The Steam Machine is Dead

I got one of the Alienware (Intel Core i3-4130T 2.9 GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, Windows 8), ones for $200 brand new from Amazon during either a fire sale or price error window in November 2015 for my mother to use.

It's an insanely nice SFF little box. A bit overkill for her, but I haven't had to troubleshoot it yet. All I did was swap the HD for an SSD and its a snappy little machine.

May watch for clearance pricing on these and snag another if I can.
 
Chunder said:
I bought a Steam controller when it came out. I really liked it, but the support for it fell quickly and was basically only being supported by the community making custom settings/controls for it and various games. Unfortunately, due to valve ignoring it, the community quickly fell apart as well. Now it's only good as a paperweight.
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Thanks for your input. Glad I didn't buy it. Looked nice but I wasn't convinced
 
Even when it was new I never felt the Steam controller was any good. Button placement was awful, it was needlessly complicated to configure, and like 99% of games followed MS's standard instead.
The only good thing about it was the fact that it could emulate some level of kb/m functionality.
 
BloodyIron said:
Except that with Windows the license cuts into your profit, but with Linux, there is no license fee. At scale that kind of an improvement in margin can make a big deal.
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carlbme said:
You can easily install the Steam client on many different flavors of Linux. A good bit of them come with it pre-installed. And all of them can run in Big Picture Mode. As far as their own custom version of SteamOS goes; I'd be surprised if it continued to be developed and supported for much longer.
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Point was that there is nothing special about SteamOS. It's just Linux prebundled with certain software and Steam in Big Screen mode, something achievable in any modern Linux or Windows system.
 
BloodyIron said:
Except that with Windows the license cuts into your profit, but with Linux, there is no license fee. At scale that kind of an improvement in margin can make a big deal.
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Perfect example of how Valve TOTALLY fucked the entire deal up.
 
Kaitian said:
They were trying to make this stupid shit, were they?
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They actually succeeded, then turned it into abandonware almost the moment it hit the shelves.

Utter idiocy on their part. They've become so complacent with Steam itself as a cash cow, they forgot that they are *supposed* to actually *make* content once in a while.

It's high time they divested themselves of ALL game content they own, and admit they're nothing but a big fat DRM machine, a vending machine for games.
 
Domingo said:
I liked the idea more than the execution. They weren't sure if it was a PC, a console, or what. As a result of that confusion I never felt like they were able to communicate why someone would want one.
I still hate the Steam controller, too. I never knew playing with a controller could be such a hassle.
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The idea was great: a console system that could play Steam games.

VALVE failed in that they didn't make sure the price point was right; they failed in not making sure the Windows titles would be either ported or played in simulation with most of the eye candy available (how many Xbox players give up quality for convenience?); and they failed in abandoning the platform the second it became available.

But that alone is proof that Valve is no longer a content provider.
 
heatlesssun said:
Even with cross platform APIs and tools, developers still have to invest development time and testing in other platforms. I have no idea at what point everything comes together to make macOS and Linux worth the effort for developers to just make all or at least most of their PC games cross platform but for now the numbers aren't there for Linux and not even macOS.
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The truth is, any gamer that is locked into MacOS will play windows games in emulation; and they will make sure their hardware can handle it--and the higher-end stuff WILL handle it quite well.

And that's part of how Valve failed SteamOS: it would've been trivial to emulate Windows-based Steam games and make them playable. Instead, they didn't even try; and that doomed the platform to failure.
 
dark_reign said:
They should have just made Half-Life 3 or started a new IP. Maybe go back to what they were once great at?

Considering how much money Valve has, the Steam Machine was no great loss.
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Valve no longer creates content. That ship sailed long ago, and crashed on the reef.
 
zamardii12 said:
This was ALWAYS the problem. Valve wanted NONE of the risk of creating hardware. They wanted to sell the idea of Steam in the living room and left everyone else to make the hardware. Valve probably showed charts to Alienware and all these companies who ended up making Steam Machines of how the PC gaming market is going up and wanted to equate that to somehow being the same as buying a computer box you stick next to your TV.

I am really sick of Valve's lax stance on everything nowadays. It's like Gabe isn't in charge of everything and just does whatever the rest of the employees want instead of leading them in a direction that would bring back faith in Valve. I just want them for Steam and Half Life and they only delivered on one of those over the last decade.
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Give doesn't give a dead rat's fuck about content. He's happy to leech off his DRM vending machine, and sit at home diddling himself.
 
Damar said:
I got one of the Alienware (Intel Core i3-4130T 2.9 GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, Windows 8), ones for $200 brand new from Amazon during either a fire sale or price error window in November 2015 for my mother to use.

It's an insanely nice SFF little box. A bit overkill for her, but I haven't had to troubleshoot it yet. All I did was swap the HD for an SSD and its a snappy little machine.

May watch for clearance pricing on these and snag another if I can.
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Your mom's a gamer???

...is she hot? :D
 
Big_Rig_Stig said:
Your mom's a gamer???

...is she hot? :D
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She'll kick your ass in cribbage or spades.... She's l33t as hell..... :p

Seriously, for $200 plus a spare SSD I had lying around, it was a perfect little box for her. I'd get a second one for that price without hesitation just to mess with on the side.
 
I was actually wondering about Steam machines recently. Wonder if there will be any fire sales on the devices...I wouldn't mind picking up one for the basement TV.
 
I kept a watch on some of the higher end ones for awhile. Never really saw them move(or at least read any confirmed purchase reviews). I also found it odd that you mainly seemed to be paying for a look and untested OS. At the time there were a number of pre-built non-steam machines both online and in big box stores that could easily rival in terms of price/specs. Never a good sign. Guess we know how that went now.
 
IMHO steam machines missed the WHOLE point of why PC gaming is so big. PC gaming is big because people have to own a PC anyway. So the cost to game is just adding a GPU. But people completely miss this point and argue around in circles till they turn blue in the face. Steam link, gets this and takes advantage of this primary advantage of PC gaming. Use the PC you already have to own to stream to your TV. Steam boxes did not get this, they asked people to pony up the full price of a PC again to play in the living room and doing that would immediately put you at a disadvantage in almost all competitive games vs being positioned well at a desk.

Steam machines were just an entire extra device that cost as much as any other PC. They might have been more popular if valve made other decisions that other people touch on, but they probably never would have really taken off.

That said, I had hoped that steam machines would have launched a new PC form factor but that didn't really happen either.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Yep that and stuff like the Nostromo n50 or 52.. keep the client alive and well with aim to full blown custom os for which people can build their own hardware.
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I still don't get why there isn't a wireless game keypad on the market. It's also a shame they don't use thumb trackballs either rather than the analog joysticks. I guess it boils down too niche thus low demand.
 
Domingo said:
Even when it was new I never felt the Steam controller was any good. Button placement was awful, it was needlessly complicated to configure, and like 99% of games followed MS's standard instead.
The only good thing about it was the fact that it could emulate some level of kb/m functionality.
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I agree.

There's also a reason why xbox and Sony NEVER change their controllers, they've pretty much determined the most convenient setup for a majority of gamers.

I would however like to throw in the nod to new switch joy cons. When you use them in their smallest form, they fit into the palm of my hands, and I can lounge out in any weird position whatsoever on my couch or in my bed and not have to worry about having hands near each other, any cord, and their battery lasts way longer than should be possible with it being a vibrating controller (I was able to routinely run for 20 hours straight without either turning off.) You don't realize how amazing it is till you dump some 200 hours into xenoblade 2 and barely even realize you are holding anything in your hands, it's that comfortable.

I used to get a horrible indentation in my fore fingers from the dreamcast controller after 2-3 hours that would wear a groove in my skin to the bone, and stay that way for hours after I was done playing. I'm glad we're mostly function over shape design these days.
 
oldmanbal said:
I agree.

There's also a reason why xbox and Sony NEVER change their controllers, they've pretty much determined the most convenient setup for a majority of gamers.

I would however like to throw in the nod to new switch joy cons. When you use them in their smallest form, they fit into the palm of my hands, and I can lounge out in any weird position whatsoever on my couch or in my bed and not have to worry about having hands near each other, any cord, and their battery lasts way longer than should be possible with it being a vibrating controller (I was able to routinely run for 20 hours straight without either turning off.) You don't realize how amazing it is till you dump some 200 hours into xenoblade 2 and barely even realize you are holding anything in your hands, it's that comfortable.

I used to get a horrible indentation in my fore fingers from the dreamcast controller after 2-3 hours that would wear a groove in my skin to the bone, and stay that way for hours after I was done playing. I'm glad we're mostly function over shape design these days.
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Agreed 100% on the Joy-Cons. I think they are/were the best "new" controller design we've seen since the beginning of the analog era. Not because of the movement functionality, but because they are modular, they're comfy, and they run forever. I think something like that probably would have worked better for Valve's needs. Instead of cramming an analog gamepad and kb/m emulating push-pads together they could have used some kind of modular design. Pretty much all games from the last decade support an Xbox-style pad natively, so it's really only legacy (and a couple exceptions) titles that would need the additional kb/m functions.
 
Chunder said:
I bought a Steam controller when it came out. I really liked it, but the support for it fell quickly and was basically only being supported by the community making custom settings/controls for it and various games. Unfortunately, due to valve ignoring it, the community quickly fell apart as well. Now it's only good as a paperweight.
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I use mine all the time and never have a problem finding configurations for it. I agree with it being complicated to configure though. I was warned about that before I bought it. It's definitely not for everyone.
 
Have to admit, I only briefly remember them talking about this device, but never knew if it really existed.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think there's a enough of a Linux following where Linux gaming will exist. But it's going to be very niche so long as the title counts are so low. Yes, there's more Linux games than ever but that's also true of Windows 5 times over. The latest Steam Hardware Survey actually had VR gamers ahead of Linux gamers, .40% vs. .33%.
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Exactly, and even as much as I support Linux gaming, these systems hardly pushed enough numbers to even be noticed in all these years since its initial inception.
I agree with the others, this was a great opportunity to bridge the gap between the console and PC, but the marketing was indeed poor, and without Windows, it was limited to the games that would run on Linux, which is far fewer, so it does seem a bit silly to invest that far into something that may or may not be able to play the new AAA games being released.
 
From Valve ....
http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/1696043806550421224/

Valve is still contributing heavily to Linux and open source API development. They are also still working on SteamOS. The last year or so they have been focusing their in house Linux development team on tasks like improving MESA.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Mesa-2018-Q1-Stats
"It's worth pointing out the second and third most active contributors to Mesa are Timothy and Samuel as part of Valve's Linux GPU driver team where they are primarily working on the RadeonSI and RADV drivers."

Saying they are not supporting SteamOS / Machines (ya ok the machines may well be dead) and Linux in general is silly... they are one of the few companies that have in house dedicated code jocks that focus on Linux gaming related stuffs. There are plenty of companies that employee Linux kernel and systems coders to improve Linux all day... there are not a lot that are tasking them with improving open sourced drivers and systems to cater to gamers and game developers. Valve is responsible for pulling Linux gaming forward... and like game development where work started 5 years ago doesn't bear fruit until things ship, a lot of the back end work Valve has done on Vulcan, MESA and core APIs is still working its way forward.
 
I was just about to post some communication from Valve themselves but ChadD beat me to it!

Surely no one really thought Steam Machines would gain traction in the market place? Steam Machines were a concept that highlighted Valve's commitment to Linux gaming and what Valve have achieved when it comes to Linux and gaming is nothing short of remarkable. Linux gaming is very much alive and well thanks to Valve and their efforts and there's no doubting that providing the consumer with more options benefits everyone.

I personally hope Linux gaming continues to grow, I'd really like to see a day where PC gaming isn't dominated by Windows and Direct X, I find Vulkan and it's ongoing development as an API very exciting.
 
Steam Machines were a poorly thought out knee-jerk reaction by Gabe to the Windows Store. It was also fueled by a desire for a slice of the console market with the minimal effort possible. But go ahead and spin it however you want. Valve isn't doing Linux development for the good of the community, it's to monopolize the Linux market and combat the "threat" of Windows Store.
 
The concept is great and as an enabler for SteamOS it is equally great.

However... the back catalogue isn't quite there with SteamOS. More and more games are coming to Linux but not the default. Valve have re-affirmed the commitment to linux which is equally great so if they keep up that stance, keep helping bringing games I wouldn't be surprised if in 2-5years another marketing drive occurs.

It did spur custom formfactor PC as a gameconsole though, be it windows or linux based.
 
Mazzspeed said:
I was just about to post some communication from Valve themselves but ChadD beat me to it!

Surely no one really thought Steam Machines would gain traction in the market place? Steam Machines were a concept that highlighted Valve's commitment to Linux gaming and what Valve have achieved when it comes to Linux and gaming is nothing short of remarkable. Linux gaming is very much alive and well thanks to Valve and their efforts and there's no doubting that providing the consumer with more options benefits everyone.

I personally hope Linux gaming continues to grow, I'd really like to see a day where PC gaming isn't dominated by Windows and Direct X, I find Vulkan and it's ongoing development as an API very exciting.
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Pierre-Loup, a Linux developer at Valve put this out late last night reaffirming Valve's commitment to SteamOS and Linux: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/1696043806550421224/?ctp=1. Good thing for them to do to reassure Linux folks. While Linux gaming has obviously grown a lot, Windows gaming in terms of content has seen its best growth ever. And while the Linux user base is extremely committed and loyal, its still very niche and I think that's one of things that Valve kind of hopped it could do with SteamOS on Steam Machines, make Linux gaming more mainstream. It's difficult enough to get a pre-built system with Linux. When it comes to machines sold as gaming devices it's that much harder.

We'll see where Vulkan goes and how much it does or doesn't spur Linux development. The implications of Vulkan go well beyond desktop Linux gaming, making it easier to port not only to PCs but mobile devices.
 
SteamOS is meant to be different in that you can install it on a computer and get the big picture experience with almost no effort. Yes, this is achievable manually with other Linux distros, but you're forgetting the general reason multiple distros exist, because there's many ways to implement Linux. Just like Ubuntu Desktop makes getting setup with a desktop version of Linux convenient (compared to say, Linux From Scratch), SteamOS makes making your own Steam Machine convenient too.

Tsumi said:
Point was that there is nothing special about SteamOS. It's just Linux prebundled with certain software and Steam in Big Screen mode, something achievable in any modern Linux or Windows system.
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BloodyIron said:
I'm plenty familiar with the volume costs of Windows licensing. I'm a sys admin after all, it's my job.
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These aren't the same terms that OEMs get. The point was that OEMs weren't eating the cost of a Windows license for these devices, the Windows devices cost more. And it was easy enough to justify because the extra cost allowed the buyer access to all of Steam's catalog instead of just 20%.
 
Valve: "Hey guys! We're going to launch a console for PC gamers!"
PC Gamers: "Fantastic, what launch titles will you have?"
Valve: *crickets*

Later, at Valve headquarters: "Cancel the project, guys. They expect games."
 
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