The title is a bit misleading, as the article lists diverging analysts’ opinions, ranging from Valve willing to sell at a loss or low margins, to high prices due to RAM and SSD price volatility.
They can’t sell this at a loss, or at least it would be incredibly risky. This is (intentionally) “just a PC”. It ships with SteamOS but you can of course install whatever you want, including windows. If it is (much) cheaper than a roughly equivalent normal PC, companies might just start buying them in bulk but obviously not generating the supporting sales needed.
If they sell it only through Steam as they do with the Steam Deck, companies wouldn’t really be able to buy them in bulk.
I saw in a LTT video that they already claimed they will not be selling this at a loss because they want their hardware division to be self-sustaining.
I heard at one point in time the fastest super computer in the world was a cluster of 900 ps3. It was cheaper then buying a single computer and in the beginning of the ps3 era you could easily format and run Linux on them.
I certainly remember PS2 consoles being used like that. The cell processor was impressive.
They did it with ps3 also although in research to make sure I was no mis-remembering I found out I was wrong. It was 33rd fastest super computer not #1.
I ran ps2 Linux as my “desktop” for 6 months or so back in the day. It wasn’t capable of much compared to a general purpose computer at the time. Videos only played at almost full speed if you ran em in fbdev from a vterm with nothing else running. There was so little ram that using kde1 would run you into slow motion computing because of all the swapping. Window maker was ok, but running much of anything inside it would eat through that 32 megs of ram pretty quickly (I spent most of my time in vterms).
I’m calling $700 US price. Valve’s the only company that can get into the console space with console prices since the real revenue source is the game store they run.
Edit: I slept on it and decided $750 is a safer bet, at least on the base model
The problem is that it makes less sense for them to sell at a loss than for example Xbox or Sony. It’s just a capable PC, corporations could buy hundreds or thousands and they wouldn’t make a cent off of game sales.
It’s not impossible, however, have you seen what corporations buy for their employees? Saving on upfront cost isn’t really part of the equation, it just has to say “dell” and/or “workstation” on it. A large company values long-term support and supply way more than what they’d save by getting a gaming machine.
And besides all that, it’s not like the best selling console of all time didn’t make money because a (objectively large) minority of owners only used it as a DVD player.
Yep reason why people can get some nice Thinkpads for cheap once warranty ends with businesses offloading them.
I don’t think most corporations would be interested in buying a computer that doesn’t include a windows license. Unless they intend to use it for like… server stuff, but they’d be way better off buying like… actual server hardware… if only for the operating cost.
Even as a Linux desktop it would mostly just be interesting for devs and people doing relatively lightweight 3D design work (especially because it will take a while before other distros support it), I don’t see it competing against regular desktops.
Any company who depend on their employees having a decent GPU will likely want to be able to upgrade/reconfigure new orders at will, and will prefer a tower, and they will prefer the quick repairability of a tower. Those who don’t are increasingly ok with using mini PCs.
Why on earth would corporations buy this? Lol
Uh the same could be said for Sony, Xbox and to a greater extent Nintendo but they’d rather make oodles of noodles money at every interaction.
It’s likely in everybody’s best interest that this is a wild success. Not only will game developers be incentivized to actually optimize their games for reasonable setups; this will unseat Nvidia’s monopoly over gamers with their ridiculously overpriced graphics cards and also Microsoft’s monopoly of a gamer’s operating system.
Nvidia’s partnership with Palantir is incredibly concerning and any blow to Nvidia is a welcome one. Encourage these developments and hype this all up.
The article i saw a few days ago specifically mentioned that they didn’t really talk about the price but when asked if it would cost more than the ps5 pro they didnt really say no and only offered that it will be priced accordingly to the hardware used to make it. To me, that most likely means it’s going to cost around $1k. The absolute max is would ever be willing to pay is like $600. I have no doubt it will sell, but at that $1k price, they will severely limit the group of people that will be buying it. Honestly, if that is the cost, they should be shying away from even associating it as a console and just market it as a PC due to how people think.
Yeah, on announcement day people were adamant about it costing less than consoles, but one look at the specs and you’d know there’s no way of that happening.
I’d be shocked if it’s under $600
no way this thing costs more than 800
Get ready to be horribly dissapointed…
maybe lol
I’m not in the market for the GabeCube but if I were, I’d find a price point of $500-$600 attractive, given it’s mostly just laptop tier hardware. I would prefer it over the current gen of consoles, although I don’t know if there’s gonna be the same level of optimisations for games on this as there is on consoles (most likely not really). It’ll be a ripper emulation box, though.
Upgradability would’ve been nice, too. Soldered in RAM is ok for a hand-held device but for this? Nah mate…I think the RAM just uses laptop sticks, so it is upgradable edit: https://www.digitalfoundry.net/features/hands-on-with-steam-machine-valves-new-pcconsole-hybrid
Oh that’s cool, didn’t see that. I have no idea why Valve didn’t mention that in their reveal, that’s a huge advantage over consoles.
RAM being upgradeable is basically irrelevant for a fixed-GPU device.
There’s plenty of games today that use more than 16GB of system RAM on their highest settings and that’s only gonna become more common in the future… Besides, with this being literally a Linux PC, there’s more ways it could make use of the extra RAM than just games.
I don’t know what you’re on about, mate.
I don’t know what you’re on about, mate
I’m pointing out that a game that needs 12GB of VRAM on its GPU doesn’t care if you have 128GB or 512GB of system RAM, because the GPU can’t use that RAM. You’re not going to have games that require 128GB of system memory that also work on an 8GB GPU.
This isn’t controversial or hard to understand.
Yeah, that’s kinda obvious. I just don’t think that’s gonna be a huge problem for people who are in the market for this thing, Valve specifically choose the specifications to be an upgrade for most steam users.
Some upgradability is still better than none.
Speaking of upgradability, I wonder if an egpu could be connected to that usbc port.
At $1,000 that’d be a hard pass for me even though I love Valve, I could easily build something better for less. I seriously doubt that’ll be the price too, it’ll probably around $600-800.
Could you really build something better for less? Not to mention all that plus OS install and stuff is already done so most people will prefer that I think.
I’ve priced it out for myself, and I couldn’t get a build that’s as good at that price, not on new hardware at least. Not sure how they worked out their numbers
Less than $1,000? Yes, why not? We’ll see what the price actually is, but I doubt it’ll be anywhere near that high. Valve was pretty smart about sourcing their parts for low cost and decent performance. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were closer to $500 even.
Why not? That answer is easy. Because maybe you can’t. That’s why I asked 😂
Yeah, but you can though. Go spec your own gaming rig if you don’t believe me.
Also, again, there’s pretty much no way it’ll be $1,000.
@cyberpunk007 @_haha_oh_wow_ can it produce steam? (And cook a coffee???)
That would probably require some modifications…
No
How constructive
For me it’s either this or Framework Desktop, I’ve got the money, just waiting for the email from Valve telling the final price.
Steam Machine is better for gaming, which is nice
But Framework can do Mac levels of AI work, which is also nice, it’s also not completely useless for games.
As long as it doesn’t run Win11
I’m sure it will be able to, but it will come pre-installed with steamOS (arch btw).
If you install windows don’t you lose FEX? You’d probably have to run it as a virtual machine so you were still getting x86 instruction code translation. But it’ll be able to run Windows applications via wine anyway so there isn’t a great deal of point.
I think you got a bit confused… FEX is used in the steam frame (VR headset) because it uses an ARM processor to save battery. The steam machine uses a normal x64 CPU and appears to be using some relatively standard pc hardware, so no compatibility layers are needed for windows (only drivers are needed) I doubt you’ll be able to install windows on the steam frame though, for the reason you say (arm compatibility is a mess).
I thought the steam machine was the one that used the arm chip
It definitely doesn’t.
Here’s a gaming laptop for $700 that I think is similarly powered, except it also has a screen, keyboard, a trackpad and a Windows 11 license that probably represent like $200 of that. I’ll probably pick up a SM if it’s around $500 for the base model, but otherwise, I’ll probably build something instead.
FYI The Windows License is more like $20-$40. The OEM Version costs $40 retail and MSI has probably a better deal. That’s how Microsoft got Windows on nearly every prebuilt PC since the mid 90ies.
I guess they are including the screen, the keyboard and the trackpad with the Windows license in those $200 estimates.
Oh, yeah that would make sense. Thx
Higher RAM price is irrelevant as it acts on the whole market, it’s not a disadvantage specific to the Steam Machine
It may act on the whole market, but it doesn’t have the same impact on every OEM.
It’s a bigger issue for Valve than the console competition, who have established supply chains potentially with fixed prices for certain terms or at least more significant volume discounts, and proprietary compatibility hurdles binding their customers, so they can sell hardware at a loss if they want to.
If Valve sells the computers at a loss they run the risk of people buying them for other uses, without generating corresponding Steam profits.
If this post is intended as discussion material; No, not as long that I have my stationary computer that fills my gaming needs.
I guess if you have a stationary computer that fills your gaming needs you really aren’t the target group regardless of the price.
I have two consoles for the family and casual gaming I’d LOVE to replace.
This ain’t it.
Who is?
There is zero market for an underpowered “PC” console with less VRAM than literally every other current console including switch 2 that is gimped from half of PC games by Linux.
This thing just does not make any sense
Unless they reveal a huge list of exclusives, this is dead in the water.
There is zero market for an underpowered “PC” console with less VRAM than literally every other current console including switch 2
The Switch 2 only has 12 GB of LPDDR5X shared memory between CPU/GPU. 3 GB are reserved for the system, that leaves you with about 9 GB shared between CPU and GPU.
The Steam Machine uses GDDR6 and has 8 GB of dedicated VRAM.
This steam machine is woefully underpowered compared to the PS5 and series X, and they’re going to be replaced in the next 2-3 years max.
Who is?
My ex wife for one, who would like to play Steam games but is not experienced enough to build and fiddle with a gaming PC, much less Linux, and just wants a box she can just plug in and turn on without calling all the IT folks in her family.
Don’t forget about our nerd bias. Most people here have a different perspective than 95% of normies. Remember how clueless the average person is about the inner workings of modern tech.
Half the posts I see on lemmy about this are incredibly out of touch with mainstream gamers and consumers and I’m getting second hand embarrassment from it.
Most people do not want to tinker with their shit at all, and the proportion of people that care about display port vs hdmi is probably about the same they want exactly what you said, ease of a console with the nimble power of a PC. This is exactly that
Of course there is. I would much rather have this than a gaming console. Don’t have to re buy any game and all the benefits of the PC library of games. Perfect for couch gaming and possibly doubling as a media device.
The list of exclusives you refer to is literally PC games, a library massively larger than any console on the market.
8GB VRAM is enough for upscaled FHD games.
What’s your favorite console?
I’m ready, but Amd is not. I want 4k 120hz on my TV via Amd videocard. But this stupid hdmi forum is blocking this.
It has display port as well, for the picky
Sure, but most TVs don’t, which is the main issue with wanting to connect any Linux AMD build to a TV
And your TV has HDMI, no?
Which doesn’t work with HDMI 2.1 if you use an AMD GPU on Linux. You know, the thing the first comment in this thread was complaining about.
Oh, my bad homie.
Nope. Not my TV. Only hdmi
Dunno who down voted you for this objectively correct take. But that’s exactly what I was saying.
I got you back to positive tho.
Is it an HDMI issue or an AMD issue? Given Nvidia have no issues, I’d call it an AMD issue.
Its HDMI forum issue. Because AMD want to implement in their Linux drivers (which are open-source). But HDMI forum do not want them to become open source, see related issue: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1417
In fact, AMD already invested several months in fully testing and developing 4k 120Hz. Its possible, but the HDMI forum people are blocking this, because the HDMI forum has the latest saying… Its all about money this world. And the HDMI forum is evil.
So it’s…….an AMD issue.
You know. Never mind.
No way in hell. For $1,000 I’ll just build one myself.
Which is why all these analyses are stupid. We don’t need to do anything anywhere near as complicated as looking to market interactions and equivalent cost pricing. Because it’s obvious that at $1,000 it’ll flop and presumably valve know that.
I like the theory that they got the CPU and GPU at bargain basement prices because it was left over from some previously scrapped project of Microsoft or something. That would explain why it’s such a weird architecture.
If that rumour were true it would mean that there will only be limited amounts of this machine since they stopped making the chips long ago. The rumour makes no sense.
Not as in physically leftover chips. The rumour is that Microsoft or some other company but probably Microsoft we’re looking at making a gaming phone or something so they needed a powerful APU that was power efficient and didn’t generate a lot of heat. So AMD went through the whole designing process with them only for Microsoft to decide at the last minute to pull out.
Very few chips wherever actually made, but AMD still had to eat to the cost of the design process, so they were casting around looking for someone who wanted the chips so they could make their money back. Somehow Valve found out about this said to AMD that if they turned it into a CPU (because they wanted a laptop GPU not a mobile GPU) and made some other tweaks, they’d put in an order for tens of thousands. So that’s what AMD did. It’s unclear if they got a deal on the GPUs or not, whether or not they did will have a big impact on pricing.
This would explain why it’s a mobile CPU, as there’s very little reason you would go that route unless that was your primary constraint. So the theory is that they had a CPU and they had to build a computer around that. Which would mean that the Steam Machine was probably never actually going to exist, and we would have just had the VR headset and the controller.
If this is true then this would have all happened around 2021 so the run will be basically complete now, but valve can still putting orders for more if pre-orders exceed expected values.
It’s not an ARM cpu though……
It has a midrange graphics card, it can’t cost more than 5 or 6 hundred
Dude the switch 2 is $500. Having a general purpose computer that hooks just as easily to your TV as a gaming console for double that price is perfectly fine IMO.
