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French retailer mocks €1039 Steam Machine with “Stim Machine” RX 9060 XT PC for €999 (videocardz.com)
submitted 2 months ago by [M] to c/games@lemmy.world
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It is a bigger, don't have the Steam Controller dongle integrated, and you need to manually install SteamOS on it.

But you get a machine that can be upgraded way more easily than the Steam Machine, and a better GPU from the start.

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[–] 4 points 2 months ago (5 children)

You are seeing it as a PC. It's not. You have to see it for what it actually is: a console. You compare this to other consoles, not to a PC.

It's really fucking sad that in making this thing repairable, and relatively modifiable, people now expect everything else a PC has and compare it to a PC unjustly.

It's not a prebuilt either. If it were, it would have a sticker on the CPU IHS, the power cable wouldn't be plugged in internally, and the PSU would catch on fire on the 69th boot.

But let's see anyway:

  • repairability
  • freedom of modification
  • "lifetime" support in the form of security updates, if I remember right; that older steam console still receives updates like 9 years later
  • shared library of games, as opposed to a locked down ecosystem like the PS5 or Xbox S
  • when it dies you've got yourself a linux server because again, it's not locked down
  • all parts are replaceable, clearly labeled
  • you can easily upgrade RAM and storage, and they aren't that weird rare form factor some prebuilts use, it's just an LPDDR stick I think
  • it's pretty damn quiet
  • it's tiny as hell; in a living room this really matters
  • Valve support is known to be top notch
  • no online pay subscription
  • an open source arch-based OS that you can know for a fact is not spying on you?

But what exactly are the points in buying a PS5, for example?

  • having to pay to play online?
  • having a dead box after it becomes unsupported?
  • getting a shit controller that breaks if your little brother breaths on it wrong and that you can't fix because it's a POS?
  • being locked into an ecosystem forever?
  • have 0 privacy and need to agree to 10 billion TOS's every time you do anything? That POS definitely records ALL the data it can about you. I think Steam does too but I think the level of scumminess is not the same.

All just so your games run a little better?

If you don't like it don't buy it.

If you have a PC you're not the target audience in the first place.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 2 months ago* (4 children)

    Valve explicitly said it is to be considered as a PC, focussed on playing game, not a console. Thus a PC price point, not sold at loss.

    Their word, not mine.

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  • [–] -5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    what they said doesn't change what the thing is

    Them comparing it to a PC is an endorsement and a marketing tactic to promote the usual good aspects of a PC of their new hardware

    You can't tell me you actually believe that thing to be more a PC than a console when it comes to the use case...

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    The definition of what is or is not depends a lot on the person.
    In my case it is pretty simple: Can I plug a keyboard and do spreadsheets on that fucker? Yes. Then that's a PC. As soon as you can do more than play games and watch movies on it, it stop being a console.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    It’s really fucking sad that in making this thing repairable, and relatively modifiable, people now expect everything else a PC has and compare it to a PC unjustly.

    Precisely what I described...except instead of my 2 examples, it's the versatily of it that knocks it up a weight bracket where it can't compete.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    what they said doesn't change what the thing is

    lmao what

    Of course it does. This is a PC being marketed as a PC. Just like with the Steam Deck, Valve was explicit about "it's a PC too!"

    It's a PC with the convenience of a console. But it's still a PC, and it has to be measured up to one.

    I can definitely say that if a person lives within reasonable distance of a Microcenter, there is zero reason to get a Steam Machine - just get one of their in house powerspec prebuilts. You can take it to the microcenter if you need tech support you can't handle on your own, you'll get way more bang for your buck and you can still put SteamOS on it. Obviously most people don't live near a microcenter and their options for a quality prebuilt are tougher.

    But I still have trouble seeing this as being worth it unless you'll be using it as a PC. You can get a refurbished Xbox Series S for like $325 and it'll play all the low-demand games just fine and it has Netflix and all your entertainment apps available to use it as a TV machine too.

    The Steam Machine's value proposition exists solely if it'll also be used as a PC and not just a "steam console," but that then also brings it up against all PCs. And it's way, way too expensive there. Not all prebuilts are a Dell.

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