I don’t quite understand the criticism. It’s not gonna be top of the line, but it’s more than enough to replace my dying laptop from 2015 that I pretty much only ever use like a desktop anyway. And I can save myself the time and effort of picking parts, building, and dealing with shit not working as expected.
I mean thats gonna be the joke. If steam machine really does take off, developers will come, just like they’re starting to cater to the deck. It’ll set a standard for what people want to play on and what they need to make sure their game works on. This is beyond anti cheat and DRM but it’ll be interesting to see how the momentum picks up.
I’d bet that Microsoft is already thinking about getting gamepass working on it (for better or worse)
Depends how much the thing costs.
Oh yeah I don’t mean to imply that it’s a guaranteed success, you’re right.
The hype is real though.
The hype is earnest
that is an advantage actually
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COD is going to beg to be let onto the Steam marketplace.
And it’s gonna be great.
This.
Yeah, but we know that Linux people would cheer and praise those games if Linux support was suddenly added
Exactly. Another lemming made a fantastic quip to this effect, claiming that consoles and windows are performing “SCP level containment” for the rest of us. Let them have CoD.
Valve is putting serious money behind Linux and has a lot of pull with game devs. They will fall in line soon.
Yep. No way Activision’s going to leave an addressable market as big as SteamOS is trying to be just sitting on the table. Especially if Valve puts some incentives behind it.
It makes no sense to me not allowing anticheat on unmotivated steamOS…
I mean, valve could even build something in, like secure mode, where you have a secure little linux root system for each anticheat game together with a online hash to check against this hole separated file system
Like when you start the game, steamOS boots in this separate root system
Anti-cheat, even kernel level anti-cheat has worked on Linux for a very long time. Some of the most popular products used by AAA have been available for years. They just intentionally refuse to make their products work on Linux.
Remember Genshin Impact, for example. It literally has an internal flag that instantly closes the game if it detects it is running on Linux. There’s no technical limitation for any of those big multiplayer titles from working, they just don’t want them to.
Unmotivated? Its a literal checkbox in the anticheats that games package to enable running in Proton. This is not Valve’s responsibility, but idiot or lazy game companies/devs.
Secure boot is what I think you’re thinking of because of Battlefield 6. But as I understand from just skimming it, its handled a bit differently in Linux than Windows, so unsure of how that could be handled or adapted for native Windows games.
You can literally install windows on it if you want
I genuinely do not understand the point of using kernel-level anticheats. They have been bypassed for nearly a decade now, you can buy cheats for any kernel-level anticheat game, battlefield 6 had hackers during the first betas, didn’t even take more than a day to bypass it. The only thing they seem to be affecting is your player count and review ratings
But if the cheats are at kernel level, how can any anti cheat compete without going full server authoritative?
I’m actually a believer in server-sided anticheats. The time feels right to really start developing machine-learning backed anticheats that basically analyize how you play. Look up VAC Live
Indeed. I chalk it up to the power of narratives and emotions. These are emotional decisions by managers who don’t know what they’re doing but salivate at the opportunity to limit someone’s access to something for not paying them or for using something differently than how they’d like to after paying. You know, stupid s**t like kernel level anti cheat and denuvo.
I don’t think I need it, but I’m super glad it’s going to exist.
If it came with a native DVD reader and my PS4 suddenly died, I’d have some choices to make, however.
I’m 1000℅ certain you could attach a Blu-Ray drive via USB without internet telemetry, unlike Sony’s policies ;)
Wow, I just realized that’s the default key on GrapheneOS lol, I should file a bug report.
The DRM measures of blurays make a hassle to play any legitimately purchased movie, especially 4k ones, a big hassle on any operating system. Not as plug and play like with DVDs…
I don’t want to rip them before watching them or search hours in obscure forums for a leaked description key…
This would be more useful for game ripping - did that for a lot of my PS3 games due to the large filesizes.
The idea did occur to me a minute after I’d commented. After my PS4 gives up, I’ll have choices to make.
I wonder if it could support an external DVD/BD drive via its USB ports. I assume yes, but that would be an extra purchase for you.
My Steam Deck feels about on par with PS4 in terms of power, and they say Steam Machine will be more like a PS5, so it sounds like it would be an upgrade over your PS4. Just more expensive, especially if you’re buying a disc drive.
I think that this thing coming out will only be beneficial to PC gamers, especially Linux users. This will encourage further development and standardization.
Kinda yeah. Like I said I’m happy it’ll exist, it’s just that I don’t like to spend money on upgrades for the sake of upgrades.
I can dual boot my Steam Deck with an external Windows 11 SSD. I expect I can do the same with the Steam Machine.
But why would you?
A) to see if it could be done.
B) I wanted to see if/how Destiny 2 runs on Steam Deck and it requires Windows. Running it in a compatability later gets you banned.
Maybe to play games that you can’t play on Linux.
I don’t need it but I want it. The GabeCube has basically the best of both worlds, the ease of use of consoles and the multi purpose usage of a PC. That’s also why it can’t be priced like a console I’m afraid. It has to be sold at least at cost (production+development) and can’t be subsidized by game sales like a PS or Xbox. A console without games is pretty much useless, the Steam Machine without games is still a damn fine PC.
If it was sold at a loss, businesses would scrape the whole supply and pave them for windows desktops.
That just wouldn’t happen unless the steam machine costs less than $300. That’s usually the top a corporation is willing to pay for bulk mini nucs, which is all that they want for clerk desks. Information workers get laptops with dell or HP embossed in the lid. Workstations for top design or video editing require way more juice than the Steam Machine can deliver, those are bought on order to professional boutiques, or they just buy Apple. Also, no administrator will sit on the steam shop page to buy one at a time, they like their bulk purchases and Valve can simple refuse anyone buying hundreds of machines. Then, corporations don’t just want the PC, they want tech support, advanced guarantee schemes, etc. This usually come with a subscription per seat. All things Valve simply won’t provide. It won’t even register as an option for businesses.
This is an unfounded concern.
Not an unfounded concern if you remember the PS3. The original model was sold at a loss, and also able to run Linux.
People were buying them like crazy for non gaming uses, including building super computer clusters. An entire aftermarket of various small vendors essentially flipping PS3s with various Linux distros flourished, including offering the usual suite of tech support services that Sony didn’t. There was even a black market for the gutted bluray drives, which were expensive, but useless in clusters.
PlayStation 3 cluster - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster
Lotta small businesses out there.
Not enough to cause a shortage. As I said. No business will pay more than a couple hundred for a PC. If they need more juice, then the steam machine won’t be it. It is more like an enthusiast or a content creator midlevel machine.
You are taking the comments too literal. If something is subsidized (which means cheaper than normal) and it is useful as a PC or PC parts, it will be vacuumed up by non-gamers as well.
You are technically correct about mega corps and such but missing the point being made. Every subsidized PC not bought by gamers is lost money for Valve.
Megacorps won’t sit and refresh Steam sure, but fucking scalpers absolutely will. There are lots of shady middlemen companies that will buy them up from eBay and resell to small businesses too.
Hell, I’d snap one up and resell on eBay in a heart beat myself if this thing goes for anything close to what a PS5 sells for. Let’s say $1200 in parts, I buy for $700, I resell for $900, reseller scoops up a few hundred at a time off ebay, sells in bulk to small businesses for $1100… Everyone wins… Valve fucking loses. Now, let’s say a million people do the same thing because it is free money.
This is how this works and why they can’t subsidise this thing like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have. (Also why Xbox doesn’t run actual windows for that matter.)
No business will pay more than a couple hundred for a PC.
This definitely isn’t true. Every company I’ve worked for has provided fairly expensive laptops. Really curious where you got the idea that businesses are universally so cheap they’d end up spending more long term because they bought absolute trash computers.
Way to take the comment out of context and build a strawman. I was reiterating something I said in more detail in a higher up comment. Companies do buy expensive laptops. I said so. Mind you, the steam machine is, emphatically, not a laptop.
I don’t know what point you’re making. Just because it’s not a laptop doesn’t mean many companies out there have some $200 limit on computers.
I dunno. The Deck is/was sold at a slight loss in the hopes it would drive Steam sales.
Maybe so, but while the Deck has a desktop mode it is primarily still a console and used as such by the vast majority of its users. No-one in their right mind would use it as their main PC unless they absolutely have to.
The Machine on the other hand, I can totally see that happening.I’m currently using my steamdeck as my main PC, because of my cramped dorm room space at college lol.
It’s kinda neat figuring out what works and what doesn’t. The worst part is the immutable updates removing non-flatpack software.
There’s a project that persists non-flatpack software, though it might screw up if it changes something that Valve updates: https://github.com/Chloe-ko/SteamDeckPersistentRootFs
A more reliable method would be installing them in distrobox. It’s kinda like a VM, but it uses the same kernel so it’s not much slower.
I think the main problem is since the steam machine is relatively open and, if it is sold at a loss, then companies will bulk by them to replace their infrastructure. A bit like what happened to one of the PlayStation releases.
The playstation 3 sold like that because of the super powerful (compared to cost of equal pc at the time) cpu. The gabecube isn’t unique hardware wise, so even at cost, or slightly below, I couldn’t see this being a goto machine for infrastructure replacement. Many current sff devices already have more powerful cpu options available.
And it worked, anecdotally from my perspective as a Steam Decker. If there are two identical sales on differing platforms (like Ubis🤮ft) I choose the Steam one so I can play it on the Deck.
You don’t use Linux because of kernel anti-cheats
I don’t play CoD because kernel anti-cheats
We are not the same
I do both!
On Linux?
The best part of Linux is shitty games don’t work on it.
I can understand that a lot of people would not want a machine that can’t play their favorite game. I think it’s a bad idea to simply shame them for wanting a machine that can play a game they want to play.
I think it’s good to shame the developer and platform that make it so locked-in to the Microsoft ecosystem in the first place.
But if the Steam Machine works for you, as it will for my uses, then I think it’s good to support it as an alternative.
Agreed. I don’t blame CoD players or people who play other games that use kernel anticheat, and I don’t blame Valve for using something other than Windows here; the issue is lazy corporations choosing to use a shortcut for anticheat which doesn’t catch all cheaters and locks Linux out.
But the reality is that most people interested in giving this product a shot are not the people who play CoD, and if they do then they’re either happy on console or on their Windows PC already. Steam Machine isn’t for them, and the people interested in a Steam Machine aren’t interested in these games. It’s like somebody looking to buy a Corvette being told that it can’t tow a boat. Yeah, cool, that’s not what I’m trying to do with it, but I guess thanks for pointing that out so people who don’t know any better won’t try?
