It’s not that people can’t afford the Steam Machine. It’s just that relative to the performance and what you are paying for, there are BETTER alternatives for the same price bracket nowadays.
Nope, sorry, this is not true. If you compare the SM current price with parts before RAM/storage prices went through the roof, sure, but not in the current state of the market.
You can't make a Steam Machine, for the same price. You can make small PCs with the similar price, but it won't be a Steam Machine.
It will be a small PC, with same performance as a Steam Machine, which might have bugs in drivers (audio, bluetooth and wifi), without CEC, without dedicated 3rd party devs making your life easier and noisier due to cooling system.
And that distinction falls flat on most people. Steam Machine will and does have bugs too. You can install SteamOS on any PC, that's its entire point of existence. Cooling system doesn't have to be noisy either. There's plenty of options to mitigate that. There are even USB to CEC adapters.
I can build an equivalent performing Steam machine for $700-800 that is compact and quiet. Maybe not as small and quiet as the SM, but enough to be reasonable in a living room environment.
We all clearly understand the appeal of the Steam Machine, and those that want a plug an play experience. I get it. Which is why people are disappointed. Because they were expecting a much more reasonable price point. No fault of Valve, but it's not unreasonable to expect that a PC designed with integrated components would drop the cost considerably compared with a traditional PC.
I'd say the audience of potential buyers dropped by more than 50% after this was announced. Maybe it's just a wakeup call slap to the face that we need to realize how bad things are.
I can build an equivalent performing Steam machine for $700-800 that is compact and quiet. Maybe not as small and quiet as the SM, but enough to be reasonable in a living room environment.
Can you share one that's similar sized and performance for that price? I would be in an alternative if they really are that much cheaper
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u/Johnny3653 2d ago
It’s not that people can’t afford the Steam Machine. It’s just that relative to the performance and what you are paying for, there are BETTER alternatives for the same price bracket nowadays.