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AMD must feel good about this, given their (apparent) alarmingly small desktop GPU marketshare.
...They really just need OEMs to ship the things, and now they got a great one.
I'd be neat if Steam offered an Intel Arc variant too. The B series is massively underrated.
“Powerful PC gaming in an open ecosystem”
Valve just kicked the teeth of all console makers with this announcement. If only they manage to ship and distribute globally they would single-handedly threat taking over the entire gaming industry (hardware side) in a single generation. Of course, it's well to wait for reviews, hands on demonstrations and the reality that comes out of this. But I bet there's more than one MS an Sony executive who were apprehensive of seeing this day arrive.
Also: the fact they doubled down on the Steam Machine name. It's like a huge FU to all OEM manufacturers who laughed at them in 2017.
I think the main hangup is going to be: how easy and simple is this thing for the average person?
The Steam Deck is, any way you slice it, a better value than the Switch or Switch 2. The Steam Deck has sold roughly 6 million units in 3 years. The Nintendo Switch 2 has sold close to 11 million units in about 5 months.
I hope you're right and that Valve really shakes up the whole industry, but I'm not going to start expecting that until I see it.
I think Switch has a different market (albeit a bigger one)than the Deck.
There is definitely market overlap with Steam Deck but I feel the Deck offers things that the Switch doesn't. In a similar vein, I think Steam Machine provides a kind of value that extends just beyond the console market. There are people who would not consider getting a console but would definitely consider getting a powerful and compact Mini PC with good gaming capabilities. Therein lies the greatest value of their offering.
It’s not a very powerful gaming pc though. It’s gonna be a 720p, low settings, FSR box.
It also won’t have COD, Battlefield, GTA, Apex, etc, so it has zero chance of selling gangbusters.
I don't think they even can manufacture at a scale anywhere close to the big three. Like with the Steam Deck, it'll be a great product for a niche audience, but the numbers will be limited in comparison. No chance of taking over the industry.
It definitely seems to me like they're trying a similar strategy to Microsoft's Surface line or Google's Pixel line where the main goal isn't really to outcompete directly, but rather to influence the market by a) proving that the platform is viable and b) providing a blueprint/setting expectations for third-party manufacturers considering getting in on it. I swear I remember valve saying they were open to licensing steam os to third party devices (granted, I dunno if anyone's taken them up on it), and they obviously want as many people on steam as they can pull off.
There are currently 2 third party handhelds that are officially supported by SteamOS, so at least 2 manufacterers have taken them up on it so far.
They don't have to manufacture them all. That little SteamOS Compatible sticker is gonna kick Windows out of the gaming throne and push steam machines as the default livingroom gaming solution. One of the big things about this announcement is that it isn't addressed only to customers, it is aimed at developers. The store page even has sections to announce that development kits are available. They want the software and hardware developers onboard, that's how they are going to push out competition.
I want to see The Year of the Linux Desktop™ as much as anyone else on this platform, but I think you're living in a bubble if you believe there's any universe in which this could suddenly dethrone Windows.
It'll carve out a good niche for itself, but that's really all it will be.
Here's the thing. Since November 2022 Valve's Steam OS has carved out almost a 5% share of the market for Linux (if we include Linux users who don't use Steam OS). Windows has something like a 25-30 year head start on steam in this respect.
Something like 35% of PC gamers are still using Windows 10 after the EOL BS MS pulled in October. There is something to be said for those users being more willing to jump ship to steam than there is for them to buy exhorbitantly priced hardware to stay on windows when their hardware inevitably begins to show its age.
I think it's fairly likely that Steam OS will continue to take chunks of user base out of MS for the foreseeable future.
It may not be the year of the Linux desktop, but it's not nothing either. Valve's devices are more hamstrung (as someone else in one of these threads said) by where you can source their hardware than they are by the MS dominated market share.
It can't hurt to support this, despite the popular games it /may/ not be compatible with over time, because users are also becoming increasingly disillusioned with MS in general.
Lots of things remain to be seen but nobody (MS included) was expecting Steam to be successful as a platform for game sales, nor were they expecting them to be successful with physical hardware and yet here we are. Is that success limited? Sure. But it has become less limited over time.
“it’s the year of Linux! This year is really it guys!!” lol
No cod, no battlefield, no gta, no apex, no any of the biggest games that the majority of the money-spenders buy. No chance of kicking windows out of the gaming throne whatsoever.
This is so sick. I wish the console was more powerful and didnt rely on fsr for 4k preformance. I'd love to get my hands on that vr headset.
Eh, it’s running a whopping 300W power supply. It also seems to be pretty damn tiny.
I mean, it will do 4K in old games just fine.
FSR(4) is less noticable at higher res, anyway.
FSR4 only runs on RDNA 4. The Steam Machine has RDNA 3, so FSR3 is the limit
…Oh. I see, I misread the generation.
Yeah, that’s a huge caveat, one that would get me to reconsider the whole box, as FSR4 is way better than 3. I wonder if there’s a chance for AMD (or Valve) to backport it?
The linux community is already working on it
Cool. AFAIK FSR4 uses instructions RDNA3 doesn't even have, so I'd be interested to see if they can squeeze decent performance out of it.
I bet you can turn it off and just do 1080p gaming. I think steam analysis one said that only about 10% of people have a 4k display. So that's probably why they haven't over spec the system.
In about 4 years they'll probably have a more powerful version as well.
I'm so glad the steam controller is back.
I was an early adopter, I got my first steam link and steam controller in November 2015
I went through 17 steam controllers.
Seventeen.
Because they were built like absolute fucking shit, and my ear actually got attuned to the sound of the shoulder spring breaking. Crunch.
The first one I bought was totally DOA, the replacement was DOA with a broken button membrane, the replacement for that DOA with a malfunctioning back paddle. The fourth one, and first functional one I got lasted two months before the shoulder broke. There were ones I got new out of the box and the shoulder broke within an hour.
So I'm happy as fuck that it came back, but I'm so hesitant. I choose to believe that they have corrected the shitty build problem, but I guess I'll find out!
If it's built as well as the deck, it should be great
I dusted off my steam controller after playing on a Steam Deck for a while, and it felt like garbage. everything is better on the Deck, especially the trackpads. This new controller looks like an additional improvement.
This looks really solid.
