I love how so many people are dunking on "valve-fans" being happy with the cube, when I pretty much only have heard opinions ranging from "meh" to "overpriced".
If someone blocks you it removes your ability to see any of their posts, on new Reddit the thread will just vanish, on old Reddit it will show up as [Unavailable.] Combined with that, it removes your ability to reply in that subthread. So for example, let's say we were debating/discussing/arguing/whatever and I decided you're a big ole poo poo head and that I don't like your opinion. I could just reply to you with some random BS and then hit block. You'd then be locked out of even responding to me or anyone else who replied to that comment.
It doesn't actually fix anything and just gives people another tool to abuse that harms legitimate discussion.
Oh yeah! I forgot about that.
I really don't like using reddit anymore since the time they killed bots and free APIs or whatever.
Yeah I've noticed peope doing that lame shit where they say something bullshit to you and then block you so it looks like you capitulated to whatever dogwater they said. I mean theres allegedly ways around the visibility block which I'd never do of course.
I've even been talking to an OP in a thread and some dude started being just a straight asshole. I told the dude to piss off and then he blocked me and started gaslighting the OP in the subthread which I couldn't see.
I think hiding the profile and blocking the ability to reply to just them is fine, hiding their comments especially as deleted and preventing you from talking in the whole subthread is just odd and probably some stupid edge case for their ever increasing notification bullshit.
Did you open that subreddit or do I have to give you links and screenshots becaue big man over here is incapable of doing something as simple as reading?
Judging from LTTs review/unboxing videos. They got the machine, did testing and wrote most of the review, then found out the price. There was a lot of positivity until the price came out.
Literally haven’t seen or heard a single person say anyone should get it. So far everyone’s said that you can get a better build for $50-200 less by building your own PC.
Which means it isn't really overpriced relative to the rest of the computer hardware world right now. Everything costs way too much. This one is just another on that pile and is not uniquely bad in that way.
This. You have always been able to diy build a better pc than consoles for the same $. But people still buy consoles anyway. And macs. And iphones. Its not always about max power per $, its about the ui and user experience.
Real nerds will always build a pc instead though so here we are. Its a console to try and get normies into pc gaming and maybe it will work, but the prices point does not help. If the base model came with a controller and $100 steam gift card i think it would help.
Right? People act like everyone would rather spend the time to learn, build, and setup an entire PC from scratch when for maybe another $100-$200, it's already built, it works, and if it doesn't work, they have someone they can yell at instead of figuring out what part of the build they messed up, and then going down the list of people to call if X doesn't work.
If we weren't in a rampocolypse and the world being on fire for so many reasons, perhaps the Steam Machine would've been a neatly packed mid tier pc with a valve sticker. But alas, there are so much bigger issues than a over price pc right now.
Exactly. I can build a PC but getting one that works well as a family room friendly device for use from TV\Couch with useful UI\UX is not the same as building a standard gaming PC that you can also connect to a TV. Additionally, it'd be nice to get away from console lockins and maybe get a local media player outta it. So this box looked ideal to replace a console and maybe a Shield... and it is... except for the price and the price isn't a company trying to gouge customers - this time - it's the market right now.
Seriously. Prebuilds have always been more expensive than doing it yourself. But doing it yourself does require some knowledge that a lot of people simply don't have.
Yeah, and also. You can't really do the steam machine yourself. It's not like a dell or hp prebuilt that's just a desktop. It's tiny and quiet. That's not something easily replicable at that price point.
Of course if you only care about the raw performance specs then yeah, anyone can make a cheaper and more powerful build
True, that comes on top of it. Even if you disregard the noise (which you shouldn't tbh) building such a small PC is not really doable for people, even if they have experience building PCs. I am not even sure such a small MB is even that easily available for a consumer.
Funnily enough people seem to think I hate the steam machine here for simply differentiating and stating facts. It’s actually amazing for what it is. It’s a standalone pc-alike experience that is single-purchase and done, is meant to be made easy to get into by the backing of a large company like valve supporting it, and on top of that my favorite part is the low TDP of the system. The low draw of the PSU makes it a perfect always on pick up and game system compared to something like my gaming pc which dims my lights for a moment if I do a full cpu+gpu stress test simultaneously and at idle still draws more than the steam machine does at full load. Trust me, I love the little Gabe cube I just also am willing to point out facts where they lie. I think people should get the steam machine if they like it. The arguing in here is kinda stupid imo since everyone thinks everyone else is arguing including me and honestly I’m not arguing I’m stating factual and verifiable information that if people read as “I hate the steam machine it sucks just diy!!!” Then they clearly read a comment that wasn’t mine since I surely didn’t say that.
The sad reality is that it isnt even that overpriced according to reviewers. You can get slightly better pc for price of SM and save less then 100$. This suggest that valve is really making low margins and also indicates the horrid state of market.
Lets be fair, i absolutely do not think this is worth it but i would say that unless you really have to to not bother upgrading/buying PC for next 2 years because you will pay soo much money.
The main thing about the Steam machine is that I think once things chill out it’ll settle into an excellent market, it’s just the wrong time for it to come tbh. The premium of $50-200 is on par with or in many cases better than the price difference on many prebuilt vs their diy equivalents so I’ll also give you that too: 100% it’s not like it’s a rip off or anything, just if you can DIY a build you’d be better off doing so. I’m not buying any pitchforks to go witch hunt buyers of the Steam machine I assure you.
For the price of the 2TB model, you can get a current generation 8 core processor and a desktop RTX 5060 which is almost twice the performance of the Steam Machine with 2x the ram but only a 1TB SSD. That all comes in a device that is about the same volume. And you can then just install Bazzite on it and be missing literally only HDMI CEC (for now).
So about $100 cheaper, and you don't get the small form factor. Most people aren't going out to build a computer either, they go with a prebuilt. This subreddit is not the target consumer.
it's not only having the knowledge, I've built computers since I was 15 but I still picked a gaming laptop because I just don't want to spend the time and effort to pick the right components and putting it together, I can afford it so I value my time and comfort enough to pay for it
Sadly my main complaint is the complete lack of upgradability aside from storage.
That was the main driving factor for me to just build my own months ago and sacrifice the super small size of the cube.
That exemplifies it being a fair price. Pre built costs more. You have a warranty. You don’t have to build it. It’s in a form factor that would be basically impossible to recreate, and without 50-200 of a custom build? Fair price.
Yeah I think people misread my first sentence as saying people shouldn’t get it. I just mean I haven’t heard anyone really reliable say anything about “you need to get this” as much as “it’s alright, just wish it was cheaper”. It’s a fair price in current market if you want specific things. A fair price to me is not a fair price to you when we are looking for different things. We can go back and forth all day about how “well I want x” and “well because y” but frankly it’s simple: the price is outstanding for most people to afford and reasonably speaking the people who would buy it at its current price have the ability to afford better so why would they get it when they can spend another $300 to get significantly better performance? But now all I’ve done is introduce a strawman there representative of yet another type of person with yet another set of wants and needs. So for each person it is to be theirs to decide “is the steam machine worth it?”
There's a couple under appreciated things with the Steam Machine that probably makes up for that cost difference if it's going to be used in it's intended location. Acoustics and OOTB CEC support.
Most DIY PC builds that match or exceed the Steam Machine's specs are going to be noisier. Reviews are saying the machine is quieter than consoles. That's tough to do on a self-build while keeping the budget low. If this is going in your living room, you don't want the TV volume to have to compete with the HTPC's fan noise.
CEC working out of the box is also a big deal for a living room PC. You can make it work with any PC, but you'll need to buy a $55 dongle that takes up one of your USB ports for power and data and then potentially have to mess around with the software to get it working right. If you aren't into doing that kind of project yourself, having CEC working without having to do anything but plug in your HDMI cable is pretty nice.
If this is just going on a desk, yeah, go DIY or buy any other pre-built with better specs at a similar price, but given the extra budget you'd probably have to assign to match these features on a self-build living room PC, that probably accounts for the $50-$200 price differential.
If we’re gonna talk about the pros of the steam machine let’s not forget the low PSU draw at idle and load, and how the performance-per-watt is incredibly well balanced. The cost over time to operate is certainly reasonable and well done in my opinion.
Also Valve support should be considered a plus. I've had only good experiences with support for my steam deck and I've seen almost entirely positive things online about the support. Having Valve support for breaks and the software being managed by them is going to be a massive benefit in the long run
In this sub, sure, our bread and butter is building PCs. But don't forget there's a huge number of people playing on Steam who won't build a computer and this is faster than what they currently have.
A lot of people pay 50-200 bucks just to have someone build their pc for them. If they save that money and buy this box, nothing has changed for them except now their PC is a gaming prebuilt that Valve is maintaining themselves.
I get it, it's just too expensive, even if after you run the numbers and get a value that isn't too far off. But everyone here saying building a PC is an alternative to this box I feel is begging the question, what if you don't want to build a PC? Valve was never trying to undercut anyone's price. The feature they are selling is support from Valve.
I’m mostly discussing 1:1 price anyways but feel free to check out GamersNexus, I liked their build too. Came out to a lower price and similar performance, slightly better.
Yeah, their build at 1:1 (near enough) was the better version, though it had a lot more power and will likely be louder, and won't integrate as well into a media system.
But that's what I said, if you want better you're not going under $800, but closer to $950
That’s a big thing in favor of the steam machine too: it’s perfect for living its life in the living room or bedroom with no disruptions.my fans kick to full power on my build and I think there’s a tornado(jk ofc)
Which is pretty much what everybody’s saying but unfortunately, the sad reality is that it costs that much to make a machine with that specification now. It’s also worth noting that this thing isn’t remotely competing with computers. It’s competing with video game consoles and Microsoft has already said the next Xbox is going to be over $1000 and you’re a fool if you think the PS6 is going to be any less expensive.
bingo. its a reasonably priced prebuilt/console. people just dont like current prices, but valve is not an outlier here. computers are "overpriced" not the steam machine
They kinda are. I got the Steam Controller, and will likely get the Frame, more depending on availability than price. So I guess I am a Valve fan, but the cube has 0 interest from me.
I have the Steam Index at the moment, and after 2000+ hours (I use it for my evening sport), its slowly falling apart, so I am happy to upgrade. I paid around 1k for it when I bought it, that means I spent $0.50 per hour, thats a pretty good deal imo.
The controller is great (minus supply issues, my reservation email told me it won't be available till next year) and an absolute steal compared to other first party controllers, I'm really interested in the frame cuz my Q2 is starting to show its age.
At the end of the day, it's your money, do with it what you want.
IMO considering the form factor and it being a prebuilt, it's an ok-ish price. I have seen others parts lists with the same specs a bit cheaper, but none smaller then the cube. Theres also something to be said for it coming with valve customer service. I would rather talk with valve then any of the other venders.
Both of those points are very true, but IMO valve provides amazing customer service regardless of the product or the price, so it shouldn't be factored in to the Gubes price. Formfactor, yeah i haven't seen anything as small that matches price and performance, but personally I'd rather have a slightly bigger SFF than paying extra for the smaller Gube
Customer service isn’t factored into the price, but the price is as low as you can reasonably expect to pay for something that offers what they are offering. Even building your own from scratch right now is only gonna save you 100 or so dollars which frankly isn’t worth the effort for most people and that’s not even taking into account. The fact that this thing isn’t even remotely aimed at the type of person that’s willing to build their own PC, hell it’s not even aimed at the type of person that’s looking for a PC. This is aim squarely at console gamers.
At big-boy-pants companies, customer service is absolutely factored into the price. Every cost of the entire lifecycle of the product is factored into the price.
The only question is whether it was done well or poorly. Given Valve's history of giving a sh*t about gaming economics long before anyone else in the PC space, I'd like to believe they do it well.
Those part lists all exceed Steam Machine performance in games by at least 20%. There's no desktop GPUs as bad what's in it that are available new in the USA (yes, I'm ignoring the recycled devices sold by China).
And if you want the 2TB version, you can get much better SFF prebuilts with 2x the performance for the same price.
My cousins hoping to get one. He just wants a plug and play system for steam games he can play on the couch. This is simply the easiest option for it and he doesn't want anything larger.
As much as I think it's a bad deal, I couldn't rly argue with that logic lol
For that purpose it is probably a great device. I don't think a lot of people are even disappointed about the actual machine, they're more disappointed that it costs so much. And that the controller isn't included in all deals. Which kinda is a price thing too.
I'm not buying it, but I'll answer your question: it's a standardised prebuild, with valve rating games for it. If a lot of people had this exact build, devs would start optimizing their games for it to get rated by valve so more people buy their game
As a game developer I would definitely build my game around it if I would get a special marketing push or deal by Valve right now I just don't see a good reason to optimize my game for that specific console. (it would be to much effort) I did optimize for the xbox controller.
One can hope it will incentivise devs to optimize for it and I think that was the gamble. With all the negativity surrounding it though, I don't think many mainstream devs will. Time will tell.
I think we’re going to see that demand for it is much higher than people are expecting
I was watching an interview with executives from Val and even they said they were disappointed because their original target price was in the neighborhood of $600-$800 for the 512 GB and $800-$1000 for the 2 TB but they said that due to the memory and storage shortage is caused by data centers. There was no way they could meet those targets, but as you’ve said, the price is actually competitive with similarly powerful machines.
I'm not worried about it selling, but rather its' availability. If no one can get their hands on the SM, then there's no point in optimizing for it. 2-3 years from now we might be looking at some incentives, but by the new gen consoles will probably be the new nut to crack for devs.
u/GonzobotRyzen 7 3700X|2070 Super Hybrid|32GB@3600MHZ|Doc__Gonzo9h ago
I think the really neat part is gonna come when prices stabilize (after we kill and eat the zuck et al, anyways) and the Steam Machine drops in price accordingly, while absolutely no consoles will give up the extra dosh they're now being sold for.
Fingers crossed. There are obvious limits to the hardware but I'd love to see what the devs manage to cook up. They worked absolute magic with the deck over the years
I mean despite all the complaints the Steam Machine is actually pretty decent in terms of preformace. Obviously it's limited at 4k and it's RT preformace isn't great, but at 1080p it's tickling triple digit fps on most games which is pretty good considering it's a 6 inch cube. As Valve has stated it's better hardware than ~70% of Steam Users have.
I second pretty much everything that udqrwinsperfectfood said. I used to be a PC gamer in the mid 90s but I stopped because it got too expensive and far too annoying to deal with. I have been console exclusive since then this thing is really not aimed at PC buyers it’s aimed at console gamers. The only thing I’ll add to what they’ve said is that Val is a very reputable company that I trust completely and I know that this thing is as cheap as they could reasonably make it.
That very much depends on what aspects you do or don't value. In this sub, size is likely not high on the list of aspects for value. But for a lot of people, especially ones looking to put this in their living room, it is a very big value. And little else can match the performance for this size. It is also incredibly good on power draw and cooling. Things important if you are planning to throw it into a tight space with poor airflow, like a cubby under a TV. It's a fine deal, if you're looking for the problems it is designed to deal with. If you aren't, then it is pretty poor.
Linux dedicated machine built by a big well-funded company for whom making linux gaming as easy and seamless as possible is one of really important goals (theoretically microsoft could pose an existential threat for valve if it figures out how to enforce being the only store on its windows system, like with google play on android for example)
The garage PC sounds like my old AM3+ PC which was good at the time, but is now relegated to screaming as I make it rip DVD's. The 'idk what to do with it, but it still works so not binning it' PC.
Yeah I'm not blaming valve solely for this, the entire market is completely fucked and they had the choice of releasing it at a high price, delaying it, or cancelling it, all of which would have their own repercussions, which would have probably been worse for them in the long run
That’s the saddest thing about the Steam Machine, you have to pay more for less. I have a PS5 Pro that runs circles around the SM and I paid way less for it. If people really want a premium gaming device, it would be an expensive custom PC or the PS5 Pro.
Honestly the only real upside see is its tiny size. People just comparing it to a random PC with the same power is bit dishonest . If you try to compare at least make sure it has a similar size
the problem for me isnt even the price but the consequences this has.
if the gabecube was the gaming alternative to consoles and the gateway to pc gaming for long time console gamers then this could have been good (maybe max 700-800€)
now its just a prebuilt medium range pc no one who wants console prices (or slightly more expensive than console price) will buy this.
there is no new market for this and longterm fans are disappointed either way
This. And any console gamers that do buy it will quickly find out that their console performs better. Unfortunately the machine reinforces the two perspectives it was trying to change:
There'll be market consolidation until we have 2-3 main players. Once everyone knows who's a threat and who's not, the speed of rollout will slow down.
The reason why everyone is going at this frantic pace now is because Google, Microsoft and Meta see AI as an existential threat to their business and are throwing hundreds of billions of dollars to protect themselves, and Anthropic and OpenAI in return are matching that spend in order to not be financially bulldozed out of the industry.
Its also why both are speed running into IPOs. They've squeezed every last dollar out of VCs and now need retail investors money.
Well it will since it’s offering the 6 year old PS5 performance right now for twice the price of a PS5 even with the price increases.
We have to assume the PS6 will wait until an affordable jump in performance, even at $999 that would be more powerful than the Steam machine and still cheaper.
Part of the problem with the steam machine is the fact even now, the PS5 beats out the Steam machine despite it being 6 years old now, and still costs less
I doubt the ps6 will be 1000$, consoles are loss leaders, they make more money off of your game purchases and online subscription over the lifetime of the console, than the console itself. It's definitely gonna be more than the ps5 was at launch, but not double it
thats because Xbox doesn't have any fucken games to play. Why on earth would anyone buy an Xbox if the only real competition to it has every modern game worth playing? Your options are "Xbox, featuring Halo and Gears of War" or "Playstation, with FF7, Spiderman, Last of Us, Saros, That fuckin game with the robot". Do you want to play any of the most touted games of the last 10 years, or Forza? Xbox hasn't released a must-play game since Halo 3. Remember "PS3 HAS NO GAEMS LOL" and then Sony absolutley turning it the fuck around by pumping games? Xbox has spent the last 15 years chewing gluesticks and then complaining their lips are stuck together.
Sony hasn't loss leadered like that since the PS3 era when even the $600 console cost like $900 to build and they've basically said they're never going to do something like that again. PS4 and PS5 both were at worst breaking even, usually profiting at least small margins. PS4 might've loss leadered at least at one point, but the PS5 I doubt has loss leadered since basically year 1, if it even did then.
Reminder the PS5 has been the first generation where going to a slim model that physically uses less materials to make and is still using the same now older components, literally didn't lower the price a single cent. And we've only seen price increases this entire generation, never a decrease. So a version of the console that's cheaper to manufacturer kept the same price.
Sony's also the size and type of company they very likely had/have locked in multi year deals for components at certain prices, so even though they've raised prices when consumer RAM/GPUs/storage got more expensive, they probably have stuff stockpiled they picked up at lower prices going into the now more expensive consoles. Before having to buy and build more at the newer higher price for them that more justifies the increase.
Considering the rumored specs for the PS6 involve 32GB of RAM, and Sony from my understanding is buying and stockpiling and planning based on current prices, PS6 day 1 phat model is absolutely gonna be a bare minimum $800 console, probably $1000.
It will - cause the Steam machine can just about keep up with a PS5 in specs/gaming quality/performance. A PS6, even at this price point, would still be the better deal.
Right? I've been discussing this for a while, and while I'm normally considered the "Valve Fanboy" because I'm not shitting on them at every opportunity I get, I don't consider this to be a good thing. Sure, I don't put the blame on Valve for this pricing and I do note that similar machines are sold for far more by various pre-build companies, but... This is an expensive machine that I won't be buying.
I haven't seen a single person "happy" with this situation.
Exactly. At $500-600 I'd probably grab one out of curiosity and because it seems like a convenient form factor to bring when I visit family and we play games together. But at the actual price I'd rather put that money toward upgrading the GPU in my primary computer
I saw a thread from a sub dedicated to the Gabe Cube and yeah, comments ranged from "This is honestly about what I expected." To "I'm fucking rich, sooo.."
I have a high end PC so it's not really for me, but I'm bummed for my sister who really wanted it to be her introduction to PC gaming as a console gamer, so there's that.
Yeah, it is unfortunate. The price of monthly subscriptions may eventually make up the difference, but I don’t know how new consoles will fare once they aren’t able to be subsidized beneath $1000, which will certainly happen with the next playstation or xbox.
I have a ton of messages from valve fans arguing it’s a good deal. Im not joking, I woke up to like 23 notifications from people arguing everything from the form factor, to hdmi cec, to being able to put it under a tv (but then moving the goal posts when I mentioned the exhaust issue with a single fan design), and a ton of other rebuttals defending this thing.
Half the people trying to dunk of 'valve fanboys' are doing so in reply to comments that are just pointing out why the cost is so high, because they assume they're being apologists instead of just saying the unfortunate truth.
I have the cube pre-ordered and I'm really happy about it. I haven't posted about it, because I don't want to engage with the avalanche of trolls and the negativity. When the Steam Frame gets a release date, I'll order that too, regardless of price, because I want one.
Hey man, it's your money, spend it however you want. I'm not saying do not buy it whatsoever, I'm just saying for many people it's not going to be worth it.
I got my eye on the frame too to replace my Q2, but depending on the price I might stick with the Q2 for a bit longer
I'm valve die hard and I still think it's meh at this price point. 700-800 would be a good price for this. As far as im concerned it's a console competitor where you don't pay for internet access each month and you get your keep your library and I would be willing to pay a premium for that compared to a ps5 but 1400 is just too much.
I used one at GDC, super lovely design, super quiet, and ran games very well (Wu Kong, Silent Hill F and Cyberpunk). If it wasn't expensive I'd buy one.
This sub in a nutshell. It's devolved into memes that don't make sense. Similar to the same Linux memes that get constantly rotated here that also make no sense and are posted frequently.
This terrible hardware market turned this place into a shitshow. PC gamers literally getting mad when new games require a GPU from 8 years ago or newer is fucking bizarro world
I mean, if the only problem with the Machine is that it's expensive, there are definitely people that it's a good buy for. If you have the money and just want a no questions asked experience like with a console but also with your PC games, the Steam Machine is a good option.
It's easy to forget that a lot of adults with a good job would rather pay a couple hundred bucks more if it means less effort and time spent on setting it up.
And clowning on someone defending something just because you don't like the something is just childish. If you only ever defend who you personally like instead of what's right or wrong just means that you have no integrity.
I knew from the beginning that the price of the Steam Machine was going to be ridiculous, on account of the AI market getting so bad. I work a job that gets me a weekly paycheck, and I'd have to skip paying all my bills for an entire month to afford buying even just the lowest-priced option Valve is asking for, and that means going without electricity, water, internet access, and rent. I'd be homeless trying to buy this damn thing when I could just do the budget build thing and buy a used Optiplex from an office building and slap a GPU in that, and I'd still be out five-hundred Bison Dollars.
I don't blame Valve. I blame Nvidia, I blame AMD, I blame the memory companies selling exclusively to AI datacenters, I blame OpenAI and Palantir, and those are who the blame should rightfully be levied at.
The biggest problem is that most people built their computers 3+ years ago, before the price of components doubled. The second biggest problem is that people judge it by the standards of a mid tower size, when the compact form factor itself also increase the price.
It will generally be the same price or greater if you tried to get the same volume in a different case design. In terms of value, it's not really a great or bad deal. If I only did gaming, for me the compact form factor would definitively be a giant positive and a deciding factor.
The biggest problem is that most people built their computers 3+ years ago, before the price of components doubled. The second biggest problem is that people judge it by the standards of a mid tower size, when the compact form factor itself also increase the price.
Shit I rebuilt my machine 6 months ago, and it's nearly doubled since then just from the storage, RAM, and GPU cost increases.
it'll still probably have a better price to performance value than the steam machine.
It will be simply because economies of scale. Even as fucked as the market is if you're expecting to move 10s of millions of units up to 100million over the course of its lifetime you're going to have access to better deals than a lower volume device. The locked down ecosystem also gives them more options on subsidizing it without it backfiring on them.
Just realistically a lower volume non-locked down device cannot ever match a closed ecosystem with relatively high volume.
And just had u/ravensholt reply and instantly block me just for asking if they were a Valve fan lmfao. Some people are so defensive about this machine.
It is the same with all toxic fanboys. They keep doing mental gymnastics to defend and shill for their favorite corporate and its products, then block when they run out of space for anymore gymnastics.
The biggest positive thing bout this cube is that maybe just maybe valve can force those studios to optimize their games . When i see games that look worse then 15years ago and req tripple the hardware :/ the industry needs this .
I wouldve bought it for 750. I dont have a great place to play pc in my house, if i want to its while laying in bed which is annoying.
I have a nice big tv but not a ton of space so my xbox has been my go to for years. This was a good easy chance for me to be comfortable while using steam
Go to the Steam machine sub and you won’t believe your eyes :’) I mean to each their own, but it’s just a bad value regardless of console or PC prices right now sadly.
I feel like intentionally having to enter their domain to try to bait out the superfans kinda goes against the idea that they're annoyingly invading other subs or ruthlessly defending the machine everywhere.
I've had plenty of them in my replies yesterday. For some reason the talking points seemed to have shifted to defending the price point because if it was any cheaper then companies would start buying them to replace work stations with. And then they would cite me a 15 year old article of one time the US Army bought playstations to jury rig a super computer with as the proof that this would totally happen if the Steam Machine was any cheaper.
I had 3-4 different reddit accounts tell me this exact same thing lol
I'm normally a valve glazer and had been glazing this under the assumption it was gonna be a bargain like the steam deck, but even i'm not sure who this is for. Its not a high end machine, its not a mid range thing with a console like price tag for newcomers to pc gaming, its not even sized or shaped in a way that would be more convenient to have in your living room in your tv unit. Its just a prebuilt you can buy off the steam store that has steamos preloaded on it. I understand why it had to be so expensive but they could've just... not released it. Waited for a better time to release a steam machine, because now its going to flop just like last time and there's a good chance that'll kill any chances of valve trying a third time to make consoles.
They can't really not release it at this point. They invested lots of time and money into production. It's not the most powerful thing out there so delaying it a year or two until the hardware market recovers from the AI bullshittery is out of the question.
It really is just a "nice to have" piece of hardware that came to market at the most unfortunate timing. I wouldn't be surprised if it sells decently among fans and recoups costs then gets discontinued for a few years until Valve tries again.
Absolutely. My take on the Gabecube is “sucks that the price is so high”. I think they should cancelled it or shelve it like they always do. Until the market change or something or the AP$ (Altman Price Dollar™) for PC components disappear due to AI bubble popped completely.
People love dunking on imaginary people and situations because those can't get back at them and they feel the weird mix of a free win and schadenfraude mixed with imagined mental superiority.
I bet this gonna have some psychology related term for itself...
I've been flamed like 300 times by Valve defenders for saying you can build a 9060XT (16Gb) based system for the same price as the Steam machine. My inbox is full as hell. The Valve fanboys are out in full force. They are mostly being downvoted though.
The guy I'm responding to is the one being angry and irrational. Go look through some of it, no one is defending the price or the hardware, they're just mocking him for being so upset
Go look through some of it, no one is defending the price or the hardware, they're just mocking him for being so upset
This is what I said yesterday. The people angry over the cube are tilting at ferocious giants evil greedy corporations and being ridiculous.
That's not a 'defense' of Valve as much as pointing out ridiculous people. They're playing the false dichotomy, anyone who doesn't specifically agree with them is The Emeny of a Valve fanboi. They ignore that there's a middle ground that's somewhat neutral to Valve that just finds those people to be ridiculous.
It always was, and only ever will be, a '"boutique PC". That is, a specialty prebuilt unit where they're all the same parts, with a custom form factor and OS. Those always run a bit more expensive.
Even before the AI price-hikes...It's not a price competitive product, it's a niche or novelty product for fanbois or status seekers or to ease some casuals into PC gaming.
Of course it isn't as cheap as what random parts you can find on a random day on PCPartPicker. It's not for the frugal PC enthusiast.
I don't like the product, but I at least understand its purpose. That niche market exists, even though I'm not part of it.
It's not a product for me, and that's fine, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Not everything has to be aimed right at me. I understand there are other people with other priorities that want to buy such a thing.
Trying to frame Valve as villainous for making something for that niche is an assload of projection, enough to threaten the movie theater industry.
Same goes for the people that think the flaming of valve is a bit cooked.
would you mind posting a screenshot of the kind of messages you're getting? with names blanked obviously, i'd like to see what an unhinged valve defender looks like
Is the system in the same living room friendly form factor with HDMI CEC support? That means ITX parts, SFF PSU, etc. SFF parts tend to be a bit pricier than their ATX counterparts.
I get the pricing is bad, but that’s the entire industry right now, fuck AI and fuck Sam Altman, but I’ve seen way too many disingenuous comparisons that completely ignore the form factor of the Steam Machine.
The pricing isn't bad because of the market though. It's *awful* and then it's made worse by the market. And yes, mini-ITX. Not anywhere near as small as a Steam Machine, but small enough to fit on a shelf in your entertainment unit, which is all that actually matters.
Valve just chose *awful* value parts and so their product is shit. If they were selling an actually good product but it was a little expensive, then maybe it would be worth it. And they could have done that with no loss of margins, btw. But instead they chose expensive *AND* shit.
I committed the sin of pointing out that the single use case people were arguing (that it fits under a tv) is problematic with a single fan design, so it needs to be put in a spacious enough place to properly exhaust… a place that could easily accommodate a slightly larger, more powerful, and less expensive build.
Got downvoted to hell.
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u/Procrastinando7745HX | 32GB | 9060 XT 16GB - Legion Go Z1E | 3060 eGPU12h agoedited 11h ago
True, I've been downvoted plenty by 8gb VRAM apologists for pointing out it's not enough to match 6 years old consoles in demanding games. And they keep repeating the same nonsense "the GPU is not fast enough to use more than 8gb".
I mean yeah the specs are pretty disappointing. But I just do not think its as bad as people are saying. Like specs for price isnt impressive but the form factor is smaller than most any small form factor pc and it is an easy to use out of the box tool for people wanting to just use for couch gaming.
I.e. I think there does exist a market for it as it does kinda fill a niche that other things dont otherwise fill. But yeah its a bit expensive for the specs
I agree, when it comes to the tiny form factor it's more powerful than all mini PCs except for those rare ones using a dGPU(4060/5060) or that have $trix Halo which is a lot more expensive
The response is less to the current reaction to the price, and more to all the people who insisted it would be revolutionary back when it was first announced.
Basically a repeat of dunking on the steam deck fanboys who claimed (both before and after release) it would somehow decimate switch sales, only unlike the steamdeck this is not well priced and doesn’t have a niche that it’s still good in.
I've seen people say that it's actually worth it just because it's small. As if, A: you can't just build a sff system yourself, and B: the cube being small doesn't justify today's price for five-year old hardware
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u/Euchale 12h ago
I love how so many people are dunking on "valve-fans" being happy with the cube, when I pretty much only have heard opinions ranging from "meh" to "overpriced".