After dealing with Steam support I have lost any enthusiasm for Valve and Steam.<p>I recently purchased a game from them that has been out for over a year, they ran out of CD Keys so Steam gave me the "could not connect to key server" message. After going back and forth with Steam support they refused to issue me a refund or even give me an ETA for when I would be able to play the game that I've already payed for. Horrible customer support and I doubt I'm the first customer they've done this to.<p>Several weeks later, no game, no refund, no cd key, and no update from their support staff (which is accessible via email only, no chat, no phone). Screw you Valve and Steam, I'll stick to my PC.
Okay, what I don't get, how could Valve get that many partners to offer Steam Machines? Seeing as how little games for Linux there currently are? Did Valve tell them something we don't know? Like, every major Engine Developer is about to offer an OpenGL option that would allow devs to continue to work just as they do now but the resulting binary could be created with OpenGL instead of DX?<p>I know that you can stream your Windows games through the Steam Box but come on. If I wanted to do that, I could already run an hdmi cable from my PC directly to my TV and don't need an extra box in between.
Nice to see that they gathered some of the "big" names I fondly remember from my gaming days (Alienware, Alternate, GigaByte, Zotac). It looks like they're not targeting the console demographic, but the classical "PC gamers".<p>It has been getting harder and harder to get a good gaming PC. One reason is that since I'm grown up I can no longer read gaming magazines all day long to become a hardware expert ;-). The other is that there are less and less good off-the-shelf gaming PCs. Either they are too expensive, or too loud, or they are very unbalanced (GPU too weak, too little RAM when RAM is expensive, far more RAM then neccessary when RAM is cheap, ...).<p>At the same time, the whole PC market seems to be shrinking (I don't have any numbers, that's just what you read everywhere). Dell and the likes will always have enough enterprise customers, but the consumer-targeted manufacturers are probably in trouble. It makes a lot of sense for the remaining small vendors to join forces under a common label.<p>It's also great for the customers, since they don't have to go through the trouble of building their own PC (including choosing parts). But they still get the benefits of a custom PC: Well-balanced hardware at a reasonable price, that they know will be able to play the games they want it for. I believe that by creating a new category "steam PC" we'll be seeing a lot of positive competition and transparency in that area.
I thought the steam machine would be more console-like in its uniformity but it seems to be more a case of "Limited compatible component guaranteed to work with Steam" sets of PCs.<p>Sounds like a good place to look if you want a normal desktop Linux PC which is almost guaranteed to be compatible.
I can actually see Steam Machines find their place next to PS4/Xbox1 in this generation for several reasons:<p>- PS4/Xbox1 are very similar to PC Architecture (Steam Machine)<p>- even first gen Steam Machines are more powerful than consoles, a few years down the line they will be orders of magnitude faster<p>- Steam Machines are backwards compatible and can be replaced with faster ones when the need arises. With the 4K age dawning, this could be a huge deal as the new consoles often don't even run 1080p natively. Especially if you consider that the last gen lasted almost 8 years.<p>- Developing/Publishing is still a lot easier on Steam than it is on the new consoles, big deal for small devs<p>- it could actually be a console that PC gamers love<p>- Valve has the right mindset and resources to pull this off<p>As with everything there are also risks of course (non unified design/performance, Games, Linux) but all the contenders have their pros and cons, biggest one of the consoles is their userbase obviously.
I wasn't expecting so many different machines. I was thinking of a cheap steam machine (300/400 $) to play indie games and game about 4 years old, a medium spec'd machine for about 700 $ that can play everything in the market, and a 1500 $ machine with high specs.<p>Still, one of the great points in PCs is the variety of hardware.<p>I'm just curious on how Valve (or the HW vendors) are gonna market it. With consoles you have the idea that with that unit you can play everything. With a steam machine is different. I'd like a "with version A you can play X, with version B you can play X+Y, with version C you can play X+Y and have 3D"...<p>I don't care too much for graphics, so hardware specs don't speak too much for me. Tell me how these specs translate in certain game. I just need enough resolution and enought effects to feel imersed to be happy with the graphics.
Interesting price points. According to Engadget they are from $500 all the way to $6000, although not all of them have been announced.<p><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/06/valve-steam-machines-specs/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/06/valve-steam-machines-spec...</a>
I find the exact hardware much less exciting than the controller and OS.<p>If valve wants this to succeed they better pour a lot of money into the making current steam libraries work on linux properly. I want linux as my daily driver.
Interesting to see alienware on the list, since they already sell gaming PCs intended for living room use. How will this fit into their existing lineup?<p>The only concrete differences I can see would be the OS , which would seem inferior to just shipping windows+steam out of the box at this point; and the controller. But I always assumed the controller would be compatible with regular Windows PCs anyway (and I assume they will be available separately).
Curious what it is about this pdf that makes Chrome's pdf reader hit 100% cpu and not make it past the second page:<p><a href="http://media.steampowered.com/store/steammachines/SteamMachinesBroc_WEB.PDF" rel="nofollow">http://media.steampowered.com/store/steammachines/SteamMachi...</a><p>Works fine, readable in preview.
Since Steam Machines == Linux Machines, I'm going to celebrate this as a list of companies that are now fully supporting Linux OOB. I expect similarly configured boxes showing up in their retail channels sans a Microsoft OS.
As someone who already has a gaming computer as an HTPC, I really just want to buy the steam controller. It looks like it isnt for sale yet, however =(
The only problem with Steam Machines TODAY is just that so many of the games right now are Windows only. That is changing FAST, but there is a whole backlog of Windows games that is not moving to Linux soon.