comments:
You are looking at it from an enthusiast's perspective, this machine isn't for you, it was never for you, it's an entry level PC for low budget gamers to play their games on livingroom, that's it, nothing more and nothing less. But the Steam Machine delivers less. If your game is using kernel level anti cheat, it won't work. If your game has problems running under Linux / Proton, it won't work (like Forza Horizon 6 partly at the moment). If your game (especially going forward) needs more than 8 GB VRAM to run smooth, it won't. Let alone that the TV is the most high resolution screen most people have and by now most of them for the target audience are also at 120 hz or more. The hardware you get is just not up to the task; again, especially this close to a new console generation (hint, PS6 is rumored to have 32 GB unified memory and a GPU on par with about a 4080). I am not trying to look at this from an enthusiast's perspective, I just don't see why you would be ok with paying enthusiast pricing for ultra low end (gaming) hardware, other than the form factor. Or rather, what the target audience would be for that. And that is all not even considering other more reasonable alternatives to a second PC when it comes to living room gaming, like just using an extra long active HDMI cable to connect your gaming PC in another room to the living room TV (I am using this setup for a few years already for a full 4K120 HDR GSync experience) or using in-home streaming (which should give you all that other than VRR support). Yeah it's more expensive than consoles, but it does not have $120 yearly payment for online gaming Good argument actually (hard to believe that it is still this expensive coming from a PC players perspective), but on the other hand you don't have access to that many currently popular MP games as it is with the kernel level anti cheat problematic (no CoD, BF, Valorant, Marathon, all EA sports titles etc) on the Steam Machine. yeah it's GPU isn't upgradable but it doesn't have to be for the people whose going to buy it, because they can't be bothered with building PCs. I mean, that is why I posted a same price prebuild gaming PC at the same price of the Steam Machine with a +50% faster GPU, faster CPU and double the RAM... You can save more if you build it yourself but that wasn't the point. Also, how big is the target audience of people that can't be bothered with building their own PC but are able and ready to navigate all the problems of running Windows software on a Linux system designed around only one PC gaming store / launcher? On the other hand, my PS5 Pro is absolutely tiny compared to every PC case i've ever built, you're absolutely wrong on that, you need to go SFF to achieve console portability. A PS5 Pro is absolutely closer in size to a normal PC than to a Steam Machine. Its literally 39 cm in height, a Steam Machine is less than half that at 15 cm. In contrast, that random Amazon.de PC I posted earlier (with half it's case empty) is 45 cm in height. It's of a bigger volume overall, with it being 20 cm in width and 38 cm in lenght vs the PS5 Pro's 9 cm and 22 cm, but still way closer to that than to a Steam Machine. Another quick search later (btw, with today being Prime Day you can save up another up to 100 Euro for the same +50% Steam Machine specs) this for example would also fit all the parts used while only being 38x20x33cm in size and is just 80 Euro: https://www.amazon.de/darkFlash-Micro-ATX-PC-Geh%C3%A4use-Mini-Tower-MATX-Geh%C3%A4use-ARGB-PWM-L%C3%BCfter-Typ-C-Anschluss-Schwarz/dp/B0F1D6WKNS Steam Machine is indeed a SFF design size wise, typical consoles are a lot bigger.