Steam Machine

Yeah, this is a promising solution to scalping. Previously, if you had only small numbers of consoles available at launch, scalpers and their bots would claim a large share of them. With Valve's new policy, that share is reduced to s/g, where s is the number of verified Steam accounts controlled by scalpers and g is the number of legit gamer accounts. Since s is likely to be much less than g, s/g is close to zero, and scalping is dramatically curtailed. Almost all of the initial batch of consoles will go to legit gamers.

It also reduces the DDoS effect of telling all your customers to repeatedly hit your web servers at a specific day & time.

I don't get why companies don't take advantage of the demand.

For example: Start the bidding at BASE_PRICE (BP) + 2400. Then reduce the price by $1 every 3mins over the course of 5 days. Until the BP is met and then just carry on queuing.

You could buy it early if you want it that much or just wait an extra couple of days and end up in the queue at the BP.

I don't know if it would create pressure on that second it ticks over to the BP, so then its BP+1 - well I guess the nash equilibrium would be pushed up.

I would love to see a generalized FOSS reservation system that could be used for just about anything that would help address the issues Valve listed. It could be as simple as a short lived deployment (1,3,7,14 days) that writes out the entries to a Google Sheets. I have encountered so many people trying to come up with their own approach to this problem that I think it would be worth solving. Maybe I can find time to work on it later this year.

It's not worse than a traditional launch, but it's also not much better. Make 1,000 Steam accounts, which are entirely free, and you get 1,000 times more chances of getting one than others.

To be fair I don't think they'll be scalped a lot because the price isn't attractive already and alternatives are plenty.

I am more surprised there's people lining up to buy this when it's genuinely cheaper to get a used PC off a local marketplace. I feel like this is unnecessary as I am pretty sure they'll be able to fill it in one shipment.

Valve gets it. I very much want to support them and vote with my wallet. Unfortunately the Steam machine isn't a good fit for me. I will buy the frame in a heartbeat though. HMD with a FOSS OS? That's in its own class.

I like that we can write the story that Microsoft sold their software with the home computer on the idea of productivity at home while the actual incentive was entertainment, and valve ends up justifying buying gaming hardware with the incentive that it can do productivity.

They need to do that because, in some sense, they're competing with Gaming PCs, not really with Gaming consoles. Gaming consoles sell their consoles at a discounted price because they can recoup a lot of it when selling games. Steam can't have a markup on games because they share their marketplace with other PCs.

That is why the frame will be the most interesting to the people on HN. A VR PC you can do whatever u want with.

And I like knowing that I will own the hardware long term. I have so many bricks at home with great hardware and locked boot loaders.

I do hope they will release drivers for the Steam Machine, otherwise the openness isn’t very useful. Or at least make it possible for others to make drivers by publishing specifications.

Edit, reply to bjord as I am rate limited: HDMI CEC, the chipset, GPU drivers, controller receiver etc.

Edit, reply to robhlt: Thanks! Hope we can get that ported to Windows

Xbox Series S/X, PS5 and both Switches are pretty much commodity hardware.

Nobody has even hinted that it would be nice to have a 3rd party store or the ability to run whatever OS on them freely.

I keep wondering why.

I wasn’t going to say anything until I read this comment but that clip of the gameplay and the clip of the two people playing are not from the same source. The one showing the gameplay has a tower of books or possibly a jenga tower on the coffee table that doesn’t exist when seeing the gamers. It’s just editing magic and stitched together to have exactly the effect elicited by your comment.

If you sampled 100 steam players at random, it would look nothing like that.

I don't get it. It's a quite typical commercial clip. Just perhaps less dramatic. What's special about that clip?

I'm not sure I understand, I'm just seeing a very clearly staged 2 second clip of product usage and reaction like you'd see in any commercial.

You are lucky. A lot of the games I play with friends use kernel level anticheat crap that doesn't work on Linux

It’s always fantastic to read a success story of migrating to Linux gaming from Windows. As Windows gets worse and worse there will be more people joining us.

Even without buying you can send Linux gaming signals by playing on Linux and participating in the hardware survey.

Let me guess, DAWs? Have you tried Reaper (FOSS) or Bitwig Studio (commercial)?

I bought my own version of a "Steam Machine" i.e. a mini-PC powered by an AMD APU for just €676 right before the RAM prices exploded.

It is an AOOSTAR GT37 which actually outclasses the €1,039 Steam Machine in most areas except graphics. One cannot blame Valve here though, the hyperinflation of RAM prices is too blame here.

AOOSTAR GT37 (€676 a few months ago [now vastly more expensive if you can still get one at all]) vs Steam Machine (€1039 right now)

CPU: 12x Zen 5 vs. 6 Zen4 Graphics: 16x RDNA 3.5 vs. 28 RDNA 3 RAM: 32 GB LPDDR5X vs. 16 GB DDR5 + 8 GB GDDR6 HDD: 1 TB vs. 512 GB (both NVMe-SSD)

I expect the Steam Machine to run graphically demanding FPS games quite a bit better due to the extra RDNA cores and faster VRAM. However it might actually be the inferior gaming machine for CPU/main RAM intense strategy or simulation games (e.g. Stellaris).

According to LTT the original price was in the $800 range, but thanks to Sam Altman it increased to what we saw today.

I don't know what you mean by 'killed.' It'd be sold out faster than hot cakes.

I still think it's a great concept and a really accessible way to get a great computer. But I agree, I thought this was going to land in the $500 to $700 range. That said, I also bought a mini PC for $250, and that same PC is now going for $600. So I don't really think steam can be blamed for that

Plus GPU prices. They absolutely got screwed by their launch timing, unfortunately. And they’re not big enough to negotiate better terms though that probably isn’t really an option right now anyway.

I’m not sure I’d want this at $550, but maybe. At $1050 without controller it’s a solid no.

I’m sure some people will want it. I have no interest in maintaining a PC so if I wanted to play PC games this is probably how I would do it. But the price just absolutely kills it for me.

"killed" is a bit of a stretch. High prices on all gear is here to stay. This is the new normal. Unless that simply means that nobody buys consoles/pc's.

But you cant compare the price point with what it used to cost and imagine that its overpriced now and that people will seek alternatives. There aren't any cheaper alternatives.

"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially..."

"No wireless? Less space than a Nomad? Lame"

I think it's far from dead-on-arrival. I don't want to buy a PC, put it in a garage, etc. I want a little box I can easily hook up to my TV and play Steam games on. This scratches that itch. I'm old and want convenience. I know a lot of other people in my peer group who are going to pick one up too. Also I don't play any competitive games where I care about anti-cheat. I just want to play my RPG/JRPG's on a big screen and I want it to be plug-n-play.

Same here. My home computer only runs Windows because I play competitive online games. It would be incredible if Valve built some kind of certified, locked-down kernel, but I doubt that will happen.

The online discourse around this is also incredibly toxic, filled with utopians who don’t understand how serious cheating is in these games, or that kernel anti-cheat, while not perfect, is the best solution available today.

> In my opinion, it would've been worth the money to just buy a gaming PC, put it in a garage, hidden room, etc with the networking gear, then stream it over the network to a Steam Link or using Apollo/Artemis/Moonlight/Parsec; anything.

I'm someone who has built dozens of gaming PCs, and wired my house. I also have zero interest in doing the above... if I have to pay few hundred extra to get a Steam machine hooked up to a TV without all that hassle... I'll do that.

It's not the absolute best value for gaming. It's not horrible in current market conditions but it's also not targeting "best value for gaming" anywhere in the marketing materials. It's hardware that can play your Steam library on your TV. There are harder, less expensive ways to do that, as there have been for ages.

If you're a console gamer, there are less expensive, just as easy options to play console games, so it's definitely not suited for that market.

It's really only catering to people with disposable income that want a cute way to hook up a Steam-capable machine to a TV. It's not a huge market, nor is it a non-existent market.

It was probably a bigger market at $750 than $1050, but we can't have nice things.

The hard truth is that as much as you think yourself as a "proper" gamer, this segment always has, always will, _not_ be the proper target segment. Don't forget that mobile gaming has more revenue than everything else… combined. They have a play on this, and as much expansive as it looks, it's mostly due to the hardware inflation, and compared to alternatives, it won't look bad at all. For the segments that matters.

I think calling the hardware generations out of date when it performs on par with a PS5 on new games is a bit inaccurate.

I would, admittedly, be interested in an anticheat that reboots the machine for deck into a secure mode.

>It's just dead-on-arrival...the hardware is generations out of date

Some people say this same thing about the Nintendo Switch and its successor, but here we are, with the former closing in on highest selling console of all time, and the latter tracking above that.

The PS5 Pro has 16 GB unified memory, the Steam Machine is 16GB + 8GB. That'll be where some of the price difference comes from. But most likely comes from Sony locking in long term contracts before price insanity.

Different value props. The target audience for this already has an extensive Steam catalogue. To buy a PS5 Pro is going to require re-buying all of your games for it.

Also, you can build a decent PC for $1049, but getting it into a decent form/noise factor is going to ratchet that price up. Add in the proprietary CEC stuff that Valve has done for it and it's not as terrible as it seems.

Not that it matters as much for a gaming console but the PS5 Pro CPU is definitely the slower one.

For reference compare it to a PC.

> For reference, the PS5 Pro has more than twice the number GPU CUs, an 8-core CPU, a 2TB SSD, a controller, and costs $899.

Will it run my Steam library of games or do I need to also pay 5000$ again with inflated prices?

Right, but it’s a PS5, not a PC - you’re paying less for the privilege of letting Sony 100% control what you use the device for, including not being able to play your own games that you’ve paid for. Try doing that on a PC. Try checking your email on your PS5, or steaming the media of your choice.

I'm sure they were originally hoping for mass-market success, but given the RAM drought and ensuing pricing, I'm guessing the best possible outcome at this point would be to break roughly even and learn, so that they can put out a more competitive revision if and when prices ever return to Earth.

With Windows becoming increasingly hostile, I do think there's room for a hardware/software integrated "just works" offering in the Linux PC space. Plus software pricing is probably a lot more competitive than console (dunno, never had anything to do with consoles, but my impression has always been that hardware is a loss-leader there).

My guess are people who want to PC game but don't want to deal with building a PC themselves - there's a decent market of pre-built gaming PCs that this would be competitive with.

https://www.newegg.com/Gaming-Desktop-PC/SubCategory/ID-3742

I have about 500 games in my Steam library and maaaybe 20% of them are available for the PS5 (which I own).

And I've paid full retail price for maybe two of them, the vast majority is from 50-90% sales. You don't get those for the PS5 that much.

I also don't have any need for a "Gaming PC", what I've always wanted is a console but with my Steam games. This is it.

Reviews are saying it’s actually similar to base PS5 in performance.

They make different performance playstation 5s?! What happenes to the console compatibility story? You used to expect any game to work on any console because they were all near identical.

At best it'll take over Steam hardware survey as the standard spec of PC gaming.

I can't see anyone other than enthusiasts buying it over a normal console or Windows laptop.

Indeed, they are hitting a weird spot, their pricing category is stuck in between people who just want to play without breaking the bank account, who will go for a PS5 or XBox, and hardcore gamers who will go directly for their own custom build PC

Playstation price is also increasing FYI

Except that unlike a PS5, games are plenty, cheaper, and you probably already have a huge library even before buying it.

I’m not the target but I can see the point.

More properly, this is competing with prebuilt gaming PCs, surely?

Unlike a PS5, a PC has all the games that I want to play. And to drive home the irony, right now I'm actually using my Steam Deck to play a game that was originally for the PS3 (Valkyria Chronicles). Legitimately purchased, even!

Isn’t this industry standard? How many PCs have locked boot loaders?

Edit, reply to Rohansi as I am rate limited, I’m talking about gaming PCs not consoles.

Yeah. I don't think they're gouging, I totally understand how expensive RAM and storage and GPUs are, but...oof. I just can't justify it as a 'fun' purchase.

Yeah. But they’re only other choices to just sit on it for a few more years, which point they would need to put different hardware in and it would just increase costs.

This may be the best option of a couple of terrible ones.

Why is it surprising? This is essentially a pre-built PC in a small form factor and most PC peripherals are USB-A.

A USB-C PD power supply which supports 130W is probably gonna be more expensive than whatever power supply they're using now...

If you already have a powerful desktop PC in your house, streaming via Sunshine/Moonlight is pretty much perfect these days.

At least it's repairable so unless you break the motherboard you can probably fix it.

It’s not just the ram now, it’s also the storage. A double whammy.

Yes, so many people were claiming that it will be around that price point. That seemed straight up delusional to me. Memory price has roughly quadrupled and 32GB DDR5 basically cost the same as the original cheapest steam deck.

Eh, it was the exact same system for the Switch 2 and no one I know waited more than a week for theirs.

Given it requires a Steam login of a certain age to register, I suspect this is just to limit the scalpers.

On the Steam store they've done a great job with their certification program for the Steam Deck.

Also, I don't think their target market is people who don't own any Steam games yet. It's going to be people with already extensive back catalogues on Steam.

Proton, the Steam machine, the Steam deck, etc. were probably never about making money. It's Valve's "Plan B".

They started with Proton after Microsoft suddenly made a move with the Windows store and also started bolting down Windows a bit. As with most things Microsoft that initiative quietly died over time. But at that time Valve probably couldn't afford to take any chances. It probably also made them realize they had build a castle on someone elses land.

If you are making money in the amounts Valve is, then even the simplest risk analyses is going to show that "Microsoft rug pulling you" is one of your few existential threats. Even though the probability is low or medium-ish at best, the impact is massive. Even anti-trust isn't going to save you. By the time Microsoft gets convicted, you are already dead. Just look at Netscape.

this Steam Machine hadn’t been announced back then? Not even the steam deck, which has been a massive success.

This only goes to show how MBAs are destructively myopic.

Valve understands that inextricably tying themselves to Windows is a long-term death sentence. SteamOS represents a lifeboat for when Microsoft goes full iOS and decides to lock down Windows in exchange for taking 30% of all software purchases. Valve has been taking this threat seriously since at least 2010, which is why they've been investing in Linux gaming. Both Steam Deck and the Steam Machine are further steps toward complete independence from Microsoft.

16GB DDR5 + 8GB GDDR6

It is 16GB plus an additional 8GB for graphics.

I mean, it is $1200 if you want a controller included

Given the current state of the global market it will likely take a few years for prices to come down

Prices coming down? In this economy?

You pay a premium for “it just works”.

I think with reasonable and somewhat common sales and picking right machine probably could find even better prebuild. Size not withstanding.

Can you still, in 2026?

I think you would struggle to NOT build a more performant PC for the same price.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/brbFsK This is $50 more but it has 1TB of storage and a newer generation of both CPU and GPU and will absolutely destroy it.

I'm sure you could get actually easily cheaper and better even, I haven't followed the market a lot lately.

Prebuilt are likely to be even better deals because they will use some cheap noname parts for the RAM and the PSU, which is mostly fine.

Sadly I don't see that happening. Game devs have gotten used to having their cake and eating it too by developing for Windows and using Proton as a crutch to get the the Steam OS certification too. flibitijibibo was right: linux porters have probably gone out of business.

Can you check how much that mini pc costs today?

You can upgrade the ram yourself.

Naw. I think they'll sell every single one they're able manufacture for the next couple years. The pre-order list will probably fill most of those.

That's likely because the HDMI Forum don't allow open source HDMI 2.1. [0]

That said, there are signs that it's coming to the AMD drivers. [1] [2]

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hdmi-forum-to-amd-no...

[1] https://www.techpowerup.com/348723/amd-readies-full-open-sou...

[2] https://www.fosslinux.com/157755/hdmi-2-1-on-linux-complete-...

It was kind of expected since Steam Deck (obviously) had an AMD APU, and AMD works much better with mainstream Linux projects in general.

valve themselves also personally employ multiple major contributors to the amd linux drivers

https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Marek-Joins-Valve

Because most PC peripherals (mice, keyboards, microphones, controllers, USB headphones, detachable hard drives) are still USB-A on the other end of their cable. Yes this is changing, but in this case I appreciate them acknowledging the reality on the ground and not creating a situation where there are many dongles afoot.

Yes you can connect keyboard and mouse; Overwatch (https://www.protondb.com/app/2357570) and WoW (https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI...) should both work well, as do the vast majority of single-player games. Some multiplayer games with particularly invasive anti-cheat may not, so if you have anything else in mind best to check before buying.

It's just a Linux box, you can do anything that you can on any other Linux machine (including install Windows).

Linux more or less runs most Windows games. The ones that don't run are ones where the developer is going out of their way to make them not run - mostly with kernel-mode anti-cheats that just find themselves staring at the wrong kernel.

Steam makes that pretty seamless and Steam games "just work". For non-Steam games you need to do some tinkering, it's stuff that most people browsing this forum can do.

You can install a SteamOS-style console experience on any old PC, including handhelds or mini-pcs with integrated graphics. Bazzite is a great choice for that, even my RX560 handles it without issue.

> a Nintendo Switch would provide much better bang for you buck.

A secondhand Steam Deck would also be better value, but this isn't a value-focused product. The Steam Machine is Valve's second stab at the premium couch-based PC gamer market, this time with Proton and a bigger focus on controller usability for ordinary PC games.

Find me a PC in this form factor that is as well tested and supported as the steam boxes are, with the specs they are claiming to have, at this price. Its a little above the curve but a little is not a lot, and you get a fully supported Linux box at that price.

.....and if you think this is expensive just wait until the PS6 and new Xbox are released.

> Isn't it going to be old in a few years and then you have to get rid of it because upgrading components isn't a viable option?

I expect to get the rest of this decade out of my Steam Deck so IDK, very different to my normal expectations for a computer. The Steam Deck also defines a floor that will allow compatible games to be very performant on the Steam Machine so I think that will help the Steam Machine have a decent lifespan.

I also think on some level we need to start resigning ourselves to getting 10+ years out of our computers!

With current hardware prices, I'm not sure it'll be 'old' in gaming terms in a few years. I'm expecting the PS6 to be only a moderate upgrade over the PS5, not arrive for another year at least, and probabky take 5 years to overtake the PS5.

Compact, convenient, console-like experience that pulls games from your existing steam library. Same niche as a normal console, just not locked down in the same sense. If it weren't for the price I'd consider one, but I'd rather limp along my existing systems for as long as possible (and it sounds like SteamOS support for broader systems is improving).

Do you usually want to upgrade components in a console?

Worth watching for the Steam OS problems part

For some reason I never considered this route, despite following the PS5 Linux developments... is there a specific reason that the XSX is harder to homebrew than the PS5?

It would be incredible to convert my dusty XSX to a linux box

I'll probably buy one. It's small so it fits under my TV, fits in with my furniture. Since it's all vertically integrated I know I can just connect it to the TV and it'll boot quickly and work well, and it has all my Steam games. I value my time and lack of frustration more than a few hundred dollars.

I want a simple UNIX workstation that "just works". Apple broke this promise to me with Tahoe, where horrific design decisions compounded the bugs on essential peripherals (Tahoe began spinning up and down my external raid array to sleep constantly, for no reason, making extremely loud noises as the drives repeatedly if it's idle, forcing me to constantly touch files in a while loop over dozens of partitions -- also I have a few petabyte of storage and it now takes ages to mount every reboot, as now with Tahoe Spotlight indexing is done as part of the mounting process and I can't opt out of this behavior and I'm in a warzone where power outages necessitating shutdowns are frequent). I have since used a docked Steam Deck as my daily driver and everything I want just works! It's now my UNIX desktop OS of choice. I've been on the Mac since OS X but Tahoe was so bad that now I consider an operating system designed for wasting time gaming a more serious and less disruptive option to my daily workflow. Heck of a job you're doing, Tim Apple!

I thought about it, but don't think I'll push the button. I have a falcon nw gaming rig in my living room right now running windows / steam big picture and an NVIDIA 3060Ti -- and it's .. fine, but long in the tooth. I wouldn't mind a more console-ish hardware experience for steam gaming, and compared to a new falcon box, this thing is cheap. I experimented with just running SteamOS on the falcon hardware a few years ago, but it was a little fussy, and I wanted to also use the system for local inference, and, and, and.

All that said, I don't think this is a good value. I'm presuming if I did a little work SteamOS 3 would be workable for me, and I have significantly more RAM, and possibly a better GPU? Not exactly sure where the GPU falls out, but I definitely believe I could buy a better GPU for less than the new box.

If it gets preferred shipment for the controller, you could buy it and sell the box and keep the controller. :) I think my controller ship date is estimated in 2027 right now.

I think there's a middle ground of people who just are not interested in building or upgrading a gaming computer (or just don't like their typical form factor in the ready to go out of the box gaming PCs) but also don't want the completely closed off ecosystem of a console.

I think if the Xbox ended up being more like the Steam Machine (i.e. more like a PC) then this middle ground that the Steam Machine sells to would probably go away as I don't think the group of folks who care that it's Linux based is high enough to support production.

Prebuilt machines have a terrible reputation, I could see people wanting this for a PC that you don't need hardware expertise to boot up. If you're reading this you could probably pick out your own parts and assemble them for cheaper, but for people who want a console-style plug-and-play type experience I could see the market for it.

Pricey, but so is any other sort of electronic entertainment hardware these days.

do you know fans or people who don't like to tinker computers?

take a sip at GamingOnLinux community... they don't seem to care about stuff running perfectly on Proton and not natively or that Gabe is buying another 600 million USD yatch. they love the Steam ecosystem more than developers crafting games abiding to 30% fees that are a clear sign of monopoly power

I wanted a gaming computer (read: an airgapped system that I could install arbitrary software on without fear), and I was sick to death of Microsoft's bullshit and resolved to never buy a Windows machine again, so I've been using a docked Steam Deck as my main gaming rig. It's performed far better than I imagined on the software side (has never failed to run any game in my library, though some have required minor settings tweaks), though the hardware is a little on the lighter side, which is perfectly acceptable for a handheld, but if the Steam Machine had been available at the time I'd probably have gone for that instead.

I feel like there's a midrange of "not particularly techy" gamers who will strongly appreciate - "I don't care about putting anything together, I just want to place PC games like a console."

Care to explain what Omarchy has to do with Valve?

Gaming just works for me with Steam and Ubuntu. Steam no longer filters out Linux games to its own category, it simply assumes most games work now (and they do!).

A question for the ages.

indie games community has joined the chat

You are describing indie games.

The repeated insistence that a company can only possibly be successful if it reaches every human being on earth is killing the world.

A company that spins up a division, builds a product, sells 100k of them, and winds down is a success

Keep in mind this entire venture from Valve is also about ensuring they can't be made a vassal of Microsoft.

Interested in hear the justification why you would need more than 1GbE in a machine built specificly for gaming.

Cloud gaming is nowhere near the same experience as playing locally. There are a lot of games where milliseconds matter; it's big enough for me and my friends to try Geforce NOW and say, "No, this isn't good enough for a lot of games." You are kind of saying, "the bus only costs $4 a day, that's 30 years of using a car."

No matter how superior the GPU, the latency from streaming will never be able to compete if you're outside of a major hub.

I couldn't imagine playing a game by streaming inputs to a server 30ms away, which then streams those inputs another 30ms to the game server, and then having that round trip.

60ms screen delay and 120ms total delay.

yikes, you will own nothing and be happy.

Are you using the stock cooler? I’m going with an AIO for the APU, but I worry that the little heatsinks I’m planning for the VRMs aren’t going to cut it.

You have my permission. Just do not share any learnings. There is enough LLM trash around as is.

But I don't want a PS5.

I think most of people who wanted (me included) a steam machine are now between buying it or not buying anything at all.

I don't think we could ever expect a specific gaming PC to compete with the volume sold of gaming consoles that have exclusives people really, really want to play.