[bigyabai]

Okay? You can wipe off your tears and go buy a cheap gaming PC off Craigslist. Toss Bazzite on it, and you're good to go.

I'm not sure what type of sympathy people want to court with the "woe is me" narrative around how they need a third gaming device. The selling point of the Steam Machine is the software. Nothing about the bespoke hardware is worth crying over, it feels like object fetishism for the sake of it.

[yathern]

Exactly - I just built myself a knockoff Steam Machine by putting Steam OS (might switch to Bazzite but so far real Steam OS is fine) on a $300 Mini PC and I'm super pleased with it. 16GB of RAM and a Ryzen 7640HS runs all of my library just fine, though to be fair, I'm not much of a AAA super modern high-graphics gamer. Doing a lot of emulation these days.

[topgrain2]

End-to-end (hardware, OS, UI software) support from a single vendor for a narrowly-configured gaming PC, with actual serious support in terms of software updates and such, not just "we'll maybe honor the warranty if it breaks", including for TV-attached use cases where PCs (windows or Linux, either) tend to be kinda wonky[0], was appealing enough to me that I planned to buy it day-1 if it was under $700, and probably would still have bought it up to $800, to replace my giant gaming tower with Bazzite on it, even though performance-wise it would be roughly a lateral move or slight downgrade. I was really looking forward to the day I took that thing out of my house, but now... nope, gonna be a while because a few billionaires bid PC hardware up to the Moon.

I'm not aware of a single other product on the market that offers what Valve's device does. Tons of companies offer gaming PCs and you can slap Bazzite on lots of them, but that won't get you everything the Steam Machine offers. It's, AFAIK, unique.

[0] "But I've been running a PC attached to a TV literally for decades..." yeah, you've probably been missing some HDMI features that you don't care about but others do, or had trouble with them, while any gaming console or media player will have those features and have few or no problems with them; do you have surround sound over HDMI to a proper audio receiver, with non-broken mode-switching depending on current output? Use CEC features to wake your PC from sleep? What's your color gamut like? I've done this before too, a lot, hell I did it all the way back when I needed a composite or S-Video out on my video card to make it happen, on a CRT TV before HDMI ports were really a thing. Really good support for the use case looks a lot different than what you usually get by just plugging a PC or laptop into a TV.

[gos9]

Do you want to buy it to play video games on or do you want to buy it as a display/bragging rights piece?

What games do you play now that this specialized piece of hardware would better?

[zerocrates]

I think SteamOS itself also now officially supports you installing it on any PC. (Ah, actually that's mentioned in this post even.)

[gabes]

The entitlement of the gaming “community” is next to none.

I did what you said last year and it’s been a delight.

[gos9]

Jensen getting gamers to buy CUDA devices on the backs of their endless Reddit induced hardware lust was an incredible move

[jrm4]

Yes, or and hear me out, go ahead and shell out the extra $200 or so as a "hassle fee," if you get the Steam Machine you're much more guaranteed that everything else will just work.

I absolutely agree on your notion of "what is with this 'I need the shiny new thing for sake of having a shiny new thing.' "

[phoronixrly]

Are the cheap gaming PCs off of Craigslist here in the room with us right now?

Snark aside, the second hand market is off the rails, too... The Steam Machine is cheaper than any DIY gaming PC I can build right now, even from parts off of OLX... And unlike the one I'd make, the Steam Machine will get the Steam Deck treatment as far as optimisation and certification (as in Runs on the Deck) goes.

[ZiiS]

Be interested to know which country. In USA and UK for the price it is fairly easily match the specs with new parts. And if you leave them on their default power profile in a larger case you get better performance.

[nekooooo]

you're paying for form factor, 'it just works', and convenience. how have we been having this same apple debate for 30 years, i feel like i'm on slashdot.

[bigyabai]

People say this about all unjustifiable products. "Why do I want a Juicero? Why do I need a Surface Laptop?" The same form factor, just works, convenience argument.

Nobody wants to acknowledge that it's all marketing halo. It takes less time to install SteamOS on the PC that you already own than it takes to buy and unbox a Steam Machine. But that's not "oooh new thing" retail therapy, so everyone waits with bated breath to see if they can afford the media center equivalent of jewellry. Nobody actually cares about functionality, convenience, or form factor if they're ignoring the most functional, convenient and proximate solution.