming. Not because they care about Free Software in principle, mind you, but as a hedge against the existential threat of Microsoft locking them out of Windows.
kinkles@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
Bless Valve for investing money purely for the goodness of making money
Angryhumanoid@fedinsfw.app 3 hours ago
Sure, but they’re one of the only companies proving that consumerism doesn’t mean you have to be a complete asshole of a company. They make money, people get the product they want at a price point they are satisfied with.
Donjuanme@lemmy.world 51 minutes ago
I just gave the neighborhood kid my xbox-s (with expanded memory), my switch hasn’t been touched since my deck arrived. I have everything I need already purchased on steam, I’m not building a second library, or paying 50% more than when I started for a rotating library, I’ll buy a few more games on steam but my catalog is insurmountably full as it is. And now I’ll get to enjoy it with slightly higher graphics on a much larger screen!
THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I have friends who only have consoles. This is who I think should be looking at this. People like me who wanted a second PC for the living room may pass on this because of the price, though. I don’t need a second PC that bad. But for my people with no PC, no monitors, no keyboards, this is pretty decent. Not to mention the it’s an alright deal when pricing out a build yourself.
shinratdr@lemmy.ca 1 hour ago
Except a PS5 Pro is $1100CAD and this is $1500CAD. That is a huge jump. This is too underpowered for enthusiasts, and too expensive for console only gamers.
I know why they have the price pressure they do. But I can’t say I’m not wildly disappointed. This had the potential to end the console market entirely and now it’s looking like another also ran.
I was almost definitely going to buy this. At this price vs performance, I don’t think I’ll even put my name on the list. Much of this is out of Valve’s hands, but maybe they should have just scrapped it until pricing is better. This might be worse than nothing.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I mean, speaking for myself, I already bought the consoles back in 2020. I bought a Steam Deck to access non-console games.
This does what the Steam Deck does only moreso.
PonyOfWar@pawb.social 3 hours ago
Yeah, but Steam Deck had an extremely attractive and competitive price when it launched.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
“Equivalent” consoles are much more expensive now as well. The entire playing field is fucked.
tomalley8342@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
“equivalent”, base ps5 has equivalent performance while being half the price lol.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
An existing PC game library, better pricing and flexibility for PC games, wider and more robust controller support …
PonyOfWar@pawb.social 3 hours ago
All true. If you already have a large library of PC games, it wouldn’t make much sense to get a console. But then you probably already have a PC as well, and can ride it out until the AI bubble pops. That’s certainly what I’m doing, as now is probably the worst time in history to buy new PC hardware.
Of course, some may say it’s only the worst time in history for now…
someguy3@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
They said this is more powerful than 70% of steam user’s PC.
PonyOfWar@pawb.social 3 hours ago
I believe it. I’m sure there are millions of people using Steam to play Dota or CS2 on stuff like old laptops. But how many of those are willing and able to spend 1000+ for an upgrade?
Ultimately, stocks may be so low that it doesn’t really matter though.
Caducous@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
And those people cant afford the steam machine. I just don’t see how the steam machine isn’t DOA.