Return of the Steam Box!

[tabacco]

Yeah they said in the FAQ that the prototypes wouldn't have the screens.

[SecretAsianMan]

Valve showed off 13 Steam Machines at CES.  The prices range from $500 to $6000 with a few TBD.  While I still like the idea of a Steam Machine, I don't think paying more money than a next gen console for something that does less out of the box is going to convince people they're a good idea.  Also they said nothing about the controller pricing or availability.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/06/valve-steam-machines-specs/

[Roderick]

Another thing I was thinking about: the machines look really different from each other. I wonder how that'll effect the hype/branding. Part of the allure of the other consoles is that a PS4 and XBone have a certain shape, a defined form that becomes part of their stamp on culture. Steam Machines don't have that, so I wonder if people won't just see them as expensive PC's rather than the carefully managed gaming milieus that goes with a console.

 

Also, for some of those prices you could easily construct an impressive PC. Curious how this will all evolve. The biggest draw of the whole thing was never the machine itself, but the controller and the OS.

[SGP]

Sell me the lowest profile most discreet minimum hardware to stream from my current PC. I imagine and hope there will be enough demand for such a device that people will make it.

 

Like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856164006

[Erkki]

I don't think paying more money than a next gen console for something that does less out of the box is going to convince people they're a good idea.

 

Does it really do less? It's a PC and I imagine it has at least a very good browser installed by default.

[SecretAsianMan]

This is a pretty good summary of how I feel about it

[Bjorn]

Sell me the lowest profile most discreet minimum hardware to stream from my current PC. I imagine and hope there will be enough demand for such a device that people will make it.

 

Like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856164006

 

If I ultimately end up using a very low cost streaming machine, I think I will go with either a used or budget laptop with HDMI out.  As cheap as any dedicated device will be, and can be a spare laptop if you need one.  If SteamOS plays nice with Chromebooks, one of the passively cooled CBs would be perfect.  Thin, easy to hide and no sound.

[dartmonkey]

This is a pretty good summary of how I feel about it

Agreed. In fact, I'd forgotten about the whole Windows escape hatch angle, which makes perfect sense. I'm just trying to imagine the backlash if Half-Life 3 was SteamOS exclusive. It computes as a strategy but does Valve have enough goodwill banked to weather the hate?

It's a big ask. And if that was the case, how would a Steam Box be better than a drive partition?

[tabacco]

I'm kind of disappointed in the low end of the steam box spectrum. I was hoping the low-cost options would essentially be very lightweight streaming clients, kind of like the onlive microconsole was.

[Twig]

Agreed. In fact, I'd forgotten about the whole Windows escape hatch angle, which makes perfect sense. I'm just trying to imagine the backlash if Half-Life 3 was SteamOS exclusive. It computes as a strategy but does Valve have enough goodwill banked to weather the hate?

It's a big ask. And if that was the case, how would a Steam Box be better than a drive partition?

I don't know why people would think this was ever possible, but valve still felt the need to come out and say they won't be releasing SteamOS exclusives a while ago. It runs so counter to valve's whole philosophy, it amazes me that people even consider it.

[Bjorn]

Yep, and they've made it a point to get as many of their own titles as possible working on Mac and Linux, nothing has shown that they would want to restrict what OS can run their own software.

[sclpls]

I remember when the kinect was first released there were all these videos that popped up on youtube of people doing cool things with hacked kinect devices. I think the best case scenario is that we see people doing stuff like that with the Steam Boxes, and then Valve doing everything they can to support all the cool experimentation that comes from that. Otherwise you are just buying an expensive Linux PC which would be weird.

[Merus]

I don't know why people are expecting a) that the first-gen SteamOS/Steam machine stuff will be any good whatsoever and  that Valve have to get it right first try.

 

Also there was no way in hell they'll get close to an Xbox One for US$500 without the economies of scale the closed platforms enjoy, and there is no way in hell they'll get the vast majority of the Steam library running on SteamOS. Lucasarts aren't going back to port their classic adventure games to Linux.

 

No, they're releasing now, at the start of the console cycle, because they want to be able to compete in the middle of the console cycle, when PCs start pulling ahead of the consoles again.

[JonCole]

Yeah, I just read Ben Kuchera's piece on Polygon that purports Steam Machines are bad for gamers somehow because the $500 aren't PS4s and you can't play non-Linux games on them.

 

Let me just say, if there is a single person in the world who legitimately buys a $500 Steam machine and is surprised they can't play the Origin-exclusive, PC-exclusive BF4 on it, I'd eat something unpleasant.

[SecretAsianMan]

I don't think the Kuchera's Polygon article is saying that Steam Machines are bad for gamers.  More like they're not living up to what he (and to some extent myself) was hoping for.  I think there may be a segment of the market that's looking for a way to play Steam on their TV without building a PC themselves.  Not everyone's going to do all the research and some will possibly assume that something that says Steam on it and has the Steam logo will play anything on the Steam store.

[JonCole]

I guess that's how I read the article, after being linked to it by himself on Twitter in those very words:

 

 

Also, is there really awareness of Steam outside the informed? That was more or less my assertion; the only people that I know that I haven't met/talked to directly from gaming circles like Idle Thumbs and know about Steam are in fact people who did decide to build a PC and went through the process of becoming informed and knowledgeable about specs, platforms, and whatnot. Granted, that's only two people and I can only speak from my own experience, but I have to imagine it's somewhat indicative of the greater audience.

[Merus]

Which goes back to my point about why the hell anyone hoped for it to compete with the Xbox One on price and performance. Barring a miracle, it was never going to, because an Xbox One is a mass-produced machine that has pieces they can buy fifty million of, and the Steam Machines are not. (Hell, the big advantage of consoles, consistent hardware, doesn't even apply to the Steam Machines.) They were never going to be, so any expectations built on that - that they're a console - are similarly misguided. 

 

Which explains the tone Kuchera takes in the article, because he can't work out what it's for if it's not a console. Poor Kuchera. Always so slow on the uptake.

[SecretAsianMan]

I didn't see that tweet, but I still agree with some of the stuff he said. Maybe it is unreasonable to expect these Steam Machines to compete with a console, but if they're not meant to then I don't get the point either. I can get behind the Steam OS and the controller, but what the machines are supposed to be is just confusing to me.

[feelthedarkness]

I'm not a special business guy, but I bet if Valve exchanged a cut of their Steam take on any game for a guaranteed Linux port, we'd see some uptick. Or even a reduced fee for any Linux version sold. I bet a numbers guy could crunch those numbers easy!

[tegan]

Although I can't really afford either, buying a $400 console and paying $60 or so for games doesn't seem as reasonable in the long term as buying a Steam Machine and getting all my games at severe discounts through Steam sales.

[youmeyou]

I feel like all consoles need to do in response then is have their own sales. Wouldn't that undercut most of the positive momentum of a Steam OS? I mean no one's really excited about using Linux, are they?

[dartmonkey]

It's becoming more obvious to me that these boxes are a direct response to Windows 8. Microsoft took a step back with 8.1, but if they continue to move towards a closed app store-like environment, Valve have a lifeboat for themselves and devoted Steam/PC gamers. The controller and the living room focus are less important. If, one terrible day, the Microsoft Man locks down the playground and turns your PC into a giant ipad with Windows 9, Valve will offer salvation in their open Steam Box utopia.

Right now they've got their escape plan with minimal outlay and only a modicum of confusion over what these boxes represent thanks to the controller and sofa sleight-of-hands.

[toblix]

I'm assuming nobody's doing the low-end streaming («steaming»?) boxes because the streaming isn't really there yet?

[tabacco]

That's my guess. My complaint isn't that the boxes aren't good enough, it's that they seem too good. BAsically I want a cheap little box with no real hardware except a solid video decoder, bluetooth, and networking to handle streaming form the PC I already own, but would rather not keep in the middle of my living room.

[toblix]

But you'd like it to be made out of black brushed aluminum with a pulsating blue LED tribal icon on it and a couple of ugly USB3 ports in the front?