For those of you who are living under a rock, Valve announced three new hardware devices joining …
For those of you who are living under a rock, Valve announced three new hardware devices joining their Steam Deck line-up: a new controller, a VR headset, and the GameCube—no wait, GabeCube—no wait, Steam Machine. The shiny little cube is undoubtedly Valve’s (second) attempt to break into the console market. This time, it might just work.
The hardware is ready to arrive in at your living room spring next year. The biggest question is: will it arrive at our living room? Reading all the hype has certainly enthused me (e.g. Brendon’s The Steam Machine is the Future, PC Gamer’s Valve is all over ARM, Eurogamer’s Steam Machine preview, ResetEra’s Steam Hardware thread); especially the part where the Machine is just a PC that happens to be tailored towards console gaming. According to Valve, you can install anything you want on it—it’s just SteamOS just like your trusty Deck, meaning you can boot into KDE and totally do your thing. Except that this shiny little cube is six times as powerful. I’m sure Digital Foundry will validate that next year.
However, this post isn’t about specs, expectations, or dreams: it’s about tempering my own enthusiasm. I’d like to tell myself why I don’t really need a Steam Machine. The following list will hopefully make it easier to say no when the buy buttons become available.
- You’re a retro gamer.
You don’t need the power of six Steam Decks. To do what, run DOSBox? - Your TV doesn’t support 4K.
Again, no need for those 4K 60 FPS. - You generally dislike AAA games.
With The Steam Machine, you might be able to finally properly run DOOM Eternal and all of the Assassin’s Creed games. That you don’t like playing. - You don’t have time to play games anyway.
Ouch, that hurts but it’s not untrue. - The TV will be occupied anyway.
The Steam Machine is not a Switch: you can’t switch to handheld mode. When are you going to play on the Machine if the TV is being used to watch your wife’s favourite shows? - You already have too many gaming related hardware pieces.
That’ll mean you’ll have to divide your time by an even bigger number to devote an equal amount to playing them. - There’s no room for yet another nondescript box under the TV.
See above: why don’t you first try to do something with that SNES Mini and PlayStation Mini besides letting it collect dust? - You’re a physical gamer.
This is Steam. There will be no insertion of cartridges, no blowing of carts, and no staring at game collections on a shelf. - It’s Steam, not Good Old Games.
Sure it can run GOG games but the Machine is primarily designed to run Steam. You avoid purchasing from Steam like the plague, yet you’re willing to buy a Machine dedicated to it? Are you crazy? - The last time you booted Steam was over a year ago.
Don’t tell me you’re suddenly interested in running the platform on a dedicated machine. - You don’t have time to fiddle with configuration.
Button and trackpad mappings to get the controls just right enough to play strategy games designed to be played with keyboard and mouse will only leave you frustrated. - Your MacBook can emulate Windows games just fine.
You recently bought CrossOver and played Wizordum and older Windows 98/XP stuff on it. It even runs Against The Storm flawlessly. No need for Proton or whatever. - In two years, you’ll upgrade your M1 to an M4+: there’s the power upgrade.
If CrossOver is struggling to run that particular game you so badly want to play, it’ll be buttery smooth in a few years. You’re going to do the laptop upgrade anyway regardless of the Steam Machine. - You already have a huge gaming backlog.
Thanks to your buddy Joel you bought too many physical Switch games that are still waiting to be touched. Are you really ready to open up another can of worms? - You dislike a digital backlog.
It’s easy to have hundreds of games on there: see your GOG purchases. Why don’t you try to count the ones that you actually played, let alone finished. - You’re not going to use the Machine to run office software.
Your laptop and other retro machines are good enough at handling that task. What are you really going to do with this cube besides gaming? - Those cool looking indie games will be released for Switch in due time anyway.
Remember Pizza Tower? It’s out on Switch now. Remember to buy the cart on Fangamer, together with the Anton Blast one. - It’s rumoured to cost more than
€600.
Save that money for a Switch 2 if the games are starting to become interesting to justify that upgrade, as currently, they’re not. Also, see the backlog point above. - All HDMI ports both on the TV and your external monitors are occupied.
Unless you’re willing to constantly switch cables, you’ll need to invest in a HDMI switch. Another€100+. - You can’t buy this without buying the Steam Controller.
That’s easily another€80+you already spent buying the Mobapad controller for your Switch as a replacement for the semi-broken Joy Cons. - You can’t buy this as an expense on the company.
You’re closing down the company, remember. (More on that later) - The cool looking LED and programmable front display don’t justify an expensive purchase.
After the initial excitement wears off, the LED will become annoying and you’ll simply turn it off.
So you see, I don’t really need a Steam Machine…
Fuck it, I’m getting one.
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Comments
When I first saw the Arduino I didn't see the point - after all there were boards that cost less, did more, and the Arduino IDE seemed very barebones compared to what you could do with GCC and a custom toolchain.
Then eventually I saw how much community support, ready made hardware emerged around it, to the point that after a while, not going the Arduino route was a decision you needed to justify heavily.
Same thing with the Raspberry Pi - there are commercial devices now running or more or less stock Pi hardware with some accomodations - the power of the community is just too large - you can either spend an insane amount of time getting things working on your custom SBC, or get something well-supported for free.
I hope that the same thing will happen with the Steam Machine - the pull of the community will result in a well-supported 'default' device where people (and Valve) will put in the effort to create a comparable desktop experience to the commercial OSes.
Valve already helped immensely with Wayland - it's crazy to think that the project was stared cca. 2008, and today there's still arguments to be made it's not mature yet - by investing the necessary energy to make sure games run well, the drivers are optimized, and there's a high-quality end-user library (wlroots) for writing compositors has been the push that Wayland needed.
> a comparable desktop experience to the commercial OSes
Isn't it alteady comparable? My Linux desktop has almost the same game compatibility that Windows has, and none of the advertising and jank. Gone are the legendary days of xorg.conf. Linux has less problems than Windows now. Support from professional software vendors (Dassault, Autodesk, et al) and Nvidia could be better, admittedly, but these restrictions aren't very relevant to me. As for Mac OS it's fine, I guess, but I strongly dislike the settings program, and it's not like you can install an nvidia card there.
People will buy a Steam Machine who would not buy a Linux desktop.
The perception and the marketing are very different. it is small and looks like games console. This is something people will buy instead of a Playstation or a gaming PC. A lot of people buying it will not know what Linux is.
If you look at this page:
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine
It does not use the word "Linux" at all and only mentions Arch and KDE right at the bottom of the specs.
> Linux has less problems than Windows now.
I agree, and it has been my experience for the last few years. I am not a gamer nor do I use any of the software you mention so its even better for me. I am very glad not to be using Windows 11 from what I hear of it.
By stirfish 2025-11-1719:21 >People will buy a Steam Machine who would not buy a Linux desktop.
I have a Linux desktop and a mental block around playing games on a computer. The computer is supposed to be where I work or write code, etc. If I have leisure time, I "should" do something away from the computer.
Getting a steam deck let me shake some of that. I'd be very tempted by a box that is a Linux computer, but for fun use only.
And this is due to Valve's big investments in Proton, Steam Deck and the new Steam hardware to get game compatibility working from both the Linux/Wine side as well as making game developers aim for compatibility.
One part of it. The other (and arguably bigger in some way) part are drivers (Nvidia, amd, Intel) that improved a great deal over the years.
By giancarlostoro 2025-11-1614:41 Kind of helps that most AI work happens on Linux too. ;)
By MegaDeKay 2025-11-1615:32 They've been supporting KDE as well for years now.
> Support from professional software vendors (Dassault, Autodesk, et al) and Nvidia could be better, admittedly, but these restrictions aren't very relevant to me.
I think that's maybe what GP was getting at. If you know how to debug stuff and such then Linux is perfectly serviceable today.
With something like this, between Valve presumably publishing some docs and a big community for a single platform it should become a lot easier for people who are less familiar to search "I got xyz error on my steam box what do I do" and get help they can use. For mass adoption I think that's a big step. And then from there they can start venturing further out, if they want.
What do these things have to do with each other? You can't debug your way out of bad Nvidia support or nonexistent Dassault support. You have to just not use these products in combination with Linux, or just accept the issues that come with them.
By yetihehe 2025-11-1613:24 > You can't debug your way out of bad Nvidia support or nonexistent Dassault support.
With bad Nvidia support very often you can, there exist a lot of workarounds found by people.
With Dassault support you are right, because a lot less people use their products than Nvidia products and those people typically don't share on public forums.
People using Steam Machine will be sharing problems and solutions on public forums and there will be more of them than people using Dassault products.
> Support from professional software vendors [..] and Nvidia could be better, admittedly, but these restrictions aren't very relevant to me.
Quality of support from Nvidia on linux is the reason that I went with AMD for my linux work+gaming rig. That's why probably Valve chosen AMD too. As amount of linux gamers increases, maybe Nvidia will see the light too. For me, linux+AMD+Steam stack "just works".
By philistine 2025-11-1616:08 Nvidia has always had a hard time maintaining good relationships with partners (see the whole Apple fiasco in the early 2010s), their Linux support is anemic and now they're gorged up to the gills with stupid AI money.
They probably don't even bother picking up the phone when Valve calls. Only AMD will sell you an integrated CPU/GPU system with the power envelope needed for modern games.
By lanfeust6 2025-11-1614:05 Yes - but now what would you rather plug into a big screen TV? Supposing you opt for an OS like Bazzite/pop that is TV friendly then you are turning a desktop into a multimedia console foremost. People like stuff that works out of the box.
Conversely You can also turn the Steam Machine into a desktop by installing another OS
By wat10000 2025-11-1615:25 Experts tend to greatly underestimate the importance of friction.
By the time you’ve finished saying “gcc and a custom toolchain” you’ve lost most of your potential audience. If you’re a professional or even an experienced hobbyist, it’s no big deal. But if the idea of programming embedded systems is new to you, it’s a lot of effort. And it’s not clear how much effort it will be, or if you’ll even be capable of it. It’s not fun to be knee deep in a complicated install and have no idea if you’ll ever be able to get it working. Lots of people will find something else to occupy their time rather than attempt it.
That then leads to community and better tools, and maybe it becomes a good choice even for experts. And even if it never does, it provides a great stepping stone, since trying and failing to set up the more complicated tools is a lot more tolerable if you can fall back to the simple IDE you’ve been using.
Another nice thing about the Pi is that you know for sure there won't be any major Linux issues; the official distro is tested for that hardware and that hardware alone. I'm assuming the same will apply for Linux on the Steam Machine, whereas most of the time when I install Linux on a random PC, I have to debug some issue with audio/networking/video (which is less common these days, but I guess I'm unlucky).
Speaking of which, I recently bought a Ryzen Framework laptop assuming the recommended Linux distro would run smoothly, but unfortunately I hit a few glitches, including a really annoying amdgpu bug that keeps making the screen flicker. I might have to mess with kernel boot parameters. Disappointing.
Since the Steam Machine is meant as a consumer product, hopefully it will run Linux solidly, and that's a big plus for me. I wouldn't touch Windows with a 10 foot pole these days.
By sekh60 2025-11-1613:29 I have a Framework Ryzen AI 300 series. Had the screen flickering after a kernel update several weeks ago. Fix was to add "amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x2" to the grub kernel cmdline. Running Fedora 43, fully up to date as of yesterday. I sadly can't find the official forum thread about it. Hope it helps though.
The Arduino was 30$ when it came out. The Raspberry was 35$.
I'd be astonished if they manage to get the Steam Machine down to 800$ (bundled with a controller). Knowing how Valve loves their margins, it's probably closer to 1000$ or even more. This is not something you spontaneously buy to play around with.
In one of the interviews that came out when the Steam Machine embargo ended, someone from Valve said that, unlike with Steam Deck, they can't afford to sell at a loss because the form factor and the OS of the Machine make it possible to buy it just for general compute, which would be devastating with negative margins. So, unfortunately, I guess it will be 800-1000$ in the end
By yummypaint 2025-11-1713:031 reply That is still cheaper than the index when it came out, and it sounds like a general improvement in all areas. Flagship vr for less than the cost of the latest smartphone seems pretty reasonable given how low adoption is.
By SahAssar 2025-11-1716:18 They are talking about the Machine (computer/console), not the Frame (VR-glasses).
By rpdillon 2025-11-1614:36 The cost of freedom.
Moore's Law is Dead (chip analyst YouTuber) believes a $300 bill of materials and $600, maybe even $450 for the lower SKU.
The CPU and GPU in this are last generation, and he believes Valve got a bulk discount on unsold RDNA3 mobile GPUs. They did something similar with the Steam Deck riding off a Magic Leap custom design. People predicted that would be pricey too but launched with (and still has) a $399 model.
By MegaDeKay 2025-11-1615:38 You have to take MLID with a several large grains of salt. He gets a lot wrong, and when he does, he deletes the corresponding videos. There are Reddit subs that won't allow links to his videos for that reason. Valve has also said that it won't be console-type pricing, more like the pricing of a decent SFF PC.
Having said that, it would be great to see the GabeCube come in around the prices he's guesstimating. I hope it finds great success.
300$ BOM sounds incredibly low to me, especially now with the exploding prices for storage and RAM. Maybe they have already stocked up on it, but I doubt it. The huge heat sink also cannot be cheap. Then of course there's the whole tariff uncertainty.
The lower SKUs for Steam Deck are sold pretty much with zero margin or even at a loss, as Newell said this was a strategic decision to enter the mobile gaming market. However, for PC gaming, Valve already has a monopoly, and selling general-purpose hardware with little or no margin sounds like a recipe for losing money quick, which is not what Valve is known for...
But hey, we don't have to argue. Let's meet on HN again when the price is announced and I'll happily eat my words. :-)
By pwdisswordfishs 2025-11-1615:092 reply The hardware does not compare favorably to a 2024 (current, in other words) Mac Mini.
Consider what the Steam Machine requires sacrificing:
- fewer USB-C connectors
- larger physical footprint
- can't buy and take it home today
It's hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison between the chips, but where one is better than the other on some dimension, it's offset by some other. They're approximately comparable.
Now, what's the price of the Mac Mini? $598.92
When people are talking about price points that have a higher margin than even Apple's devices have, you have to stop and consider whether people who are tossing around numbers like $750 with a straight face are actually trying to be rational but failing or they are just totally yielding to getting caught up in the hype.
By deng 2025-11-1618:51 The Mac Mini for 600$ comes with 16GB unified memory and 256GB storage. To make it comparable, you'd need to configure it with 24GB and 512GB, resp., and voila, 999$. You are surely aware that the lowest SKUs from Apple have way lower margins, since nobody buys them anyway because who wants to live with 256GB of storage? It's just to have that sweet "starting at 599$" on the store front page.
Now, of course Apple takes ridiculous money for additional RAM and storage, but this is exactly how they achieve their famous margins (everything's soldered, so you cannot upgrade yourself). Thanks to the AI hype, DDR5 RAM is very expensive at the moment, as is GDDR5, as is SSD storage. Nobody here, including you, knows what kind of deal Valve will be able to get here. There's a reason they are not announcing any prices yet, because there are so many uncertainties at the moment (tariffs, anyone?), that most probably Valve themselves do not know yet.
Depends what people are buying a steam machine for and what are the alternatives. Can you use a Mac mini for pretty much the same purpose? Genuine question since I'm not a gamer nor a Mac user.
By philistine 2025-11-1616:18 The Mac Mini does not have the sustained thermal capability of the big 6-inch fan in the Steam Machine. So it'll throttle. The Mac Studio probably has better thermals than what Steam will ship, but it's far more expensive.
The Mac Mini can play many games, but it cannot play most games like this Steam Machine. Developers barely supported the Mac before the ARM switch, and now it's somehow even worse.
Gaming with a Mac is an exercice in zen enlightenment.
By torginus 2025-11-1616:16 AMD is in dire straits - their GPU market share is basically nothing right now, I wouldn't be surp
Plus the 7600M (which is suspected to be the Steam Machine GPU) is an existing design on a legacy node, and they don't have to worry about it threatening their current lineup. They can go pretty low with the price.
They might get something out of it - considering the modest hardware, devs will have to optimize for it, which might get them a couple extra percent on more modern hardware as well.
By testdelacc1 2025-11-1613:41 This is already happening with the Steam Deck! Some of the best AAA games released in the last few years play excellently on the Steam Deck. This is mainly because it provides an excellent baseline that developers can test and optimise for. When least 1.5% or more of your customers have this exact configuration, it makes sense to optimise for them.
The 2023 game of the year was Baldurs Gate III. During the development they specifically tested on the Deck and it played pretty well. But they optimised the heck out of it, finally shipping a native Deck build earlier this year.
That’s why the Deck punches well above its weight - all the optimisation that devs do for it. And that’s why gamers continue to buy it, years after it released. Devs aren’t lazy, or averse to optimisation. They just need a large enough target to optimise for. If the Deck/GabeCube is a large enough proportion of the player base, they’ll put in the effort.
By devwastaken 2025-11-1617:462 reply SteamOS is locked down. it is not a community driven project. You cannot update if you modify the rootfs. Valve created a true console, it is not a PC.
Sorry that’s absolutely not the case. They’ve created “locked down” experience so that is serviceable and harder to break but you’re absolutely free to install arch, ubuntu, whatever and put Steam on top of it. You can install Windows even.
You don’t have to choose “all or nothing”. You are not being locked in an ecosystem like you do with the consoles Steam Machine aims to compete with.
By devwastaken 2025-11-234:30 It is locked down in exactly the same way you can go through a bunch of steps to unlock any other device. SteamOS is locked by default. you must run a series of scripts found on various forums to unlock it.
Windows is broken on steamdeck. the only OS that works properly is SteamOS for obvious reasons.
By retrochameleon 2025-11-1618:231 reply Immutable =/= locked down
By devwastaken 2025-11-234:28 Its the same thing to the user. go ahead and ask someone to install some arch packages.
Steam Machines can become an existencial crisis for PlayStation and Xbox.
A “console” that I can use as a PC? I am in 100%. You’ll get the world biggest game library at a discount, this is why I sold my PlayStation after spending 200 euros and watching it becoming useless.
I also suspect a lot of game devs will optimize for steam machine and finally we’ll get a console like experience on PC.
Don’t let the “low specs” fool you, it has the same specs or better as 70% of steam users.
Given Valve gave money to a lot of open source maintainers , it’s also great for Linux.
Just take my money
Valve isn't likely to make SteamOS the kind of platform that facilitates intrusive* anti-cheat** or which is locked down in a way to prevent cheating at the client side. This means that a number of competitive multiplayer games will never run on it. I think in this regard, consoles still have an advantage*** if you're into those kinds of games.
* I don't care what the intention is, they are _objectively_ intrusive.
** Last time I argued this, someone seemed to assume that I was claiming that writing Linux kernel drivers is harder than Windows kernel drivers. I am not arguing that, you need some kind of trusted party enforcing signed kernel drivers and a signed kernel in order to make KLA sufficiently hard to bypass.
*** In terms of the average Joe just wanting their game to run rather than having to think about the ethical implications of buying hardware you don't actually own or running an OS which gives control of your hardware to various corporations (but not you).
> Valve isn't likely to make SteamOS the kind of platform that facilitates intrusive* anti-cheat* or which is locked down in a way to prevent cheating at the client side. This means that a number of competitive multiplayer games will never run on it. I think in this regard, consoles still have an advantage** if you're into those kinds of games.
Depends on just how successful SteamOS gets. If it start to have a significant market share, competitive multiplayer games might start to find it hard to ignore it. Though how they decide to deal with that, I have no idea.
I think Valve see a future for anti-cheat where most of it is behavioral analysis. Client-side anti-cheat is a big game of cat and mouse. It does make cheat harder to develop, but to a point where the customer is impacted. Post game analysis cannot be countered "technically". Cheat would need to mimic a real player behavior, which at the end is a success. If you can't tell if a player is cheating or not, does it matter that they are ? Although for things like wallhacks, it might be harder to detect.
"you can't tell if a player is cheating or not, does it matter that they are"
This is basically effectively where KLA has gotten to. There are still plenty of cheaters, people just don't realize.
I think it does matter in a strictly moral sense, and if people were more aware of how bad the problem is, they would likely be outraged. Alas, since they can't see it, they are not aware of it, so there is no outrage and the games companies are satisfied.
By some_random 2025-11-1614:361 reply I think the assumption that Valve would choose user protection over getting games to work is flawed, they want openness where possible because they see it as a competitive advantage. With VAC they clearly think that maximally invasive anti-cheat isn't necessary so maybe they'll try to push providers in that direction?
By Arch-TK 2025-11-1622:13 Valve thinks it's not necessary and it's still in the air if it really isn't.
They have bet on the behavioral analysis anti-cheat horse but it hasn't won any races yet.
Moreover, they've proven that it's certainty more difficult to get it working than regular old fuck-the-end-user anti cheat.
Lastly, don't assume that the success of the platform will persuade these companies. They were already firmly un-persuaded when the steam deck got popular. And really, I think the popularity of a platform depends on the support of these companies more than the support of these companies depends on the popularity of a platform.
By speed_spread 2025-11-1614:182 reply There is a real need for anti cheat / certified hardware. Valve is uniquely be positioned to address it because they have trust from the gaming community. Ideally a single anti cheat mechanism would be shared by all software vendors. Online games could request "console mode" involving hardware key exchange. Done right this wouldn't have to be invasive like current anti cheat.
It's either invasive anti-cheat on a vendor controlled platform or it's a totally locked down vendor controlled platform, there are no other options in the client side anti cheat space.
Given that valve refuses to use KLA for their own competitive multiplayer games, and has gone out of their way to not make their hardware locked down, I really dont think they will go down the path of making a locked down platform or facilitating intrusive anti cheat.
By bryanlarsen 2025-11-1618:581 reply Is it truly either-or? Obviously the root of anti-cheat needs to be totally locked down, aka the TPM. But almost all "open" computers have a locked down TPM. The TPM doesn't need to prevent you from running an unsigned firmware, kernel, modules or user software, it only needs to report on whether you are / have. You can reboot your computer into "trusted" mode and run your games with anti-cheat. Then when you're done playing you can as much unsigned software as you want.
You ask if it's either intrusive spyware or if it's a locked down system and then describe dual-booting intrusive spyware.
A TPM is entirely under your control. It's designed in such a way that you can't do certain things with data within it, but that's not because (at least in theory) someone else can and is controlling your TPM to prevent you from doing those things. The TPM, unlike an installation of Windows, doesn't only listen to Microsoft.
By bryanlarsen 2025-11-1714:36 What I'm describing is exactly the situation now. Many people dual boot Windows & Linux, with kernel level anti-cheat on their Windows partition. The existence of Linux on the same computer does not prevent the kernel level anti-cheat from working on Windows.
Similarly, the presence of unsigned software on a computer would not stop a Linux kernel level anti-cheat from working, and the kernel level anti-cheat shouldn't prevent the unsigned software from working. Once you run that unsigned software, your machine is tainted similarly to the way your kernel is tainted if you load the NVidia driver.
I wonder if it’s possible to implement anti-cheat as a USB stick. Your GabeCube or gaming PC would stay open by default, but you could buy an anti-cheat accessory that plugs into a free USB port. Connecting that device grants access to match making with other people who have the device.
There are several products that rely on a USB device like this for DRM solutions. It’s probably much easier to unlock static assets than validate running code, but I don’t have insight on the true complexity.
By gruez 2025-11-1615:41 >I wonder if it’s possible to implement anti-cheat as a USB stick. Your GabeCube or gaming PC would stay open by default, but you could buy an anti-cheat accessory that plugs into a free USB port. Connecting that device grants access to match making with other people who have the device.
What does the USB stick actually do? The hard part of implementing the anti-cheat (ie. either invasive scanning or attestation with hardware root of trust) is entirely unaddressed, so your description is as helpful as "would it be possible to implement a quantum computer as a USB stick?"
By Shorel 2025-11-1620:14 I am very skeptic there's much cheating in Counter Strike or Dota.
They use different means to detect cheaters, which means sometimes they are banned several weeks after the fact, but they do ban cheaters.
> Don’t let the “low specs” fool you, it has the same specs or better as 70% of steam users.
We are also out of the rat race of hardware requirements of the 90s. I'm on a 7 year old system and if you're not chasing to max out the latest AAA game on launch, that thing can run a lot of games. It's mainly storage and RAM for modded minecraft or Satisfactory that's a bit of a mess atm. Though RAM prices are spicy at the moment, jeez.
Similar, my dad has my system from 10 years ago or more, and the only real snag for his strategy games is now a DX12 requirement.
By lm28469 2025-11-1613:54 > I'm on a 7 year old system and if you're not chasing to max out the latest AAA game on launch
Yep, people who didn't fall for the resolution meme can play any games maxed out with a 2060. People chasing 4k and 120+ fps will never ever get satisfied and will always spend $1k every other year for the new high end gpu
I made two upgrades since 2015, ryzen 7 1700 to ryzen 5 5600,for $100. And I swapped my gtx 970 for an rtx 2060, for $300
By NooneAtAll3 2025-11-1612:21 any strategy game recommendations from your dad?
By eigenspace 2025-11-1611:433 reply It's certainly not an existential threat to Playstation, but Xbox certainly has weakened itself enough that yes, this could be another nail in the coffin, given that their plan was to retreat into the Windows ecosystem.
The low specs aren't a problem if it's cheap enough, but for every dollar this goes above the retail price of a PS5 will seriously hurt its mass appeal.
The problem for Valve is that they can't really sell this thing at a console-like discount, because it's a general purpose computer. If this thing is way cheaper than a regular computer of the same spec, corporations will just buy up Steam Machines by the palette load and use them as office machines or whatever (just like what happened to Sony when they allowed the PS3 to boot into Linux and they had to release an emergency update that disabled the linux functionality even though it was an advertised feature).
I really hope this will be successful, but it'll likely be successful in a specific niche. The nice thing though about this niche is that they don't have to hit anywhere near the same sales numbers as a console to be a success because the R&D costs are lower, and games didn't have to be specifically tailor made for it.
E.g. the PS Vita sold more units than the SteamDeck, but the Vita was an unmitigated failure for Sony because unlike the SteamDeck, the Vita needed games to be specifically made for it, whereas the SteamDeck benefits from the entire PC ecosystem so doesn't need the same level of adoption to be a (limited) success.
By bryanlarsen 2025-11-1619:06 > If this thing is way cheaper than a regular computer of the same spec, corporations will just buy up Steam Machines by the palette load and use them as office machines or whatever
Sure, but corporations don't want/need the same spec. They don't need the GPU, they don't need the fancy controller. If you just want a cheap PC that'll run a browser and Office, you can get them for under $200. If you want a Beelink with CPU/RAM/SSD similar to the Steam Machine, that's $350, and it includes a Windows license. Steam machine has an estimated BOM of $425, so even $500 will be a subsidized price after overhead. As long as Valve prices well above $250 it'll be safe from this concern, since corporations will likely want to add a Windows license to the cost.
By Ferret7446 2025-11-172:56 > It's certainly not an existential threat to Playstation
To add to this, PlayStation is almost entirely sustained by exclusives at this point, and it's starting to backfire (more and more players are just waiting for the PC release, and the wait is killing some of marketing/hype that a game would have had, e.g., FF16 likely would have done a lot better if it released for PC at the same time rather than starting with PS exclusivity, and I suspect Death stranding 2 will be the same
> If this thing is way cheaper than a regular computer of the same spec, corporations will just buy up Steam Machines by the palette load and use them as office machines or whatever
On one hand, this would be a problem.
On the other hand, if the Steam Machine doesn't support windows, businesses fleeing from MS Windows en masse because the Steam Machine is cheap would be a VERY interesting turn of events, and I'd be VERY curious to see how it all unfolds.
By eigenspace 2025-11-1617:111 reply Sorry if I was unclear, but what I was saying was that this would be unsustainable because the only way it'd be possible is if Valve was subsidizing each unit in hopes of recouping their losses on Steam game sales.
If that happened, Valve would get bankrupted by companies buying up subsidized Steam Machines with no intention of playing games on them.
By tpoacher 2025-11-1712:56 Yes that's what I understood. But it'd still be insteresting.
Amazon was once a bookstore. There's nothing stopping Steam from adapting to a "Steam Business Machines" / "Steam OS Business Edition" once it has a foothold in the business market. After all, the store already distributes software, they're just not as popular as games. So if this scenario were to happen, and Microsoft failed to react, I'm sure Steam would adapt very quickly to take advantage of it rather than sit and wait for the bankruptcy.
I don't really get why people are calling it a console. It is a PC to me in all the ways that matter, and it's probably going to save me from spending 1500 euros on a mid-range gaming laptop that I don't really need. The only thing that I don't use my ipad for is playing games with my friends in other countries while we chat on discord. And the last 5 games we've played together do benefit from keyboard and mouse controls, but don't have huge spec requirements. And pretty much everything else for which I'd want a bigger screen than my ipad's can be done in the browser, which I can also happily install on the steam machine because it's just a Linux machine with some extra bells. So yeah, it will probably completely replace my need for a PC, and I'd be plenty happy to pay a PC price for it as a result.
By NooneAtAll3 2025-11-1612:17 > I don't really get why people are calling it a console. It is a PC to me
because "console" isn't what a product is (supply) - it is a name for product niche (demand)
when someone talks about buying a console, the expectations are 1)significantly cheaper than "usual" computer 2)most likely optimized for games (controller input, easy install) 3)expectation of using already existing TV as display
consoles weren't different from low-end pc all the way since x-box
By retrochameleon 2025-11-1618:24 Because it gives you a console-like experience. What's so hard to get about that? In their own press release, Steam notes it's "just a PC."
By nialv7 2025-11-1612:19 Well, it's kind of a new thing, isn't it.
Just like the deck popularized the idea of "handheld PCs". Maybe the Machine will do the same to "console PC". It's a PC, but also a console.
To me, PC = Windows = Microsoft's Spyware and every other game company's anti-cheat root kits
Someone might say I can install Linux on my PC but then I have to deal with maintaining it.
So, what I hope the Steam Machine is, is effectively PC based console with no Microsoft, no root kits, and no maintainence.
> Someone might say I can install Linux on my PC but then I have to deal with maintaining it.
What maintenance do you mean? I do not know of an OS that does not require allowing updates to keep secure.
It definitely meets the other criteria you want.
By socalgal2 2025-11-182:21 I don't know what Linux you're on. On mine I have to actively maintain it. I have to run something `sudo apt update` `sudo apt upgrade` every week or so and then deal with whatever breaks. Conversely, on my Switch and PS5 it does this automatically. I expect the Steam Machine will also update itself automatically. They have an incentive not to break things since it will cost them money to fix all the device they break. Linux on the other hand (not complaining) basically says "not our fault if it breaks". So, I'd prefer the Steam Machine where, I believe, it is their fault if it breaks and they will fix it.
By HKH2 2025-11-171:50 Sometimes there are regressions in the kernel and other driver issues. My laptop is more than five years old and I had to boot an older kernel for a while until a regression got fixed. I guess that's less likely to happen on Windows. Not being as close to the hardware vendors means there are bound to be more edge cases even on boring distros like Ubuntu.
If you don't need to get an expensive gaming PC your should not get an expensive gaming PC. The steam hardware isn't magic. You can already get equivalent specs for cheap.
You can? What am I looking for?
I've tried to hit the $600 mark and in the past few years it's gotten harder and harder. The GPU invariably ruins things. And normal APUs are too asthmatic to really game on.
Good, the Steam Machine won't be 600$ most likely, either.
Also you don't necessarily need a dedicated GPU, unless you go with Intel.
By oliwarner 2025-11-1815:40 > You can already get equivalent specs for cheap.
This is the context. A Steam Deck is bizarrely great value compared to anything you can buy, even without a screen, controller and battery.
Again if you know otherwise, please share.
The APU from AMD they have is pretty much magic. You will not find anything comparable, any Ryzen APU you can actually buy is pretty much trash apart from very light-weight gaming. You absolutely need a separate GPU, and even low-end will set you back at least 250$. The only way to build something comparable for cheap would be to buy used.
By asno3030 2025-11-175:44 The APU in the steam deck isn't anything too special (the 740M is comparable but is RDNA3). For the GabeCube they are using a customized 7600M, which previously has been used in many eGPUs for Chinese handhelds (at a very high price).
AMD does have some pretty powerful APUs right now, but I don't think we'll see it on many mass market
How customized it is, I guess we'll find out closer to release, but I am guessing just based on the dimensions that it is just customized specifically for the case, for space and cooling reasons.
A similar PC without the fit and finish with just consumer parts comes in at around $900.
Curious how much pull valve has with AMD to get this into people's hands.
By TheRoque 2025-11-1610:59 Exactly, I sold my Switch because I just happened to play most of my games on PC and steam. Worst case scenario, it can be a desktop computer (I don't have one, only a laptop)
Whereas a playstation or a switch, once I don't game anymore, it's just an expensive paperweight
Man, I got a free ps5 from my isp and was excited to have friends over for games. Come to find out that playing games with your friends apparently isn’t a thing anymore (I guess there’s fighting and racing games). What a lame-ass boring system.
By IggleSniggle 2025-11-1613:181 reply This is why I've been all in on Steam for so long! The catalog is so huge, there's a massive number of fantastic couch multiplayer games. It is indeed a bit more fiddly... I've found that it's generally easier to connect my Steam Deck to the TV and play lower fidelity games than it is to fiddle with a Windows machine that needs to be prepped for friends popping in every other month.
Although, Nintendo is still doing a good job at keeping the couch-social experience alive, and building 1st party games that can be good solo experiences but really shine when played next to a friend sitting on the same couch.
I used to rally friends over for couch gaming years ago. Think I'll try to put something together for Thanksgiving. Been a bit out of the loop - any recent PC couch games you recommend for normies? I think for my group, it'll lean casual / co-operative. Nintendo's always felt too kid-like for us.
The Trine series was a big hit for us way back.
By two_handfuls 2025-11-1618:55 "It takes two", "Split Fiction" and "Lego Voyage" are the same style of casual two-player coop. Downside is it's only two players but otherwise may he exactly what you're looking for and very well made.
If you want something a bit different, check out "keep talking or everbody explodes".
By IggleSniggle 2025-11-1619:561 reply Rivals of Aesther - like Super Smash Bros but with Steam Workshop support for player-made characters... TARS (interstellar) vs Ronald McDonald vs Obama anyone??
nidhogg - deserves to be in an arcade cabinet but honestly this one is ALWAYS a hit...just 2player though
Broforce - 80s action stars in 80s action movie multiplayer platformer
Ultimate Chicken Horse - competitively build a platformer level and then race to complete the level first, best with 4 players
TowerFall Ascension - 2-4 players, also deserves to be in an arcade cabinet
Screen Cheat - FPS made for the couch; think N64 Goldeneye or Quake, but all the players are invisible, so the only way to figure out where your opponents are is to look at their quadrants (screencheat)
Overcooked 2 - it's pretty kid-oriented on the surface, but it's a game where you must out-communicate the absolute chaos unfolding around you in order to succeed...such a good couch-multiplayer experience, but best for experienced gamers imho
Rocket League
Magicka
Regular Human Basketball - control giant basketball automatons by jumping inside them and operating the manual controls in a team v team. Minimum 4 players to really work well, supports up to 10 players shared screen
That should get you started! But oops that wasn't my casual coop list, more my "makes for memorable group experiences" list.
It Takes Two, Portal 2, Untitled Goose Game, Halo Master Chief Collection was like $10 recently, all come to mind as positive local coop experiences I've had.
By CalRobert 2025-11-176:42 Thank you!
There are a few games that support couch coop, but you’re right it’s not very well supported any more.
We enjoyed Split Fiction and It Takes Two recently, but those are quite couple-y. And Blue Prince is very playable as a group effort.
Then there are games like “overcooked”, though again not many. IIRC there’s a new Katamari on the way as well.
But there really aren’t that many “get your mates together” games any more.
By gausswho 2025-11-1614:26 > But there really aren’t that many “get your mates together” games any more.
It's especially fascinating against the lens of this return-to-office phase we're living through. I'm a big fan of WFH but hear me out: online gaming (physically by yourself) is somewhat analogous to work-from-home. It empowers you to optimize your entertainment, challenge, competition into narrower and narrower facets of the experience. And tribe.
But jibba jabba around the water cooler can be enjoyable with the right people, just like it can be on the couch with friends and fam with Mario Kart, NHL '97, or Jackbox. Or board games.
There's room in this zeitgeist for a breakout multiplayer hit that just doesn't feel good unless you're in person.
By Philip-J-Fry 2025-11-1611:212 reply Playing games with friends has never been more popular. I guess couch co-op has been replaced with online multiplayer. The assumption being that if you want to play with friends, they'll have their own device.
But there's still plenty of couch co-op games. They're usually quite niche though and not your typical racing or shooting game.
By CalRobert 2025-11-1611:40 We ended up hooking up my old N64 and playing Goldeneye
By littlestymaar 2025-11-1612:22 > I guess couch co-op has been replaced with online multiplayer. The assumption being that if you want to play with friends, they'll have their own device.
What's the point with a console then though?
By christophilus 2025-11-1612:40 It is on the Nintendo Switch. My kids play loads of Mario Party, Minecraft and Mario Cart.
By deng 2025-11-1612:54 > Steam Machines can become an existencial crisis for PlayStation and Xbox.
Xbox, as a console, already is in an existential crisis.
I think people have weird expectations about what the Steam Machine will cost. From what Valve has said so far (cheaper than if you build it yourself from parts), it will still cost significantly more than a PS5, and probably also more than a PS5 Pro, while having less performance than both. You will not beat the PS5 in terms of performance per dollar. Yes, games are more expensive on PS5, but most people don't work that way but just want to know whether they'll be able to play GTA6 on day one.
By imiric 2025-11-1611:28 I don't think it's an existential crisis for console manufacturers, but it's certainly part of a shift in how we think about "consoles".
Microsoft has seen the writing on the wall for years now, and they've expanded their library to run across platforms. The Xbox as we knew it is effectively dead.
Sony and Nintendo are still holding on to the legacy concept, and trying to lure people into their walled garden, but even their hardware is essentially a general purpose PC that happens to be locked down in software.
So I suspect we'll see one last traditional "console" generation with the PS6 and whatever Nintendo makes next, and after that the concept of a single-purpose machine will fizzle out. Nintendo will probably be the last to give in, since they have the strongest first-party IPs to make that feasible, but eventually they'll follow suit as well.
It's not a console you can use as a PC, it's a PC you can use as a PC.
If you want a console you can use as a PC, the next Xbox is rumoured to be along those lines. It will run Windows so you can play Steam, GOG etc but will also run the existing Xbox library natively.
The 70% figure needs to be taken in context, tons of people have Steam installed on old computers that they use for old games. I currently have it installed on three devices, and yes two of them are worse specs than this. But I don't have any intention of upgrading them either, they are just old machines I have hanging around. They do the job if I'm travelling.
By lp0_on_fire 2025-11-1617:18 Is that actually confirmed? That Microsoft is going to allow steam and other third party stores on the new Xbox console?
> Steam Machines can become an existencial crisis for PlayStation and Xbox.
Not really. An existential crisis to System76, Framework computer and all the other Linux computer companies.
> A “console” that I can use as a PC? I am in 100%. You’ll get the world biggest game library at a discount, this is why I sold my PlayStation after spending 200 euros and watching it becoming useless.
No different to getting a regular PC but this time you can just buy a high performance state of the art GPU like the NVIDIA RTX 5090 and it runs all your games at 4K @ 120 FPS instead of 60.
> I also suspect a lot of game devs will optimize for steam machine and finally we’ll get a console like experience on PC.
Proton is the software that is doing the optimizations. However once you want to run a highly anticipated game like Battlefield 6 and your friends are playing it on their Windows PCs and consoles on day 1, the Steam Machine is left behind waiting for compatibility updates.
> Don’t let the “low specs” fool you, it has the same specs or better as 70% of steam users.
2020 specs in 2026 isn't really good for convincing 70% of Windows PC gamers or console players either.
The real test is when the next generation Xbox or Playstation arrives, will the Steam Machine outsell them?
> Given Valve gave money to a lot of open source maintainers , it’s also great for Linux.
We will see if that is enough to convince Steam players to run SteamOS instead of Windows or consoles. but so far it is totally underpowered and you might as well get a Windows PC + Nvidia RTX 5090 which runs all your games well including the highly anticipated ones.
No thanks and no deal.
By fooblaster 2025-11-1612:53 A 5090 is likely 3x the cost of the steam machine. You are at the extreme high end of the gaming market here and not the target of the steam machine.
By Kudos 2025-11-1612:32 This and machines with 5090s are a completely different market.
The Steam Machine is marketed primarily as something sitting under your TV. I don't have 5090 under my TV money, 99.9% of people don't. That's not the target demographic.
Funny to see "Game Machine that can be used as a PC" when, as I was growing up, it was "Personal Computer can also play games".
In both cases I suppose it was the dedicated gaming-machines (Switch now, Atari then) that were feeling the squeeze.
By acomjean 2025-11-1614:28 Yeah, learn with the computer! When I was growing we had an intellivision game console. My parents bought us the "keyboard component" that turned it into a computer. What a terrible computer it was. Turned out it was released because the company was being fined for advertising a computer add on and not delivering. You wanted to write games but no, worse than the timex Sinclair 1000...
A lot of home computing used tvs back then
> and finally we’ll get a console like experience on PC
What do you mean by that? The PC experience with adequate hardware is almost universally better than the console experience.
By mariopt 2025-11-2111:47 Games being optimised for specific hardware.
Some games just run better on the PS when compared to the PC version, regardless of you having the latest and best PC. You can see this fairly well on the Nintendo Switch, which is a low spec tablet but the games run very well and the experience is great.
PC Games, generally speaking, tend to favor keyboard and mouse not controllers.
This is why I suspect game devs will start optimising for the Steam Machine, provided it sells well.
By pezezin 2025-11-1611:07 That is only a problem if you suffer from FOMO. Otherwise there are enough PC games for a hundred lifetimes.
Not going to happen. In fact, they seem to go the opposite direction because there's more money to be made.
By 0x073 2025-11-1611:10 I also don't believe it, but sony was a all time bad player.
I like the Xbox because they changed so much in the console ecosystem, play anywhere, backwards compatibility without extra cost.
I don’t think that’s true. The whole reason they’re producing PC ports is to sell the most profitable part (software) to those who to haven’t been giving them money.
Sony makes zero dollars off of the consoles, and while they do enjoy taking their PS Store royalties rather than giving it up to Steam, they also have a huge collection of first party studios that might even be a more important business.
And it’s not like Sony is giving their big console releases PC ports on day one, if you want to own them right away you have to buy a PlayStation.
By firesteelrain 2025-11-1611:09 You are mostly right about the broad strategy but a few of the claims are too absolute. Sony does make money on hardware later in the cycle even if margins are small. They also care about PC ports for more than just pure profit such as extending the IP footprint and keeping franchises visible between major releases. The part about delayed PC ports is completely correct. PlayStation is still the primary window and PC is the secondary revenue phase once the console market is saturated.
By philistine 2025-11-1616:29 How could you believe that Sony would give up 30% of every Call of Duty, Madden, Fortnite sale for the measly PC sales of Slapper-Man 2 and God of Warm?
Every Steam Machine sold that plays Sony's exclusives is a genuine threat to Sony's control over the gaming market. The more I think about it, the more I believe Sony's games coming to PC is over since yesterday's announcement.
Sony’s current tactics is to publish all their releases on PC 6-12 months later. Doing this expands the potential player base and even makes some players to double dip and buy the game twice
By philistine 2025-11-1616:25 If this Steam Machine really takes off and starts impacting Sony's ability to sell Playstation consoles, you bet your ass Sony will stop porting games to PC.
What's truly crazy is the VR headset is the same architecture as the Steam Machine. As in, it's a completely open Linux system you can wear on your face. They are literally telling the community to go nuts and hack it and install whatever you want on there.
If there's any time for people who believe in open systems and open software to step up and buy the hell out of something, this it it. It will be very interesting to see if the play works out our not.
The Frame announcement was certainly the one that blew my mind. A VR headset with an ARM CPU which runs a full fledged Linux operating system, can play x86 games via Proton, and can sideload Android APKs? What? Man, those guys have been busy.
By delfinom 2025-11-1615:06 Valve probably also spent a small fraction of the absurd billions meta spent on VR.
By pcdoodle 2025-11-1612:07 [dead]
