Pasta la Vista
Member
I think this is an interesting topic. The time now is ripe for something like this given the work done with Steam Deck and Steam OS, Xbox's apparent flat lining in the console space, plus the looming future of Windows 12 on PC.
Linux is just too much of a learning curve for the vast majority of people, it takes a lot of time and effort. Steam OS is the ticket for gamers that have already invested so much into the platform to be able to finally abandon Windows. And now that we are basically living in the digital future, there is much less incentive to go physical. Having a full game on physical media is becoming more and more rare with each passing day. Many games today also just don't get physical releases at all now.
Well we do remember the failure of Steam machines, right? So why did those fail?
In my opinion, it was too early, the market was already too crowded. Steam OS wasn't mature enough and there was no one standardized piece of hardware. They amounted to just pre-built PCs with a variety of configurations.
Of course having the flexibility of a PC means that it will never go out of style and there will always be a market for it. But I think the work done with Steam Deck and Steam OS shows us that another option and an exit path from the ever growing restrictions of consoles with subscription based online play, controllers and accessories locked to specific hardware, etc.
So what should a Steam console be? I think it should be a hybrid of console and PC. Use whatever controllers you want, of course keyboard and mouse as well. The options with changing your resolution and capping your frame rate, changing post processing effects etc. are all still there and behave the way they do now on PC. Nothing changes on that front. There should be the ability to upgrade your storage (obviously) and maybe also ram. Allow for some other flexibility, maybe you actually want Windows on it? That could be an option.
We are reaching the point now where it takes about a decade for any significant progress to be made with games "pushing" hardware. Diminishing returns and all that.
For the price? Well, it should not sell at a loss. Which means the price may be higher up front than traditional consoles, but the trade off is that you never have to pay to play games online, sales are frequent and still decent on Steam and you never lose your library should you switch hardware.
Steam's user base is massive and growing (if you get my reference
). I think the market is here for it now more than ever.
So what do you think? What are your hopes and dreams? Would this work? Would you switch from PC or your traditional console to a Steam console? Or would you get it on top of whatever you already have?
Linux is just too much of a learning curve for the vast majority of people, it takes a lot of time and effort. Steam OS is the ticket for gamers that have already invested so much into the platform to be able to finally abandon Windows. And now that we are basically living in the digital future, there is much less incentive to go physical. Having a full game on physical media is becoming more and more rare with each passing day. Many games today also just don't get physical releases at all now.
Well we do remember the failure of Steam machines, right? So why did those fail?
In my opinion, it was too early, the market was already too crowded. Steam OS wasn't mature enough and there was no one standardized piece of hardware. They amounted to just pre-built PCs with a variety of configurations.
Of course having the flexibility of a PC means that it will never go out of style and there will always be a market for it. But I think the work done with Steam Deck and Steam OS shows us that another option and an exit path from the ever growing restrictions of consoles with subscription based online play, controllers and accessories locked to specific hardware, etc.
So what should a Steam console be? I think it should be a hybrid of console and PC. Use whatever controllers you want, of course keyboard and mouse as well. The options with changing your resolution and capping your frame rate, changing post processing effects etc. are all still there and behave the way they do now on PC. Nothing changes on that front. There should be the ability to upgrade your storage (obviously) and maybe also ram. Allow for some other flexibility, maybe you actually want Windows on it? That could be an option.
We are reaching the point now where it takes about a decade for any significant progress to be made with games "pushing" hardware. Diminishing returns and all that.
For the price? Well, it should not sell at a loss. Which means the price may be higher up front than traditional consoles, but the trade off is that you never have to pay to play games online, sales are frequent and still decent on Steam and you never lose your library should you switch hardware.
Steam's user base is massive and growing (if you get my reference
So what do you think? What are your hopes and dreams? Would this work? Would you switch from PC or your traditional console to a Steam console? Or would you get it on top of whatever you already have?