I’m lucky enough to have disposable income, I could afford to buy one without it hurting. That said, idk just off principle it feels like an insane ask. Especially considering its not doing anything a PC can’t do (as far as I know). For those not in the know, the cheapest edition will be about 1,000 USD and the most pricy will be around 1,500. To my knowledge, consoles themselves aren’t profitable historically. So, do you think even at this price point Valve is taking a hit? Do you think if this sells well it will drastically increase the cost of other consoles (completely independent of the external factor being hardware shortage due to AI). General steam machine discussion post as well, just dont be a dickhead to anyone.
So serious question…why would anyone who owns a pc already buy this instead of saving up and upgrading their rig instead? Correct me if I’m wrong but your essentially buying a console for over a $1000 just to play some steam games? Sure it will run indie games no problem but you cant enjoy any current day AAA titles at their full potential with out melting this cube that looks like has no airflow. Also unless I’m missing something it has integrated cpu/GPU?
“Some Steam games”… If you look at it from a console gamer’s perspective, Steam’s back catalog is colossal. I have over 1000 games going back to the Half Life 2 days.
I haven’t looked at the specs for the Steam Machines, but I doubt they’re worse than a Switch 2 or an Xbox Series S. Modern AAA games already have to account for modest reference platforms. At least these don’t have all the bloat of a Windows machine.
I’m not a hardcore gamer at all, not anymore (if I ever was), but my take on this is that I do have a solid PC, and quite a few Steam games, but I rarely play them because the PC is in my home office and I don’t want to go there to relax in the evening. Being able to play them on my TV and on my sofa would be great.
I still probably won’t get the Steambox, or not yet. But that’s the appeal if it, for me, anyway.