No prices yet. I may never financially recover from this.
Does it run on electricity or do you have to throw coal in it somewhere?
Hope this work great, gaming industry really needs that
Yeah, I’ll never be able to afford any of that stuff, no point me even looking at it sadly.
It’s for middle class people who have piles of cash to burn :-(
When I look at this announcement, the hardware is very exciting, for sure. But it is Valve’s dedication to Linux that really has me smiling. I don’t see three hardware devices to buy. I see two big proclamations for which the hardware is the message:
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SteamOS on desktop! It seemed inevitable but it’s still great to see.
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STEAM VR USING LINUX AS ITS TARGET PLATFORM?!?!?
I will grant that it’s very possible I buy all three pieces of the hardware, even though I like building my own PCs. I will also grant that Valve’s support for linux probably would not be what it is without the enshittification of Microsoft’s ecosystem. But in this world I’m gonna go ahead and accept the imperfect good news.
They’ve been pretty great on Linux. They built on the great work of the wine people and have done a lot to push the state forward.
I believe they’ve had a lot of good things to say about the stability of the Linux platform from a development perspective. For all the jank and instability that Linux software exposes, it has a lot more stability in terms of things like kernel and driver interfaces as a point of deliberate design choice. So there’s a lot less work needing to code around the specific versions of drivers being used.
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why is this thing not called Steam Engine?
I agree. FWIW, unofficially, fans are already calling it the “GabeCube” which is no less punny.
Apparently it’s likely smaller than the GameCube was which is pretty incredible.
I’m assuming that d brand are already working on a GameCube inspired skin for this.
They are and have shown it
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I’m reckoning about $1,280 all in for the controller, VR headset, and Steam Machine.
I can’t see it being much more than that because otherwise you would be better off just getting your own build and putting Linux on it.
I think you’re way off, they said that they will price the GabeBox like a PC and not a console, that probably means the price for it will be around 1k since that’s what a similar PC would cost, here’s an example of the price of a prebuilt PC with a 7600 which is the GPU that they mentioned as being the closest to the one they use https://periphio.com/gaming-pcs/firestorm-7600-prebuilt-amd-gaming-pc/
Also the Frame was mentioned as being priced less but close to the Index, and the Index was also 1k with the base stations, so I think the Frame will likely be very close to that as well.
The controller I would guess around $70, but there’s likely to be one together with the Machine, so all in all I think we’re looking closer to 2k. But I would be very happy to be wrong.
Really I don’t think so. I don’t know quite where you’re getting your prices from because I could definitely build assembly spec computer for under $700, especially if I was building in bulk which obviously Valve are.
I feel like they know that no one’s going to buy it at $1,000.
$1000 would totally be dead on arrival. Framework sells there far superior PC for $1200
-8 core zen 5 vs. 6 core zen 4/zen 4c
-32 cu RDNA 3.5 vs. 28 cu RDNA 3
-32 Tiles NPU vs. 0 NPU
-32GB LPDDR5x-8000 memory vs.16GB DDR5 + 8GB GDDR6 VRAM
-same storage 500gb
The Gabe box is more laptop-esque than PC really. The Steam Machine GPU is closer to a 7600m as both use (28cu) vs the desktop 7600(32cu).
Afaik the CPU is only 2 full zen4 cores and 4 zen4c, which would also save on cost. But, honestly I don’t remember where I read that so don’t take the CPU part as fact. If I find the source I’ll link it later
Still, my point was about the price guess that the other guy made. Valve was very clear that it would be priced as a PC and not a console, consoles are around the 500 mark, so it would be at least 700 otherwise they would have mentioned aggressive pricing or something.
Valve was very clear that it would be priced as a PC and not a console
Valve hasn’t been clear about the price at all though. That could simple mean it won’t be sold at a loss like console have historically been.
Tom from Moore’s Law estimated the cost to build the steam machine at $425 and the steam deck at around $300. If the Steam Machine is sold for the save $100 profit that’s a total of $525.
Yeah I’m thinking that it’ll be around $500 to $600 for the base model and maybe $550 to $650 for the two terabyte model. After all its upgradable so there’s not really any point them trying to price gouge anyone on the storage.
The general consensus I’ve seen from people is that it will be sub 1K simply because they know it has to be in order to be profitable. The only people who think it’s going to be over 1k seem to be people who don’t actually know that it’s not really a super powerful system, they advertised it as being seven times more powerful than the steam deck, but the steam deck itself is not exactly a powerhouse in fact the switch 2 is more powerful.
You’re paying for the fact that it’s tiny, the fact that it’s not a window system, and for the convenience of just being able to throw some money at someone and have a fairly decent gaming system without having to mock about in the weeds, because a lot of people don’t like that aspect of PC building.
Yeah, that all sounds reasonable.
Personally, I think Valve should price the SM as low as possible since they might have a real chance of replacing Xbox in the console market. Maybe they’ll lower prices after they have proof of demand like with the Steam Deck OLED?
Uh-oh…my wallet is in trouble.
hello
I posted this in the other thread, but wanna share here too:
Most interesting thing to me is the Frame apparently runs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and is using SteamOS, implying official ARM support for SteamOS, Steam and Proton! Could mean steam and proton coming to android too.
And the base would be Arch Linux ARM, right? So that should see an uptick in development too.
I’m still a little curious how that will work for games. Are they going to somehow emulate Win32 amd64 games? Do devs have to recompile them in some new way? Will engines support it beyond Unity and Unreal?
It was mentioned in the LTT coverage. Aside from native ARM games they have a translation layer(FEX) to play x86 games on ARM. They’ll have a “Verified” tag like the Steam Deck for compatibility. I assume you’ll still be able to force trying to run unverified games.
Edit: FEX is not a Valve thing, but an existing open source x86/x86_64 emulator that Valve is using. It’s not clear if they’re forking it or directly contributing though.
That same video says that “Valve has heavily contributed to FEX”
Well, that shows how well I was paying attention to the video
Yup, FEX to translate x86 to ARM.
The Frame isn’t playing the games on its ARM chip. It’s just streaming audio/visual data from the PC and relaying the controller inputs back to the PC.
Jeff Geerling is probably having a fit right now.
It is fascinating and a huge step, but I want to keep expectations low. It will work, but it will not be as compatible as x86 Proton, not at all. It is first and primarily an OS for streaming games and running VR. That is the VR rendering from the streaming computer, not the VR game itself. In other words, they only had to get exactly one app to run well enough for public use. According to the developer, it is working with a surprising amount of games. I agree, one game is surprising, but trust me when I say you will not be running Windows x86 games in ARM Linux for a long time.
Steam/Proton on android would be quite something, I would finally be able to play something decent on my phone that wasn’t originally released for the PS2
Where steamphone
I mean, the VR is an ARM chip that can run APKs, so if someone can find a way to plug a SIM card there that’s it.
Sometimes I think about how LOATHED Steam was when it launched. That was probably valid even. Still, it feels worth noting that Valve is maybe THE only company from my childhood that feels like it largely stayed true to its spirit, or whatever.
People who came to Steam later on probably don’t realise that when it was new it barely fucking worked.
Downloads crawled, games refused to launch because of authentication issues, friends/chat was offline for literally months, etc.
The only reason it became widely adopted was because Valve forced you to use it if you wanted to play the latest CS or, later, HL2. Everyone hated it.
This is true but this was also done at at time when all of these things were unprecedented. Valve was blazing a trail with Steam and digital distribution and there was nothing else even close.
What if he really wanted to make it up to you? Is there anything he could do to apologize?
HALF. LIFE. FUCKING. THREE.
Exactly. How tf do you propose to get it if you digest him? You’ve hit on the crux of the issue here.
Yeah he could hand over a couple billion dollars, that would make up for it.
It was pretty janky. I received a download code for Half Life 2 in the box with my Radeon 9800 Pro several months before the game was actually released. I didn’t have a lot of use for Steam before then, but I installed it anyway and my account is so old that back when the account IDs were still numeric and sequential, mine was four digits.
friends/chat was offline for literally months
Friends lists didn’t work reliably for years.
I was one of the haters when it first launched because I was on dialup at the time and physical discs I bought were forcing me to install steam AND THEN install a massive patch that did not work on dialup. My first day playthrough of Skyrim was ruined because of that. Took a week for that shit to download even though I went physically to a store.
But now Steam is the last man standing between us and corporate greed.
But now Steam is the last man standing between us and corporate greed.
Man how quickly people forget what things were like before the lawsuits forced valve to make steam more consumer friendly and regulatory abiding…
When was that?
Hello, Veteran Steam User (made my account the day steam released, I was big into the half life/cs/tfc scene back in the day), steam was HORRIBLE when it released. I had a cable modem way back then and it was incredibly slow. Only the ugly green theme, and crashed all the time. It was only used as DRM, not as a way to catalogue games. I clung to those WAN servers up until Valve no longer supported them, it was a sad day at the time.
I still remember the pissed-off memes, novel-long outrage threads, etc.!
If Valve went DRM free like GOG, I would have no reason to ever buy games anywhere else
(apart from exclusives, which should be illegal IMO)
I remember being annoyed that I had to install yet another launcher and make yet another account when I was installing portal. But I didn’t know at the time that this was the launcher to end most other launchers and accounts, or at the very least made most of that transparent other then adding an extra click to launch some games.
Iirc, Blizzard had just replaced the wow in-game patcher with a launcher (though I don’t recall if they had a unified launcher for each game, if they all had their own at that point, or if it was just wow), Oblivion had a game launcher, and I think there were a few others. Some of them even needed to be installed separately iirc.
Steam is nice because, being the launcher for most of my games, it’s just always open and helps organize my games. And it doesn’t feel like its main purpose is to make money, with everything else just being about opening pathways to that money. And even though it is meant to make Valve money, it’s the lack of blatant dark patterns and constant upsell attempts that makes it feel better than most of the rest of the commercial world.
They have good PR and fanboy propaganda. They’re every bit as evil as every game company out there. Steam fans just got tricked into thinking Gabe was THEIR billionaire and steam is THEIR billionaire corporation, and they can do no wrong. No other game platform has a fan base as aggressive and hostile when you point it ou
Edit: im being downvoted, sent IM threats and have had my comments on here removed by mods, if that’s not proof of what I was saying I don’t know what is lol
Why does everyone here Yuck other peoples Yum? You aren’t forced to buy them
The irony of this being your previous comment
Edit: Since parent is editing - his reply called me a cocksucker, hence the mod removal. Yay for blatant homophobia
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Steam’s main thing is that they have recognised that killing the golden goose is a bad thing for everybody. They have consistently played for long term growth and profits, over purely short term gains.
Steam has made mistakes, but their demonstrated values have been shown to be mostly compatible with mine. I can work with that.
Also, them being privately owned means that they are less have seagull investors swooping in and demanding short term gains now now now.
The downvotes seem to agree with you…?
I think its because there’s likely more people who got into Steam after Steam was already a pretty popular storefront so clueless about the growing pains. My first ever PC game purchase was from the Steam store and that was maybe back in the 2010s.
So those going on about days of CDs or whatever are talking to a generation that had already moved onto digital.
It happened to me (with blizzard)…and it will happen to you!
A lot of companies turned to utter shit over the years but Blizzard hit me the hardest I think.
I just paid $20 for a physical copy Counter Strike, and I find out I need to install an additional launcher and make an account to play the game I just installed. It’s the principle of the thing!
It basically didn’t add any value to the experience. We just wanted to play CS, and steam just got in the way.
because most people got exposed to steam’s launch on HL2’s launch. Where they bought the physical game, came home, installed it off like 5 CDs… then had to run steam to decrypt it and download more files because the fucking install was encrypted, and the goddamn fucking decryption took like 8 hours if you didnt have the worlds greatest computer.
Nope, I’m still totally not salty about not being able to play the game I fucking bought until the day after cause bullshit encryption fuckery, why would you ever think that.
I still have that goddamn box somewhere… i need to dig it up and see what release retail HL2 is like compared to HL2 you’d downlaod today from steam…
Well, I bought Half-Life and OG You Don’t Know Jack on discs at Target, then had to return them because HL didn’t run and YDKJ was “too worldly.” So.
Did Valve just announce THREE of something?
Holy shit you’re right.
Only one company has apparently learned how to print money and not be ghouls.
To be fair, they say they made a lot of tradeoffs in the name of being price conscious, but they haven’t put a price on it yet.
I’d say it’s priceless.
conscious*
Thank you. Didn’t notice I screwed that up.
Valve remains committed to an open PC ecosystem
happy noises
I wonder if the steam machine supports hdmi cec.
It does! I believe I read it in one of the rock paper shotgun articles.
It does, it’s in the specs at the bottom of the steam page
They do, I’m 99% sure I heard it mentioned by someone (I think it was Linus from LTT)
Yeah there’s some complication with it where it’s not 100% supported, but I didn’t quite understand because he didn’t go into detail. I got the sense though that it’s a technicality and basically is fine, but officially it isn’t supported.
That’s awesome. I always wondered why more computers didn’t add support for that in general.
I’ve seen dongle-style things to add CEC support, but I heard mixed things about those.
HDMI and displayport
Doubt I would ever do the VR headset. I simply don’t play the kind of games that work well with (or even need) VR. Although come to think of it, a VR Civilization VI game would be wild.
But the Steam Machine would be interesting to replace the old laptop I currently have running as my multimedia box on my television (streaming, retro gaming, steam mirroring, etc…) It would be more powerful than the well worn old dude I’m currently using.
They did at least do: https://www.meta.com/experiences/sid-meiers-civilization-vii-vr/5781689118524197/?srsltid=AfmBOoqbqaOcZk-uwva84T4NpmPU5A6M8h1LPhsJc2EkCyD5ujrcFI_m
No idea if it is vaguely any good or not…
Its kind of crazy they didn’t make it available on PC. Those graphics look *rough *. I have to imagine the late game turn time/performance is rough too. But, I haven’t played it since I don’t have any Meta devices
Zuck paid for it. That’s why.
He wants it in his eco system.
I’ve got a bit of a VR library, but the new ease of setup with this one does have me considering how I’d use the virtual display features. Even with trackpads, a lot of mouse-driven games aren’t great on Steam Deck, but I’m replaying Baldur’s Gate 2 right now and wondering how the mouse controls might work out in VR.
