Too early for me to judge yet, but I do like a nice cube.
RETVRN
If it’s fairly decent I’ll probably get it. It’s tiny in comparison to the nuclear reactor of a PC I have rn so I’d be able to bring it with me when I’m visiting family/friends rather than hauling a bunch of cables and monitors around, which is honestly the biggest selling point for me since I work seasonally and have to move every 8 ish months. I could leave my PC at home and just take the cube to my work accommodations.
My thought is didn’t Steam Machines fail once already?
I’m hoping they learned a thing or two. Last time they were several made by various different vendors and they were way way too expensive.
At the time Linux compatibility wasn’t what it is now either, pretty much any game on Steam will run on Proton nowadays.
They were expensive for a console but at times cheaper than the included GPU on its own.
I like small computers so this will probably be my next. Didn’t want a steam deck cause I basically never play portables. Controller looks neat.
Can’t really see myself ever building a huge power monster computer ever again. Small, silent, good enough performance* - perfect for me.
*(seriously, it’s around the PS5 in power - you can name any game and the PS5 would still be overkill - this thing will be good for a long time)
I’ve never made enough to justify spending a chunk of cash on an appliance i can only play games in, especially because i’m spending less and less time gaming lately. It’s a neat piece of hardware to aspire to, and the only Valve hardware i own (an old-ass Steam Controller) is one of my favorite things, so i hope it’ll be good.
This can be used for anything a regular Linux PC could do. Most people probably won’t, but it’s a full PC and not a console.
Gamecube looks cute.
Also KDE getting massive deserved stonks from valve choosing them as their desktop provider and partner. GNOME has dominated most distributions since rhel and Ubuntu use it as the default so its nice to see KDE get its own stardom.
It’s also funny that they mention “steamOS (arch based)” when arch really has nothing to do with any user facing stuff. Even valve wants that juicy arch name recognition.
Really excited about the frame being an ARM system since it means that FEX gets more recognition and valve will focus on cross architecture compatibility.
The best time to get into GNU/Linux is now, the next best time is like 6 months from now when a new software cycle finishes and like 1/3 of all issues are solved.
Just a heads up: This thing will not work for watching streaming services in anything but terrible quality, and I don’t expect this to be fixed with a software update either. This is true for any Linux (except Android if you count that).
I have seen some misleading media coverage where journalists think this will work in the browser. It will not.
The DRM stuff demanded by the content industry doesn’t exist, as it would presumably be too easy to circumvent in an open source OS. There is a basic level widevine DRM included in official Firefox/Chrome for Linux, but last time I checked Netflix will only give you at best 720p with this, Amazon Prime gives you some bitrate-starved 480p.
And no, there is no workaround for this except piracy.
As with anticheat games which pushed the popularity of other non slop games on Linux, the widevine support tiers situation will have the long term positive effect of teaching people how to torrent and seed.
I wonder if you can circumvent it with a windows virtual machine?
Ok but who sings up for Linux and also pays to watch media?
I don’t know why you’d use this to stream anything, it’d be like firing a cruise missile to kill one mosquito. Buy a Chromecast or similar cheap streaming device.
People use their living room PCs and PlayStations for this, which this competes with.
I’ll reserve judgement until I see pricing, but I am curious about the Gabecube. My home PC is very aged (9700K, 1080) so I could see it possibly replacing that or serving as a HTPC in that form factor.
I’ve been in the market for a new PC controller so I’m looking forward to reviews on the controller.
I’m VERY interested in the Frame, again, depending on pricing. I’d like to upgrade from my aging Quest 2, but I’d like to get out of the Meta ecosystem.
It’s neat but it’ll live or die based on its price. I want one to replace my ancient PC but if its just gonna be PC priced anyway I’ll just build my own.
It’s a moot point because it’s not something I’m going to be able to budget anytime soon, but I’m fascinated with VR so I find the Frame intriguing. I’ll be very curious about the pricing for both the Frame and the Cube. The more I learn about the headset, the more I wonder if they’re not going to try and eat some cost on the Frame to encourage people to buy the Cube. Apparently, the Frame was designed with a mentality of Streaming First. It even runs a less capable chip than the steam deck, in order to tackle thermal issues. So while it will be able to run a lot of titles from your Steam Library, it’s primary usage was meant to be a wireless streaming headset for your Cube. It will be interesting to see how they present that in the pricing.
From a developer standpoint, having a set hardware standard with large adoption sounds like a dream when it comes to optimizing. Plus, less Microsoft hardware out there is always a plus.
Those storage options are a little questionable to me, 512 GB in particular isn’t enough if this is really targeting the console market, the latest Cawadoody is like 200 GB or something. You could of course swap it out since I’m assuming it’s just a regular NVMe SSD, but that’d kinda go against the whole point of just buying a console-like box that can game.
Why would I purchase this instead of beefing up an existing pc? What does this do that a pc does not do?
The steam deck is portable. What is the value add here?
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.
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 guess that all depends on the price. If it’s cheaper than a gaming PC of similar specs than I’d say its a good deal. If it’s similar or more expensive, I’m inclined to agree that yes it’s pointless so long as the Steam Deck exists.
I wouldn’t say that, the Steam Deck is relatively old hardware at this point and it’s basically a laptop with a decent APU, the Steam Machine has a dedicated GPU with OK specs. It can do at least some AAA gaming while the Steam Deck can’t.
Me personally? I like it. Beefy little gaming rig with a Linux-based OS? Yes please. Steam migrating more people towards Linux? Very big yes please. I’m unfortunately trapped in a dual-boot situation because Autodesk is a flaming pile of dumpster trash that only builds for Windows, but if Valve can move the needle, maybe that can change.
Their new Frame is also something I’m very interested in as well. The Index was crazy good when it came out. Dated now, sure, but the Frame addresses pretty much all of that. I’m glad to see they didn’t just bow out of the market, but instead put the proverbial pencil to paper and worked on coming up with something really good.
Yes I really liked frame either so planning to buy it
Sounds like a cool idea, and as long as the price is decent I could see this getting some fairly wide adoption. I think valve’s plan here is less about selling to a huge number of people, and more about first steps towards “viable”, easy linux distro gaming/pc’s. If they can get wine/proton/steamos whatever up to running anything a pc can do just as well, i’ll finally be able to abandon windows.
the frame is what i’m really interested in. If they can get it to about $400, I might finally have a reason to get into VR
Depending on the price im seriously thinking about getting the cube for the living room later next year.
Cautiously optimistic. I’ll never buy one, even if they do end up shipping to my country, but I’m glad it exists. Mostly for the SteamOS piece getting more Linux into more people’s hands. I hope it takes off. It has potential to break MicroSoft’s domination in both gaming and desktop markets. Of course Valve are still capitalists and will cave to the dollar every time (see: MasterCard forcing adult games off the store), but idk. I’m also looking forward to the wave of (maybe even marginally innovative) clones from other manufacturers like what we saw with the Steam Deck, as well as other gaming-oriented distros gaining a bit more traction. Critical support, I guess?
