Steam unveiled 13 coming steam machines

[Egghebrecht]

http://kotaku.com/from-alienware-to-zotac-all-the-steam-machines-with-sp-1495960379

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

 

 

specs and prices more or less defined for most machines

prices ranging from $500 tot $6000 :P

 

so what does sals think?

 

personally I'm really interested in buying such a living room 'console' that charges non console prices for games and lets me play the (old) games I already own without backwards compatibility problems

 

gimme gimme gimme!

[Mark]

It's a very interesting topic for me. I admire Valve for trying to broaden the PC gaming market, but I think they made a mistake with having so many options. The average consumer (e.g. a parent buying this for their kid) will only get confused by all these choices and specs. They don't know what all the numbers mean and they don't know if they really need to shell out $1500 for better performance for some of these. If they had just one, or maybe three separated into tiers, it would be much easier. Look at the Xbox, Playstation, and any other mainstream console. The only difficult choice to make is which of the brands to get (mainly the Xbox vs. Playsation wars.) Once they get past that, they're done! No trying to figure out what a CPU is and if 3.5 GHz is good or not. The people that this is trying to go for will not understand it, and the people who do understand it won't need it. There are people who understand these things, but chances are they already own nice PCs and have no use for a Steam machine (for example, me)! It's defeating the whole purpose of the Steam machine. Obviously I am only speculating, but if what I say is true, the Steam machines will fail to broaden the PC gaming market.

 

As for the machines themselves, I think a lot are too pricey. I'm not saying that they are overcharging for them (although they are for certain ones, but that's always going to happen.) I'm saying that the prices get to a certain point where I would see buying a gaming PC for a similar price as a better option. Some people say that the Xbox and Playstation can be considered "restricted computers", but some of these Steam Machines take that to a new level. Some of these machines have top-notch hardware, yet only allow for Steam and games to be used on it. What would be the advantage of buying essentially a "restricted PC" when one can buy a nice gaming desktop (or laptop with this kind of money? (Building one would be even better, but that's not for the average consumer.) I don't see the point in owning a Steam machine and a computer that can't play those games. If one goes for the $499 machines, okay, understandable. But if one owns a cheap laptop/desktop and then goes out to buy a $1400 Steam machine, why didn't they just get a gaming desktop/laptop in the first place or consider upgrading to one for the same price?

 

The companies should have focused on competitively pricing the Steam machines. The iBUYPOWER, CyberPower, and possibly others such Alienware (I've read that notwithstanding the "secrecy", the have stated it will be "competitively priced") are going for $499, so I have my eyes on them. They also have relatively good hardware. They wont be able to max out every single game, but the games won't look like rubbish either. Compromises have to be made for those kinds of prices, and I am fine with that. If all the machines were $1000 or even $800, they really wouldn't appeal with the average consumer. They would probably just go with the cheaper and more familiar systems such as the Wii, Xbox, Playstation, etc.

 

I will not be getting the Steam machine because I have a decent PC that I have put a decent amount of money into (and there is still more to be done.) I wouldn't see the point in having a PC that can already play all my games and then having another machine exclusively for that.

 

 

TL; DR Look at the bold text.

 

Edited January 7, 2014 by Mark

[Egghebrecht]

the average consumer is in his 20ies and 30ies and even 40ies

not a parent buying for their kid

 

and that is a huge difference with how it was 20 years ago

[Mark]

So you think that the average consumer will have no trouble picking out a Steam machine? They will know what the specs mean? Or will they not care? To be honest, it's not that hard to figure out, but a lot of people don't want to deal with technology. They just want simple to use stuff. Pick a colour and buy it. Plug it in and use it.

[O hai im KAMIL]

Exactly what Mark said. These are just run-of-the-mill prebuilt PCs with SteamOS slapped onto them, apart from that there's nothing to differentiate it from other prebuilt PCs. There's also way too many options to choose from, when Valve stated their 'Good, better, best' tiered system I envisioned 3-6 PCs at increasing prices (starting at $500, then $750, then $1000?). This is just a whole bunch of jumbled crap that will completely confuse the average consumer. Do you think they know what an Intel Iris Pro is? Or the difference between an R9 270 and GTX 760? Or that the GTX 765M is a mobile component?

 

Valve fudgeed up bad.

[thepope1322]

Those different models aren't made by Valve, they're made by third party vendors. There's so many of them because there's so many vendors.

 

That said, I don't feel like there's a market for this thing. The console plebs will stick to their garbage regardless, and PC gamers all already have gaming PCs.

[Mark]

Well, Valve still had a say in which vendors were going to be involved in this and how many would be involved.

[zooey]

I'm just excited to give the new controller a try.

[reepicheep]

I'm just excited to give the new controller a try.

This. I'd buy the new controller in a heartbeat.

[Mark]

I'm just excited to give the new controller a try.

This. I'd buy the new controller in a heartbeat.

 

I've heard that it can be purchased separately.

[Egghebrecht]

I'm just excited to give the new controller a try.

This. I'd buy the new controller in a heartbeat.

 

I've heard that it can be purchased separately.

yeah the controller is made by steam, the steam machines are from other companies

so it will be sold separately indeed

 

and yeah I'll buy one the instant it comes out too

really missing a controller for certain games now

assassisn creed and batman arkham city were doable with a keyboard and gaming mouse but Brütal legend and driver san francisco are terrible

[reepicheep]

I'm just excited to give the new controller a try.

This. I'd buy the new controller in a heartbeat.

 

I've heard that it can be purchased separately.

yeah the controller is made by steam, the steam machines are from other companies

so it will be sold separately indeed

 

and yeah I'll buy one the instant it comes out too

really missing a controller for certain games now

assassisn creed and batman arkham city were doable with a keyboard and gaming mouse but Brütal legend and driver san francisco are terrible

I've got a Logitech controller which works well enough, but I honestly preferred Assassin's Creed with a keyboard. That might be down to the quality of the controller or how used I am to it though. Otherwise, I like it quite a lot for simple platformers and stuff like that. And it's a must for Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.

[Mark]

I'm just excited to give the new controller a try.

This. I'd buy the new controller in a heartbeat.

 

I've heard that it can be purchased separately.

yeah the controller is made by steam, the steam machines are from other companies

so it will be sold separately indeed

 

and yeah I'll buy one the instant it comes out too

really missing a controller for certain games now

assassisn creed and batman arkham city were doable with a keyboard and gaming mouse but Brütal legend and driver san francisco are terrible

I've got a Logitech controller which works well enough, but I honestly preferred Assassin's Creed with a keyboard. That might be down to the quality of the controller or how used I am to it though. Otherwise, I like it quite a lot for simple platformers and stuff like that. And it's a must for Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.

 

Because I'm cheap I use a PS2 controller to USB adapter made before Windows XP came out. Since absolutely no game supports this setup I have to use xpadder to map the controller to keyboard buttons.

 

I have never tried AC with a controller, but I have no problems with the keyboard. The only problem I found is that when I wanted to look up how to access certain menus or perform certain combat moves, everything would be telling me to press circle, x, right trigger, etc. and that didn't apply to me.

 

I really only like controllers for simulation games (driving, flying, etc.) Racing games with keyboards are awful, and are okay with controllers. Steering wheels are where it's at. I haven't tried flight simulators with controllers. I went for a joystick right away because keyboards are even worse for those (unfortunately, some games, *cough* Battlefield 3 *cough*, have absolute rubbish support for joysticks and I can't fly anything with the keyboard.) I wonder how the Valve's controller will perform on these types of games.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Mark

[Egghebrecht]

I have never tried AC with a controller, but I have no problems with the keyboard. The only problem I found is that when I wanted to look up how to access certain menus or perform certain combat moves, everything would be telling me to press circle, x, right trigger, etc. and that didn't apply to me.

that was so in AC2 but fixed in brotherhood, from then on it would tell me to click the button I had chosen and even knowing my mouse layout

[Mark]

I have never tried AC with a controller, but I have no problems with the keyboard. The only problem I found is that when I wanted to look up how to access certain menus or perform certain combat moves, everything would be telling me to press circle, x, right trigger, etc. and that didn't apply to me.

that was so in AC2 but fixed in brotherhood, from then on it would tell me to click the button I had chosen and even knowing my mouse layout

 

I think you misunderstood me. Let's say I wanted to perform a certain attack combo. If I went on a search engine or YouTube to look up how to perform it, the instructions would be catered towards console players. This meant that the instructions were useless for me as I was unable to translate "press x and right trigger" to something on a computer keyboard.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Mark

[Egghebrecht]

I have never tried AC with a controller, but I have no problems with the keyboard. The only problem I found is that when I wanted to look up how to access certain menus or perform certain combat moves, everything would be telling me to press circle, x, right trigger, etc. and that didn't apply to me.

that was so in AC2 but fixed in brotherhood, from then on it would tell me to click the button I had chosen and even knowing my mouse layout

 

I think you misunderstood me. Let's say I wanted to perform a certain attack combo. If I went on a search engine or YouTube to look up how to perform it, the instructions would be catered towards console players. This meant that the instructions were useless for me as I was unable to translate "press x and right trigger" to something on a computer keyboard.

that is indeed so

in AC 2 it was even in the game itself like that

very much blergh