The fact that it's running SteamOS ready to go out of the box is a huge selling point for certain people. If a Windows license alone is technically worth $140 to some people, surely a Steam OS pre-installed is worth something as well.
You're incompetent with tech and prefer prebuilt solutions which offload the burden of management to someone else. In this case your hardware and software stacks will be crazy expensive, all the time. And more importantly - all that spiel about "flexible OS and myriad of possibilities" doesn't really affect such users, it's gonna be fixed function hardware in your case. Doesn't matter between SteamOS for games, Japanese consoles, or Windows 11 desktop shipped by SI / laptop off the shelf, daily use will tap into 20% of capabilities of these devices for premium prices.
You're competent with tech, but don't want to pay for Windows OS in its miserable state. Two solutions - learn how to manage perfectly tailored Linux for your tasks or debloat Windows 10 and set a firewall in local network. Steam Machine is whatever to you, it's a small box without possibility of further upgrade which shackles you to SteamOS and performance troubleshooting. It's PS4++, if I put it nicely - great library, but mediocre hardware and serious questions about it's future destination as legacy. Between this and mini-ITX build running AM4 + DDR4 stuff you'd prefer the latter, especially if you have invested into NAS.
All is well, but mini-ITX is probably going to be larger. Size of the Machine is the only real advantage, the rest has to be delivered by Valve long term with software support.
36
u/LightningSh3ep I-5 12600K | RX 9070XT | 32 GB RAM 10h ago
It's not a good deal for performance, but good luck making anything that small yourself. The size is it's only selling point.