This Old Neon Forum

Steam Hardware is now available for pre-order. The options on the official site right now include the Steam Controller for C$59.99, the Steam Link (a streaming box that connects to your network and lets you play games from your PC on your TV) for C$59.99, and two separate options for Steam Machines, one for $449.00 USD and one for $499.00 USD.

Vic, I know the Machines were something you were potentially interested in depending on price, availability, and capabilities. Having a look at these?

At $500 I'll be biding my time, but an eventual purchase is pretty much guaranteed. I'm not looking for (or expecting, really) price drops, but I want to see what the range of low end options looks like after launch. Especially with that maybe-a-hoax portable render that dropped a while back. Lord knows I'm not into this stuff for the horsepower.

I will be providing many hands on account of the Steam Controller in October. Will it be any good? I have no idea.

When I went to PAX, I noticed the Alienware Steam Machine (running Windows at the time obviously) at tons and tons of indie booths. It's strange to say it, but if you want a compact budget build that plays indie games and mega popular low demand titles (Counter Strike, Dota, Minecraft), Alienware has a super attractive option. The developers seemed happy to have them. At the very least it makes showing off your game in a convention hall easy.

Interestingly, there is one piece of Valve branded hardware coming out this year that you didn't highlight, and it's the one I'm most excited for. Valve has an uphill battle if they want to beat out Oculus though, but for now they're handily trading blows.

VictorViper wrote:At $500 I'll be biding my time, but an eventual purchase is pretty much guaranteed. I'm not looking for (or expecting, really) price drops, but I want to see what the range of low end options looks like after launch. Especially with that maybe-a-hoax portable render that dropped a while back. Lord knows I'm not into this stuff for the horsepower.

Just saw this pop up on the main Steam store site and followed through to their vendor site.

$299 [after $100 instant and $100 mail-in rebates] Syber Steam Machine with baseline specs: Intel Core i3, 500GB HDD, 4GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX750 1GB

They have some higher-end models on sale, too. You'd need a controller, but if you don't want to try a Steam controller you could use one of those Xbox-for-Windows controllers, or an Xbox One controller, or even a PS4 controller if the system allows you to muck around with drivers.

When I was at PAX last year, a lot of developers were actually using Steam machine hardware (still running Windows at the time) because they were super easy to carry around. The devs I talked to said they actually worked really well for the games they were showcasing. I don't think I'd try to play Just Cause 3 with these, but if you want a box to play 95 percent of those exclusive indie games and probably any AAA from before 2010 these should actually work. For 300 dollars you can pretty much consider it a ticket into most of PC gaming. Obviously these save cost by not including Windows, so you're selection is more limited. Modern indie games commonly get Linux support, AAA games are warming up to it. You may want to dual boot if you can get a copy of Windows cheap.

Spore wrote:Obviously these save cost by not including Windows, so you're selection is more limited. Modern indie games commonly get Linux support, AAA games are warming up to it. You may want to dual boot if you can get a copy of Windows cheap.

Wouldn't most new indie games be able to run on SteamOS or whatever it is they're running natively (I guess that's a version of Linux, so I'm just repeating what you're saying?)?

As long as you can play Ori on one of these things, you're set.

Kong Wen wrote:

Spore wrote:Obviously these save cost by not including Windows, so you're selection is more limited. Modern indie games commonly get Linux support, AAA games are warming up to it. You may want to dual boot if you can get a copy of Windows cheap.

Wouldn't most new indie games be able to run on SteamOS or whatever it is they're running natively (I guess that's a version of Linux, so I'm just repeating what you're saying?)?

As long as you can play Ori on one of these things, you're set.

A very large number of indie games do indeed ship with SteamOS support now. Very nice to see! However it isn't 100 percent obviously. But the big game making tools have been getting native support for it and drivers are improving, so in time it will only get better. As for Ori, it is not available on Linux. Remember who actually published that game. I'm honestly surprised they let it on Steam at all.

Spore wrote:As for Ori, it is not available on Linux. Remember who actually published that game. I'm honestly surprised they let it on Steam at all.

If Ori is not available on Linux, then dual-booting Windows is a necessity for Steam Machines.

Kong Wen wrote:

Spore wrote:As for Ori, it is not available on Linux. Remember who actually published that game. I'm honestly surprised they let it on Steam at all.

If Ori is not available on Linux, then dual-booting Windows is a necessity for Steam Machines.

I suppose that was Microsoft's intention when publishing Ori.

Spore wrote:

Kong Wen wrote:

Spore wrote:As for Ori, it is not available on Linux. Remember who actually published that game. I'm honestly surprised they let it on Steam at all.

If Ori is not available on Linux, then dual-booting Windows is a necessity for Steam Machines.

I suppose that was Microsoft's intention when publishing Ori.

Could be, actually! That would be a startlingly brilliant move, but then again, Microsoft built their empire by strong-arming software purchases, so it's not outside the realm of possibility.