The title is a bit misleading, as the article lists diverging analysts’ opinions, ranging from Valve willing to sell at a loss or low margins, to high prices due to RAM and SSD price volatility.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blackeco.com/post/2330473
Yeah I’m sure for a lot of PC gamers this will be fine. It remains to be seen if the Steam Machine is really the couch experience I would accept or not. If it involves a keyboard and mouse it’s not. Been there, done that, not going back. I think it will probably be priced outside of what I’d be willing to pay for something of this spec anyway.
At the end of the day, consoles do a lot of things very well for the price and are a good value if you don’t have a very large game library. On the Sony store you can still pick most stuff up on pretty steep discounts if you wait a bit and put it on a watchlist.
Pretty much why in my first comment it was addressing PC gamers to try using a HDMI cable if they want to play on the TV. Wasn’t directed towards console gamers to get a PC.
Steam machine will require same troubleshooting, since it is in the end a PC that lets you install any games even if it isn’t compatible. And will require sometimes to go to a site like protondb to see which proton version is compatible to get the game running.
Steam machine is more an entry for those interested in getting into PCs that isnt super expensive.
Kind of funny this long conversation ended up being with a console gamer than my intended target demographic. So I kept wondering why is this pc gamer so resistant to hdmi cables.
To be fair I do explain my couch use case, the fact that I don’t have a Steam library, and directly mention the PS5 at the top level comment of this chain, so you shouldn’t be too surprised that I’m a console gamer.
It very well begs the question though, if it’s not for console gamers due to mentioned issues and likely price, is it really for PC gamers who likely already have a PC and could easily enough stream to their tv or just get a long cable and a few other peripherals as you mention? And would PC users really be happy with such a nerfed machine graphically? My impression is that most PC gamers are shooting for even higher specs than consoles.
I don’t think most people shoot for higher than console specs or even upgrade as often as people think. Like I’m on AM4 which is a last gen chipset and on a 3000 series gpu which is 2 gpu generations ago.
And with stuff like dlss it’s extended how often people need to upgrade to hit fps targets. Like I’m still able to play at over 100 fps. All the ones talking up the latest video cards and cpus are pretty much seeking next gen performance and graphics, and they are outliers based on steam hardware surveys.
Me. I don’t see myself upgrading until the next console gen when hardware requirements will go up again.
And not everyone wants to build a pc, and there’s people who’ve been happy with the performance of the Deck. So not all pc gamers are the stereotypical must max everything out crowd. So for them getting something more powerful than the Deck would would be for them. And for some like me PC flexibility when it comes to mods, tweaks, and being able to use whatever preferred input they want is the draw than the graphics.
I actually think PC gamers care less about graphics than console users, since we want more frames. Like during the PS3 era I was willing to drop my resolution to 720p and go to low to hit 60 fps if necessary. But, later on the PS4 that was considered sacrilege, and games like Bloodborne released at 30 fps despite later some modder showing bloodborne could have ran close to 60 if the console hadn’t been obessed with maxing resolution. We will take lower resolution and lower graphics settings to get higher frames compared to what consoles who prioritize graphics over frames.
I actually used to be a console gamer and was a big part of why I shifted over to PC as my main. I got sick of consoles choosing graphics over performance. And decided to go to PC where I could make the decision for myself.
As for me if the Steam Machine is cheap enough or goes on sale for around the base price of the Deck in the future I might just pick it up to use as a secondary PC on my other monitor.