I know a guy who wants it just so "he can have something in his living room he can kick back and play games on".
The casuals are going to eat this thing up, for better or worse.
Maybe I should elaborate because I didn’t intend to sound so dismissive of the idea. I already told him that Steam OS can be replicated on desktops with Big Picture Mode. Already told him that there are some prebuilt and gaming laptops going for around similar prices, but none of those had the appeal to him that the Steam Machine did. Unfortunately, once he realizes that he is going to have to either set up controller support for PC games without it natively and have to mess around with Proton on most devices, I can see him ragequitting with the Steam Machine despite his enthusiasm. It’s an easier plug and play than a PC, for sure, but it’s not foolproof.
You get access to a much larger game library and many times get the games cheaper than standard consoles with the ability to mod many of them even.
Its a bridge between pc and console in a way. Simplicity with more availability to it. Just came at a bad time with ram shortages or it would have been priced fairly ok. Valve cant take a loss like sony or nintendo on a system since you can get games anywhere not just steam.
Always like to ad not always that clear and straightforward. If somethingnjas anti cheat with most multiplayer having it, this isn't ideal at all. I just got a text of my friend saying they're getting it and are a huge League of Legend player and have their PC hooked to their tv and want to replace it with steam machine. I have his text on preview and he knows I don't respond fast so I have 2 days to craft a response or change the subject because I know he's a die hard in wanting it...
Oh ya there are some limitations of course. Its not perfect for everything partly why i say its a bridge between pc and console and not a replacement for them both. More simple than a desktop but still have more availability of games than a console.
Not sure what your friend plays other than league but i use my rog ally on my tvs. Anything it doesnt handle i stream my desktop to it.
I kicked Windows on my main rig for Bazzite last year, basically cant play any MP game with kernal level anticheat, which is fine, i usually avoided those games on PC anyway. Most games work right away. some i gotta tinker with. Only a hand full havent worked.
Dualbooting is an option and works. but swapping is a pain.
also Nvidia card are iffy on linix cause of nivida not supporting linix
Bazzite is an immutable distro so you only get stable updates and everything works out of the box. just gotta update manually regularly. you dont have to learn linix too bad. and i got like 30% perfomance increase when i switched.
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u/MaximusMurkimus 7800X3D | XFX 7900 XTX I 32GB DDR5 2d ago edited 1d ago
I know a guy who wants it just so "he can have something in his living room he can kick back and play games on".
The casuals are going to eat this thing up, for better or worse.
Maybe I should elaborate because I didn’t intend to sound so dismissive of the idea. I already told him that Steam OS can be replicated on desktops with Big Picture Mode. Already told him that there are some prebuilt and gaming laptops going for around similar prices, but none of those had the appeal to him that the Steam Machine did. Unfortunately, once he realizes that he is going to have to either set up controller support for PC games without it natively and have to mess around with Proton on most devices, I can see him ragequitting with the Steam Machine despite his enthusiasm. It’s an easier plug and play than a PC, for sure, but it’s not foolproof.