Steam Machine Thread

[Maynard]

It's not for sale...there is no marketing....it's a beta for valve to get feedback. Valve is more concerned with the OS...that's how they will make their money. You guys think u have it all figured out when Valve hasn't even planned a solid strategy yet.

they are not building them and beta testing them for the fun of it. this thing is slated for 2014 with a price point similar to the xbone....they clearly have a planned strategy

[padman59]

Then they would simply buy a computer.

No one who plays in the console market exclusively is going to want this. It's a computer you plug in to your TV and comes with a fancy gamepad. You can already plug a computer in to their TV. This thing costs as much a computer and acts like a computer. Will a Linux based OS be more stable than Windows? Sure. However, it's still an OS on a computer. It's still the same as what you put in to a desktop, just in a smaller case.

The reason people justify an expensive computer is that it does things other than just video games. People use them or work and other things. Gaming is simply an added portion, thus, it's justified. The Steambox, OTOH, is being marketed as a console replacement, primarily for video games. But it's too expensive. This is a dumb business move by Steam and there really isn't much of a market for it. Anyone who is that interested in PC gaming is going to want to build their own.

I don't think Valve is taking much risk from the actual machine sales though since those are going to be sold though retailers that are already in the pre-built PC market and not though Valve itself. The only thing that defines a Steam Machine in my mind is that is has the SteamOS and controller.

The real risk is SteamOS not taking off. That's where Valve is putting a lot of resources to not only develop a Linux distro for gaming but also convincing developers and publishers that it'll be worthwhile to develop games for it. Even if it does fail, I can't imagine it'll be a big blow to Valve.

[Swarley]

Valve has updated their controller model:

[jms493]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIL71Q6eJ2Y

I will try this out...I have a desktop in my office downstairs I could try this on.