Steam Machine Prices and Specs

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Valve has announced the first 13 Steam Machine designs that are now in production. The prices range from $499 to $6000 and are expected to release in 2014.

The lineup of Steam Machines announced today offers a wide variety of price and performance options made possible by the Steam Machine’s open design, with systems starting as low as $499 and top end systems rivaling today’s bleeding edge gaming PCs.

Every Steam Machine includes an innovative Steam Controller designed for use with a wide variety of game genres, and is powered by the SteamOS, a custom OS built atop Linux.

"The first generation Steam Machines offers something for every gamer, which is a critical part of extending Steam into the living room," said Gabe Newell of Valve. "With over 3,000 games and more than 65 million gamers on Steam, it’s important to offer gamers a variety of Steam Machines that allow them to select what makes the most sense for them."

Announced earlier this year, Steam Machines are new entertainment systems targeted for use in the living room and leveraging Steam, the popular online platform for gaming and software with over 65 million accounts worldwide.

Check the Kotaku link below for the full list of the different machines and prices. As for me, these prices seem much higher than what I was expecting.

Source: Steam & Kotaku

Click here to view the article

[Myk JL 1,731]

I was expecting them to reveal a $10,000.00 Steam Machine by Liquid Cool Solutions (formerly named Hardcore Computer). The $499 price tag on the other hand is exactly what I was expecting.

 

Part of me is now hoping though it isn't weaker than the PS4 or Xbox One.

 

While another part of me is hoping this will cause MS to release an Xbox One without Kinect so it can go down in price.

 

And another part of me wants an Origin PC just for the irony of hating EA's Online Store, Origin.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Any Steam Machine around the $499 price was using i5s.. I'll pass on that. If I get a steam machine it'll have to have at least an i7 so I'll know it can run the higher end games. For the huge selection of games on Steam, an i5 will probably run 90% of the games, but all the top tier stuff and new games will need an i7. I can also already play 90% of my steam games on my laptop. I'd only want a steam machine if it can play all the games I own at mostly maxed out settings.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

That's a little to rich for my blood, $499 on the low end isn't worth it (especially considering they're running i5's and not i7's) and $6,000 is completely ridiculous. Wouldn't drop that kind of money on one of these since my laptop will run 95% of Steam's library and the 5% that's left I have no interest in playing. Would rather spend $399 on a PS4, it's be money well spent and it'll get more use then a Steam machine.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Steam got a bit big for their britches on this one. If no one was willing to pay $600 for a PS3, its damn unlikely someone is going ot pay $6000 for a Steam Machine when you can build 3-4 ultra PCs for the same price. The low end market will have to see a new gen of i7s in the $400-500 range before they see some success here.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I just read a good article about the steam machines that raises some good points.

 

http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/08/steam-machines-overhyped-overpriced-and-over-complicated/

 

The machines are overpriced. There are so many manufacturers that no single company will mass produce these in the quantities necessary to lower the price point. And because they will be running Steam OS instead of Windows only about 250 games will actually be playable on these steam machines.. which is hardly anything compared to the what.. nearly 10,000 games on steam? I can't even find a total, all I know is that its well over 3000, which means a steam machine running Steam OS will only play less than 10% of all the games they offer.

 

I just checked Half-Life.. 1 should play on a Steam OS because it has linux support. But Half-Life 2 doesn't seem to have linux support. So one of their flagship games won't even run on their OS.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

They seem to be playing to a niche crowd rather than to a mass market.... which would have made sense if they were making the hardware themselves, but they are outsourcing it to anyone and everyone... I don't get it.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

That's the problem, they're running a Linux based OS which games are usually not developed for (for the most part, I know now-a-days it's becoming a little more popular but still). You're shooting for a niche market, I honestly don't know what they're thinking. At this rate they'll never make the money they want nor do I even think they'll make the money back in the long run (you know they're paying the people they're outsourcing this too a pretty penny). Don't honestly know where Valve is going with this.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

A lot of my friends are unimpressed with this... We were all really excited about it, and now its just meh... If you made a box that could play Ultra PC games... but thats all it could do. I'd pay $600-700 for it to play all the steam games, and upgrade it myself as time passes... but instead they made some shit that can't play all steam games, and really just seems like a waste of cash. I'm glad I have a PS4 more than ever now.

[Myk JL 1,731]

I hate to be a Valve or Steam Apologist. (Even though I'm going to.) But yeah Valve & / or Steam are probably screwed.

 

They probably aren't going to convince AAA Publishers to support Linux. Microsoft will probably give an actual new version of DirectX for games that can now only be bought on future versions Windows. Apple may copy such a move for Macs if they ever start to really care about Gaming again. And the Indie Crowd might finally take Notch's advice about Self Publishing like his example Minecraft, but for Linux.

 

To paraphrase Monty Python

Steam is no more! Steam has ceased to be!

 

And a reminder to why Steam Machine even exist isn't because Gabe Newell somehow transformed in Ouya's Julie Uhrman.

 

But because Gabe Newell thinks Windows 8 is a threat to Steam when it comes to Digital Distribution. Without that we wouldn't even be talking about a Steam Machine. The Steam OS isn't even ready to replace Windows even if it could. And last time I checked it was recommended that you buy a Windows OS, like Windows 7, for games that currently can't run on Steam OS. The reason to why Steam OS is Linux based is because Gabe Newell didn't want to be the kind of person that could take someone like Notch's privilege away to self publish.

 

And yes The Steam Machine is a type of PC. Despite those stupid commercials Mac is also a type of PC. There shouldn't be any real shock that its just a name for a product that can use a different OS that might not be Windows.

But then again maybe I should expect people to complain that Heavy Metal Music is a type of Rock Music so we all should be mad at Heavy Metal Music for trying differentiate itself from Rock Music which it already is.

And yeah my Music Analogy might be Off Topic.

 

But the whole point of my rant was to state why Valve's Steam Machine & Steam OS might fail to save itself from a threat that currently doesn't exist. Until the threat does exist I'll at least admire Valve's Tin Foil Hats.... Which is probably a bad idea.... And I should instead be taking time to learn how to build a PC that can run Windows 7 & Linux Ubuntu.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I read something about Steam OS not being dual boot friendly which also sucks. If one of these companies could make a steam machine that could run games on max settings for around $500 I'd be happy. Ultra max for $600-700 would be great too. I think Valve needs to make their own version of Wine for linux so their OS can run all their programs.

 

Xbox One is most likely running a modified version of Windows 8 as it's OS.. If someone could make a Steam app for Xbox One, they could technically turn that console into a Steam Box via an app. It wouldn't even have to run Steam OS, just regular steam. I'd say the same could be done with PS4, but it's running Sony's OS and I'm thinking the Xbox One's OS would be more compatible with windows games on steam.

 

Another option...

 

Anyone remember "Bleem!"? A company basically took Playstation's OS and turned it into a boot loading disk. You could put it in a dreamcast or on a PC, turn the machine on and it would load the Playstation OS. Then you could put any Playstation game into the system and play it like it was a PS. Now if somebody can make a Steam OS boot loader, then imagine just simply putting a disk into a PS4, reboot it, it loads steam os, log in to steam and play all your Steam OS compatible games. We could have the best of both worlds. PS4 and Steam Box all in one piece of hardware.