How do you guys feel about the Steammachine?

[echogecko]

Would you guys buy it, or stick to your own consoles or pc? me personally i would just stick to my pc cuz im alright with my ps3 and pc that ill hopefully get later this year or next. I guess one thing would be that the steam machine wouldnt need discs for obvious reasons. but im a little worried if the steam machine is successful then playstation, xbox and nintendo would stop having discs and physical copies. i dont want that!

Also, how do you feel about the extra stuff like the controllers and vr headset? i think its alright i guess.. whenever i play games that need a controller i just use a ps4 controller. im not very familiar with vr games, i kinda feel like they are pretty cool but are more of a novelty atm. I wouldnt buy an entire headset just to play half life alyx or job simulator. unless i become one of those stinky vrchat players.

honestly, it DOES look cool though! and obviously, the whole aspect that Half Life 3 could finally come out would be amazing. lets all inject ourselves with hope. I hope to god they added adrian shepherd to the game, i wont forget him!!! opposing forces was super cool. i love half life 1 man euggehh...

[Zero Kirby]

I've been wanting that Steam Controller ever since getting a dock for my Steam Deck so I've already added that to my wishlist, ha ha ha

As far as the Steam Machine itself, I think it's a pretty nice piece of kit. It's basically just gonna be a Linux PC with a gaming focused frontend like the Steam Deck, super-customizable on both the software and hardware ends. Now, I already have a Steam Deck and a desktop PC so I don't think I'm gonna be grabbing one, but I'm definitely interested in how expensive it's gonna be. I'd like to see it provide a decently affordable alternative to the current console market and pre-built gaming PCs. I don't think it's gonna sell gangbusters or even make other companies sweat... that said, the Steam Deck is still one of the best handheld PC options out there, so I think the Machine will take a decent chunk of the pie.

but im a little worried if the steam machine is successful then playstation, xbox and nintendo would stop having discs and physical copies. i dont want that!

That's not gonna be why the other companies abandon physical media. As it is they've already done so by such a large margin, with so many physical "copies" that really just act as DRM keys for games you have to download anyway. If they abandon physical media it'll be out of practicality/because it just makes more money, not because the GabeCube sold more than people expected it to.

[MediocreMetastasis]

People are getting mad that valve is pricing the steam machine "like a pc" which is stupid because 1, it is a pc and 2, playstation, xbox, and nintendo sell their console at a loss and make their money from studios publishing their games on their consoles. Valve can't really do that.
People thought the steamdeck was gonna kill the switch but it barely made a dent so I think nintendo and playstation will probably be fine, xbox on the other hand... They were in the works of making a console that runs steam and is basically a pc. Seeming that steam beat them to it and they're already failing heavily in the console market. That will probably be the final nail in the coffin.

I will say if I were to buy it I'd probably buy it for the steamOS. Probably the best linux fork on the market at the moment and they're probably waiting to release it off their hardware once Microsoft does something to windows that affects them negatively.

For half life 3... yeah I don't think so. They do usually release something like that desk job game when they made the steamdeck. I'm gonna predict it's that citadel multiplayer vr game that had assets left in some of their newer games.

[ABlueRose]

I think it's pretty cool. I upgraded my PC last year, so I probably won't get the Steam Machine. If only it had come out a year earlier...
The VR headset is interesting to me though, and depending on the price I might get it!

I love that the front plate of the Steam Machine is easily customized. I already saw one website planning to sell casings that look like the companion cube lol

I think this will be really useful for gamers who aren't tech savvy/confident enough to build their own PC. Assuming the Steam Machine does well, and a lot of games are certified for it, games for it will be a lot less buggy on release since there won't be so many variables.

It's also really cool that this will introduce more people to Linux!

My main worry (Aside from "Oh no what is the price going to be") is that this could increase the monopoly Steam has on PC gaming, and even though Steam's great now, Gabe won't live forever. I'd just hate to see people stuck in yet another system that gets increasingly worse.

[foxmosis]

I have a laptop that I got sometime around 2019 running Windows 10.  It's starting to show it's age a little bit so I'm due for an upgrade and I don't think I'll have to elaborate on this forum of all places why I have been considering not moving on with Windows 11.  I did get a Steam Deck a year ago though which gave me my first experience with messing around with Linux and that gave me a sense of reassurance that I could make the move over to a Linux based OS.  But I wanted to wait to see if Valve would release a desktop version as I really like SteamOS and would like to stick with that because I figure whatever familairty I have will make the Linux growing pains a bit easier.

And here we are!  I'm waiting on the price point but as long as it's under $1,000 I'll be good to go!  I'm mostly looking to use it as a computer, less as a gaming device, and I've already figured out how to get most of my main programs to work on Linux.  The only one that I haven't bothered with figuring out is video editing, because I'm assuming it might just be easier to learn a Linux-based video editor rather than trying to get Vegas 15 to work on it.

I'll be keeping around my laptop for the times where I need Windows, or I feel like writing out and about!  It's still a handy little computer, I just need something new eventually.

[navi]

In my case I have PS4 and PSV with me both are jail-broken but most of my memories are with Steam library and I have active friends on Steam itself. Second reason is I like Valve working on proton layer which helps run windows games on linux os, as open source is the key to new innovations not closed system like windows (which is mostly enshittificated now), plus ram prices have you seen it, its bonkers; another utopia can be gaming studio giving shit about game optimization as most people shifted towards GabeCube. These are some of the reason I would gladly throw money on it.

[zomboid]

i'm honestly really looking forward to the steam machine >_< i have an old gaming laptop from 2017 and it has! A Lot of problems!  for a while there it was saying its battery was at 0% while being plugged in, and now it says 100%, there are maybe 3 games i can run above minimum graphics settings, aaaand....the battery has been selling for about two years  so i'm desperately hoping for a steam machine when they announce the price/finally put it on the market.

i've never been a big fan of the restrictions of consoles or the disparity between console and PC - i do enjoy handhelds like DS but i've never been appealed to consoles and newgen handhelds because of the limit to what you can play and do on them! i kind of want a steam deck because i would LOVE to have essentially a PC in my pocket, i just havent had the money to spare for one. generally i'm glad that valve is developing all these new pieces of hardware because it brings more competition to a market that i feel has been lackluster for a while, even if i'm not personally too invested in it! vr is cool but it gives me bad motion sickness :( but i would like to get a steam controller or two for when i have friends over so we can play together! i dont have any right now and i wil ladmit im a butof a steam loyalist.

also god yes i'm so excited for the possibility of half life 3    i still have an original disc copy of the orange box and it's my most cherished possesion! i want to know so so so badly what comes next... i really should prioritize shilling for a vr headset cuz i honestly Really want to play half life alyx but maybe id be better off watching someone play >w<;

[Gnee]

I think the steam machine seems awesome. The limitations of consoles have become tiring, yet I prefer to play and spend time on a couch with my wife and dogs then on a PC where I'm isolated. I've tried plugging a PC into my TV... for myriads of reasons, it just didn't work, at least not well when I was still running windows.

People overestimate how much of a dent Steam's hardware will make one way or another though. And the Steam Machine is going to have a much harder go at attracting an audience than the deck did. Xbox is kind of a joke these days, but I am curious how their own next console will do in comparison spec-wise, price-wise, and in terms of execution; it's all but confirmed to be a multi-storefront (xbox store, EGS, steam, etc) living room setup.

[virtue]

I really want the steam machine to sell well. I want Valve to pull out all the stops to get this thing to sell; I don't care if they have to delay it so that they can bundle Half-Life 3 with it at launch, I want it to sell. Which is really rich coming from someone who refuses to buy games on Steam, sure, but I mean it! I've long been of the opinion that the best thing that can be done for the console market is to put it the hell out of its misery. As it stands, consoles are completely pointless. They only had justification to exist when they had gimmicks, like the Wii. But now, a console is just a worse PC that you can do less with, buy worse versions of games on that you can get less playtime out of (no modding), and can't own nearly anything you buy for. People have not taken the HTPC (Home-Theatre PC) market seriously for WAY too long, and this could be the perfect storm for pushing Linux compatibility, HTPC adoption, and ultimately killing the console market. That's my dream whether I plan to buy one or not.

[Gnee]

I've long been of the opinion that the best thing that can be done for the console market is to put it the hell out of its misery. As it stands, consoles are completely pointless. They only had justification to exist when they had gimmicks, like the Wii. But now, a console is just a worse PC that you can do less with, buy worse versions of games on that you can get less playtime out of (no modding), and can't own nearly anything you buy for. People have not taken the HTPC (Home-Theatre PC) market seriously for WAY too long, and this could be the perfect storm for pushing Linux compatibility, HTPC adoption, and ultimately killing the console market. That's my dream whether I plan to buy one or not.

I just don't get the death wish for the console space. Sure, consoles have become more homogenized than ever and the current Xbox and Playstation have the fewest differences than ever between themselves... and in terms of exclusive libraries, are almost certainly both of their weakest iterations ever. (Yeah, it's not great) You say consoles are pointless, but there exists a market for people who just want something that turns on and plays their games after a long day and *just works* without tinkering or has no issue booting up from rest mode exactly where someone last left off.

You say consoles are only justified when they had gimmicks like the Wii, but the Switch 1 & 2 are still unique for their hybrid nature and have many novel gimmicks like the joy cons or streaming S2 games to other Switch screens for DS-like download play. Even the Series X and S have a really nice feature, quick resume, to keep multiple games running on RAM/idle in the background which is good for families constantly sharing a console. Plus, are the PS5's haptic features not as gimmicky as gimmicks get these days? People tired of the Wii as the years went on and the system had poor software sales in its later years despite how well the console sold; the market spoke. Hell, as someone who actively played the Wii when it was still a modern console, the gimmick was barley justified 90% of the time. "Consoles only being justified when they had gimmicks" holds no water, frankly. The PS1 and PS2 have some of the greatest libraries ever and didn't rely on gimmicks. The "pointless" label would make sense if you ignore decades of console history where the value proposition was and is genuinely strong though, I guess.

You don't own anything you buy on Steam either. Unless you're buying on GOG, the fact is that you just don't really own any of your games practically anywhere if you obtain them legally nowadays. Sure, you can backup Steam files more easily than console titles, but you're still not gonna "own" the same way them if Steam crashes and burns. IN FACT, you arguably own your games THE MOST if you buy physical copies for your console!

I use Ubuntu and love it, but Linux or not, there's just no way a mass market is ready for HTPC adoption or even wants to put an entire PC rig in their home theater setup. If you're talking about Steam Machine + Proton, then isn't that just a console setup anyway with Big Picture mode, and not really an actual proper home theater + PC experience?

I know that was a long post but the idea that consoles are "pointless" even in 2026 feels rather narrow to me, even if I understand the reasoning behind it. You bring up good points like modding, and I love a good mod but this doesn't balance out the rest of the statement you've put forth... even in the face of annoyances with consoles like optional subscriptions, proprietary hardware, and so on. I say this as someone with a sizeable Steam library who also, for some reasons, owns all three of the current-gen platforms.

That and… it's hard not to notice you don't really have skin in the game here. You don't use Steam, you don't use consoles, and you'll MAYBE buy the Steam Machine despite refusing to use the platform where it exists? Advocating for a market to disappear while standing outside it entirely is an interesting position to hold.