The Problem With The Steam Machine: Its Current Gen
- Thread starter TikiLagoonSam
- Start date
PlayStaytion
Member
People are missing the point, this console has to run all steam games well, cause the ROI from all these expensive rigs are trash.
TikiLagoonSam
Member
I dissmissed your opinion once you said "abandonware + emulation" since all that can already be played by your old pc.
vaibhavpisal
Member
Gabe cube out of the box is more locked down than Xbox Magnus will be.
Sure Windows can be installed on it to make it more versatile, but Magnus will come with that out of the box.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
oh you can't. Windows and Linux use separate file systems. You can't access Linux partition or install apps/games in linux partition from Windows. You can access the Windows partition from Linux with a few packages but apps/games won't install to Windows partition. For an healthy gaming console/PC where you install modern AAA games you need 512 GB. So you need a 1 TB SSD minimum to use half in Linux and half in Windows.
No one is using a 256 GB partition as a gaming console/PC.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
In what world is Linux more locked than Windows? Do I have to remind you that Xbox forces you to make Microsoft accounts?
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MidGenRefresh
*Refreshes biennially
Yeah, that is like the best feature of any PC. Backward compatibility. Playing older games at their absolute max potential, and thanks to dedicated modders, even beyond. So many amazing games, even from the past generation so PS4 and Xbox One look and run like absolute shite on current gen because they were never updated to take advantage of newer hardware. On PC that is a non issue.
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vaibhavpisal
Member
dcx4610
Member
We're out there. I'm literally buying a Steam Machine for that reason. I play on PC but some games, I'd rather play on a couch, on a big TV and with surround sound. This lets me do that. I've played with the Steam Link in the past and I never liked the idea of the game running in another room and getting streamed to my TV. Getting a new system with instant access to all of my Steam library and playing natively is strangely the most excited I've been for a new system in a long time. I also like the idea of playing a bit on either system and then continuing on the other if I want. It's kind of like the Switch in that aspect.
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Dorfdad
Gold Member
It modern tv's are 4k and taking a 1080p image and up scaling it to 4k looks ass in most cases. The steamcube should have targeted 1440p/120 imho.
Maybe just maybe this will be updated more often like every 2-3 years they release a more modern version?
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Didn't knew I could play on Steam without a steam account
Still not answering how Linux is more locked than Windows.
Fess
Member
It's not about the accounts at all, that's no issue. It's about SteamOS, or the differences between Linux and Windows.Didn't knew I could play on Steam without a steam account
Good luck playing Gamepass games natively on SteamOS. I saw someone shoehorning in Gamepass through BattleNet but I haven't tried it myself. Either way the general public won't do this on a Steam Machine. They won't use Epic Store or GOG either. They'll stick to what's on the UI, Steam. Doesn't make SteamOS closed but it's certainly not welcoming the open nature of PC gaming.
Same thing could be said about next Xbox and the assumption that it's focused on Xbox App. It's exactly the same thing if it's booting into that.
Everything that sends you out to the Linux or Windows desktop is going to be frowned upon on a device you plug into the TV, most won't bother doing anything like that even if it's possible.
vaibhavpisal
Member
We are talking about Gabe Cube and magnus.
Still not answering how Linux is more locked than Windows.
If anyone wants a hardcore linux experience, why would they get gabe cube?
Seomel
Member
But it can't be on playstation and xbox to that extent, so you already messed up. Theres plenty threads here where we already mostly in civil fashion discussed who is this machine for and purpose it can serve, but you poorly attempted to make console war out of it like some retard
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Plenty of Linux youtubers are excited about the Steambox. Steambox is running on Linux.
You still have not explained why Steambox/Linux is more locked down than Xbox/Windows.
No one outside your little cult cares about subscription services.
Steambox UI is customized for TV. Its as much TV oriented as Xbox.
What's currently announced will not.
Worth noting that you can currently buy AMD based boxes like this with better I/O(and eGPU compatibility) and significantly better memory subsystem/capacity.
Ie. in a year you'll have hw running circles around it, and with Bazzitte presumably close enough of a software experience.
So like with handhelds this is just a start.
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TikiLagoonSam
Member
Not sure you understand civil discussion if you say you dismiss opinions after one sentence. Like some retard. If I ask why someone would buy this if they have a pc, xbox, or ps5, that has nothing to do with "making a console war". You getting defensive about this machine makes you seem like a Valve bootlicker. Use your brain. Take your alegiance to this company out of it, and ask yourself "is this really needed?". Nothing wrong with admitting you just want something shiny and new without logic. If you want to play old games that your old pc can but the PS5 and XBOX don't have and you want to pay $800+ to do that, its ok. You don't need to get defensive about that.
TikiLagoonSam
Member
Thats a good reason to own one. If you are invested in that eco system and want to play on the couch, this seems like its perfect for you. Just curious, do you own a XBOX or PS5? And if this thing came out for, $800+ would it still be a purchase for you?
daninthemix
Member
True. On PC, you bring about your own 'next gen' whenever you decide to do a major upgrade. Been that way for decades.
PeteBull
Member
Bro, u realise steamdeck sold terribly, no? estimated 6m in early 2025 with prediction of another 2m by the end of 2025.
Steam Deck sales numbers are in, and they’re not as spectacular as I’d hope (but I do still have hope)
Sean Hollister writing for The Verge: Three Years Later, the Steam Deck Has Dominated Handheld PC Gaming Shipments Add it up, and that’s just under 6 million shipments in three years. One way to view that: it’s small and it’s not really growing. IDC’s forecasting under
birchtree.me
Compare it to utter commercial failure like wiiu that sold over 13m units...
Hell even dreamcast(god rest its beatiful arcade soul) sold over 9m units and it was discounted in march 2001 aka not even 2,5years after its japanese launch
Steamdeck will be avaiable for full 4 years in feb 2026 and yet its sales are what they are...
PeteBull
Member
Cost cutting happened coz of Gabe's brand new custom designed 500m usd yacht proudly named leviathan, steam cultists gonna be charged properly coz why not if they are willing to fork up srs bucks for that bugsandwitch of a mashine, on gabe's place i would make them pay premium too
Fortuneelsewhere
Member
You have to account that many gamers play on PCs that are not specifically bought for games but for work, studying, etc.. this machine is designed much more like a game console and therefore for a living room or gaming specific scenario.. I have no doubt that they are going after console crowd first and foremost.. In my opinion thinking they will launch this machine without at least a 5 year window/business plan in their minds doesn't make sense..
With that in mind, from a technological point of view this machine is an undeniable turd in a day and age were more powerful hardware are struggling with image quality and performance in the majority of games.. So even if they price it aggressively it will always be a turd.. just a cheap one..
Sebastian1295
Member
The steam machine is just an overpriced and low spec pc. I'm predicting for it to bomb personally.
daninthemix
Member
vaibhavpisal
Member
Look at the use case of gabe cube.
If I wanna tinker with linux, obviously I am not the target market. Putting other stores in there is a lot more work than just getting windows pc.
spons
Gold Member
I stream my PC games to my Xbox Series S through Moonlight (it's on the official Xbox Store, which is somewhat interesting in my mind). Having a native box next to my TV playing the same games is appealing. I don't mind the specs, it could maybe (?) use more VRAM but who cares. It's going to play the vast majority of shit just fine. And that's more 'shit' than what's on consoles. From Sony blockbuster bullshit to Microsoft titles to a back-catalogue that's quite frankly gigantic.
Guilty_AI
Member
256 is more than enough for the vast majority of games, unless you're playing COD or ARK SE with all DLC. Admitedly, for file sharing between windows and linux you may need an external drive formated with ntfs, as creating a shared 3rd partition could be cutting it close with available storage. Then again, with just 512gb you generally want a external form of storage anyway
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Bro, u realise steamdeck sold terribly, no? estimated 6m in early 2025 with prediction of another 2m by the end of 2025.
Steam Deck sales numbers are in, and they’re not as spectacular as I’d hope (but I do still have hope)
Sean Hollister writing for The Verge: Three Years Later, the Steam Deck Has Dominated Handheld PC Gaming Shipments Add it up, and that’s just under 6 million shipments in three years. One way to view that: it’s small and it’s not really growing. IDC’s forecasting under
Compare it to utter commercial failure like wiiu that sold over 13m units...
Hell even dreamcast(god rest its beatiful arcade soul) sold over 9m units and it was discounted in march 2001 aka not even 2,5years after its japanese launch
Steamdeck will be avaiable for full 4 years in feb 2026 and yet its sales are what they are...
LMAO.
Steam Deck was always designed as a niche product. It's a handheld PC and can't be compared to a console. The goal wasn't to match Nintendo or even Xbox numbers.
If Valve wanted to sell tens of millions then they would have sold them at retail rather than just off their website.
What makes you think you can't play Valorant on console?Correct me if i'm wrong but yout cant even play games like CS, Valorant, WoW, Hearthstone, League of Legends, Dota, Magic Arena or Teamfight tactics on console...
Awful lot of sony, nintendo and microsoft dick sucking going on around here.
PeteBull
Member
Great, so we are on same page here, gabecube gonna be similary niche product just like steamdeck, likely less comercially succesful from consoles that are considered pure failure sales wise
They wouldn't have done any better at retail with Steamdeck. Valve very much wanted to fight Nintendo's handheld with it as Switch was seeing some success with indie game sales. This new Valve device is again trying to compete with PS/Xbox.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Great, so we are on same page here, gabecube gonna be similary niche product just like steamdeck, likely less comercially succesful from consoles that are considered pure failure sales wise
Sort of.
Yes, the Steam Machine is a niche product. Valve are not aiming to sell tens of millions and they're being sold exclusively on Valve's website.
Nintendo did aim to sell tens of millions of Wii U consoles, which were also sold at as many retail stores as possible. It was considered a failure because it didn't come close to its sales goal, especially compared to the Wii.
See the difference, right?
PeteBull
Member
Ofc, it means gabecube is designed to be niche/irrelevant from the get go and any amount of say sales over 10m would be very surprising even to its maker.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Besides the fact that Vavle have never stated this, if they did want to take on Nintendo, they would have sold the SD in as many stores as possible and gone an aggressive marketing campaign.
Valve's new Steam Machine isn't competing directly against PS and Xbox. It's being marketed as an affordable mini PC. It is a PC and not a console. Valve are not expecting to sell tens of millions.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Niche doesn't mean irrelevant.
Valve already has 185 million monthly users. If they can increase this by a few million with the Steam Machine, meaning more people are buying games on their platform, then for Valve that is a success.
They don't need to sell 80 million units because they already have a massive user base.
They didn't get into stores because projected sales were not great to begin with to warrant that kind of distribution or marketing. If other stores are dropping xbox when it has sold 3x as much as steamdeck what makes you think they would be chomping at the bit to stock steamdeck instead? Especially with literally zero retail game sales. Valve wanted to keep costs down and did not want to eat the retailer margin for it either.
What exactly are you trying to suggest? That they could have sold more if they went to retail but chose not to? Even if you were to say that it wasn't meant to compete with Nintendo/PS why wouldn't they have chosen to sell more by releasing at retail? Truth is that the numbers weren't there just like they aren't for xbox now, xbox that sold 3x as much as it too.
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IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Maybe I'm mistaken. Perhaps you can point me tl where Valve said they were challenging Nintendo, or they're original sales predictions.
Lokaum D+
Member
Ppl forget that PC is the real BC King, also you can emulate almost every console made and its games.
A PC weaker than a PS5/XSX has more value for gaming than consoles ll ever have.
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Valve would never publicly state they are "challenging Nintendo". You would be hard pressed to find them even saying this about their other close competitors like GOG. Hell Xbox even has a hard time saying it about PS. They did release the Steamdeck to challenge the handheld market though and the sales of games (indies in particular which began to see good sales on switch).
I'm not sure what you mean by "original sales predictions" what has that got to do with the fact that they didn't go into retail for a reason? You've seen the sales. Are you suggesting they predicted to sell more but didn't or what?
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UnrealEck
Member
The Valve engineers said (in interviews you can see on YT) that they looked at hardware surveys to determine target specs based on what most people play.
So looking at the amount of people playing games on Steam coupled with the hardware data leads me to think there's a lot of people who might be happy with this sort of spec system.
So looking at the amount of people playing games on Steam coupled with the hardware data leads me to think there's a lot of people who might be happy with this sort of spec system.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
So no evidence then. Just assumptions and feelings.
PC handhelds are niche. They're a tiny fraction of the gaming market. Valve, ASUS, MSI etc have no intention of challenging Nintendo because it's a different market.
if they didn't project to get near Nintendo numbers, then how can they be challenging Nintendo?
Why don't you just answer the question then instead of setting up strawmen? Why would they want it to be "niche"? If they could have sold more at retail why wouldn't they sell at retail?
No it's not that different. They have every intention if they could. The problem is they can't and it's "niche" because it doesn't sell that well.
Hey AMD doesn't project to get anywhere near Nvidia numbers either. Must mean they're not in the market to compete with nvidia. Right? Come on.
PeteBull
Member
Thats true, we dont have to call it niche/irrlevant, it will be as relevant as steamdeck then:
(so irrelvant)
It will never become baseline for devs, that will be ps6 for big demanding next gen games, and before that switch2 will be one for less demanding/older games since its selling like crazy and publishers wont be able to ignore that huge instalbase of gamestarved gamers.
Steamdeck and now in 2026 gabecube cant be baseline coz of 2 major reasons:
1) Relatively low amount of units in the wild
2) Ppl who have it arent gamestarved like og switch or switch2 users, since they got access to tens of k's of older/less demanding gamess that are already on steam- new games will barely sell to steamdeck/gabecube owners.
Majority of those 200m of steam users got lowend machines/laptops/outdated desktops, they can play csgo/valorant/fornite/pubg etc on them and they wont buy new AAA 70$ games(and defo wont buy any sizeable amount of gabecubes, same like they didnt give a damn about steamdeck
The small minority of midrange/highend desktop/ highend lappy steamusers who have money to buy new AAA games- those guys already got machines stronger than gabecube.
Its total BS steam gonna profit in any major/significant way from gabecube, just like it really didnt profit from steamdeck users or previous steam mashine from 2015
I mean we had thread in august saying avg american(so much richer from gamers around the world) spends 325$ on games yearly.
Seomel
Member
Youve lsot the plot of what you started, you made incorrect statement that sounds like some console fanboy would say. Steam machine will be if correectly priced, excellent pc/console hybrid with plenty of customization like steam deck is.
Also i dont have allegiance to anything, but commmon sense and facts. I have good pc, steam deck oled, switch 2, switch, ps5 pro, xbox 360 modded etc. I play where i want and what i want. Thats why its silly reading comments like yours wheres bias
Guilty_AI
Member
Especially steamOS. All the people here yapping about nintendo and consoles and comparing steam deck sales with switch... valve has explicitly stated they entered the hardware space to drive innovation and push the industry.
Valve takes a step toward hardware, 'frustrated by the lack of innovation'
Valve has further fueled speculation that it is working on its own gaming hardware, thanks to a job listing on its official website that is looking for an "Industrial Designer."
They're trying to set trends, because for them having a thriving pc gaming ecosystem equals success. It doesn't matter if the steam machine only ends up selling 3M units, what matters is that it would be enough to drive more companies to try their hand at form factor pcs. More importantly, these companies will adopt SteamOS if it proves a viable OS for gaming as it would save licensing costs from windows.
iQuasarLV
Member
Valve is not challenging the console space.
Valve is not targeting established Playstation ecosystem hardcore fans that have 30 year libraries in Sony's walled garden.
Valve, IS, providing a product that serves a purpose that has not been addressed, standardized gateway into the PC gaming space. Not overblown specs driven from marketed drivel saying you must have 16+ threads 64+GB RAM, 4+TB of storage, and a minimum $700-800 GPU to gain entry into the PC gaming club. Just a path forward for outdated hardware owners, or people curious to find a starting line of PC gaming.
Price?
As much of a grain of salt you want to give MLID. His basic spreadsheet math lines up with November 2025 pricing to build similar specified computer if you factor in BoM pricing.
Valve is not targeting established Playstation ecosystem hardcore fans that have 30 year libraries in Sony's walled garden.
Valve, IS, providing a product that serves a purpose that has not been addressed, standardized gateway into the PC gaming space. Not overblown specs driven from marketed drivel saying you must have 16+ threads 64+GB RAM, 4+TB of storage, and a minimum $700-800 GPU to gain entry into the PC gaming club. Just a path forward for outdated hardware owners, or people curious to find a starting line of PC gaming.
Price?
As much of a grain of salt you want to give MLID. His basic spreadsheet math lines up with November 2025 pricing to build similar specified computer if you factor in BoM pricing.