Too early for me to judge yet, but I do like a nice cube.

  • i_drink_bleach [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    5 hours ago

    It’s targeted towards people that primarily run console already. People that don’t have PCs, or have old, janky PCs. People that don’t know how to build or upgrade a PC. If you already roll your own, then you are not the demographic.

    I agree. I build my own machines, this is not for me. I like the idea though. I know a lot of people that just have off-the-shelf PCs. They can barely troubleshoot a PC, let alone build one. It also moves people towards Linux and away from Win/Mac. which is a good thing.

    I had a young guy in one of my Discord channels. I shit you not: he wanted to clean his PC, so he cracked it open, got a wet rag, and wiped all the internals down. Then he messaged us asking why his PC won’t turn on anymore. Bruh…

    But the value-add for you? Nothing. You can just build your own shit. Most people can’t piece together a functional PC though. It’s a box with stuff in it.

      • i_drink_bleach [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        58 minutes ago

        Not necessarily. Many off-shelf desktops are, let’s put it nicely, “highly optimized for mass production.” They may not have open slots required for upgrades. In the case of a GPU or CPU upgrade, the slot may be incompatible altogether, or, the mainboard may not have the proper bus to support the upgrade. I’ve had to sunset old machines that I built because I couldn’t upgrade them. Not because they were incapable, but because the supported hardware was no longer in production. The only option for a RAM upgrade was paying some dingus on eBay $500 for a stick that would have been $60 if it was still in production.

        As I said: You’re a builder. It is not a value-add for you. You are not in their target demographic. I know a lot of people that would very much like to buy a gaming-ready PC that isn’t loaded with crapware though. The Steambox is an actual PC. It’s running SteamOS, which is just a Linux port. It has all the same functionality as a PC. If you don’t like SteamOS, then go install Wine, or Ubuntu, or whatever flavor of Linux you prefer. Nobody is stopping you.

    • 9to5 [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      5 hours ago

      Some people dont know shit about pcs. So a console like experience out of the box is great for them. Or they want a “relatively” cheap living room pc. Both of them could be served with the Steam machine.

      As you said I have already heard various console only people profess interest in this since its “basically” like a console for them but they now can access the metric fuckton of games that run on steam/pc.

      • i_drink_bleach [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        4 hours ago

        That’s exactly what I’m getting at and, I think, exactly what Valve is getting at. Plus, while it functions like a console, it’s still just a Linux box. Meaning that its functionality can be massively extended depending on the user. An Xbox is an Xbox. It will never do anything else, regardless of user preference. I really like the idea, and if it catches on, it means a large influx of Linux users.