Console manufacturers sell at a loss because they need to sell the console first before they can sell anything else. They can expect to make that money back on software the user could not have bought without the console.
Valve doesn't need people to buy Steam Machines to get them to start using Steam. In fact, I suspect most units sold will be to users who are already invested in the ecosystem. Selling at a loss would just be a straight loss to them.
They may be trying to muscle in on traditional console territory.
Steam has a well tenured reputation for having inexpensive games. They may be leveraging this to appeal to the console players turned off by the all recent price hikes.
I suspect the gabecube may be close to if not, at cost. I don’t think it’ll be at a loss.
Gabe has previously claimed that they developed the index because they didn’t want VR to die and even gave grants the game developers who made VR titles.
So it’s established that Steam is big enough and secure enough to risk cultivating new or disrupting old markets.
Operationally steam has low overhead and insane profit margin. Unless they fuck up the steam store they’re guaranteed massive profit.
If the new hardware flops and they lose a bit of money; Gabe just buys one less yacht and steam ticks on as normal.
As you say valve are incentivised to do this because it will move more people over to Linux. I suspect that they want that more than they’re really bothered about hardware sales so while I don’t think it’ll be sold at a loss, because frankly that would be stupid even if they could afford to do it, but I don’t think it’ll be anywhere near as expensive as some people seem to be claiming.
Console manufacturers haven’t sold at a loss in a long time.
I agree, it won’t be huge gains directly for them, but even moving people off of Windows benefits them by removing control a competitor (Microsoft) has. I somewhat agree that it won’t be sold at (much of) a loss, but maybe at cost. I’m sure they expect manufacturing prices to go down over time, and engineering was a one-time investment, so sold just below cost doesn’t seem unreasonable to me at launch, which then becomes at cost or above in the future.
This all depends on if their goals for it are short-term or long. Historically, they seem to target long-term. That’s why I think it’ll be as low as they can make it, which they also said they’re doing by only having 8GB VRAM as cost savings. They want to drop the price as low as they can to compete. They won’t compete at $1k. I doubt they’d compete at $600-700. I suspect they’re targeting $400-500, which seems like a reasonable cost for the hardware too.
On the other hand, even if they don’t “make back” the loss, you can look at it as: how much money is Valve willing to pay to become a “mainstream” living room console competitor? Lose a couple billion dollars on Machine, but get 400k “give valve money, probably” machines plugged into TVs. Sony and MS have other divisions and they AND Nintendo have shareholder responsibilities. Those conpanies cannot tank a single year of number go down. Valve can, and surely there’s a price that Valve would be willing to play to be “the xbox”.
The steam machine is, hardware-wise, just a regular Mini-PC. Valve even lets you put whatever OS you want on there. So if this was a loss leader, that would mean that non-gamers and even small businesses would buy these, would install Windows on them and use them as office PCs, with Steam probably not even installed on the PC.
With the Steam Deck, the form factor made it impractical or at least really weird to use them as office PCs. The steam machine doesn’t have that issue.
You’re 100% correct at a sane company. At my employer the hardware team is incentivised to cut costs and impacts to productivity are someon else’s problem. Corporate metrics lead to some pretty hilarious situations.
This happens so often. The new version of the framework our frontend developers use has massive performance problems, which meant that our FE devs couldn’t test their changes locally, they had to upload a release to the cloud to test every single change. That reduces productivity to close to 0. A developer isn’t cheap, so you’d think the company would be quick to issue macbooks that we are also allowed to have so that they can work again.
Nope, it took 3 months for our manager to convince the helpdesk that they can get macbooks. Helpdesk originally said they’d have to wait for 2 years for the scheduled replacement of the laptops.
Was it confirmed that you can install Windows? The video said software, I don’t remember that you could install any operating system. It comes with an Arch Linux.
OSX has several things going for it, primarily, it’s got the clowns at apple running the show, thus, it has a bunch of “natural” interface bullshit that only make sense if you intend to live like a caveman and not understand that computers can function differently to physical objects.
On top of that, they pushed themselves as an “alternative” to windows back when they were even more corporate than fucking Microsoft, while blaring out the ignorant ass ipod adverts whose goal was to make the user into consumers making computing choices based on fashion. The iphone and it’s money gated, walled garden BS was just the cherry on top.
If you wanted a fucking alternative to microsoft, linux has been there for you all along instead of the “worse but shinier” osx, which mac served to just overshadow with its increased advertising budget and psychotic CEO.
And I mean that literally, Steve Jobs was actually fucking insane and a horrible person. From firing people at random, to abandoning his kids, to stealing livers and trying to cure his cancer with smoothies.
Also, it’s basically open/free BSD with more propriety bullshit on it than you can shake a stick at.
I don’t know how anyone can use Windows after 7.
Yeah, windows 8 , 10 and 11 are toxic shitholes. You know what macs did before windows started begging you to log in and create microsoft accounts? Force you to have Icloud or whatever the fuck it is accounts. You know how I know? My work laptops suck ass and forces me to have mac accounts, and is complaining that it can’t sync HEALTH DATA. MY WORK LAPTOP WANTS TO SYNC HEALTH DATA.
Apple blew the doors off for enshittification. They primed the fucking pump, and now microsoft and google are following through the door, you guys are like “yeah, putting osx on a steam box would be cool” fucking no. Ew.
It seems like you’re too emotionally invested to have a normal conversation like a person.
Health is an app you can delete. It’s not forcing you to do anything. You don’t even need iCloud for anything. You don’t even have to use their walled garden App Store. I know because I download and install shit from the internet all the time.
Yes, it’s free/bsd based. Who cares? I just want it to work and the chassis and build quality on the laptops are excellent.
It seems like you’re too emotionally invested to have a normal conversation like a person.
My bad for having opinions. Sorry. /s
Health is an app you can delete. It’s not forcing you to do anything. You don’t even need iCloud for anything. You don’t even have to use their walled garden App Store. I know because I download and install shit from the internet all the time.
I found an answer on the Steam Machine page: Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it’s still your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?
It’d be interesting seeing Microsoft in a position where the vendor isn’t automatically making their drivers for them. It’s a massive advantage they have.
This part’s basically guaranteed, yeah. But there’s a secondhand market and also surely some scalping companies saw the Deck launch and went yknow what? It doesn’t cost us much in the long run to make a few hundred Steam accounts now and buy some $0.10 team fortress hat on them just in case Valve does the incredibly predictable thing of releasing more desirable hardware.
Lol this reminds me of that time the US Air Force built a giant compute cluster using PlayStation 3s. Idk if Sony sold those at a loss, but they certainly didn’t see any game purchases coming from the US Department of Defense
Exactly, but I don’t see anything keeping them from selling the Frame at a loss or tight margin. What else are you going to use that with but Steam games?
Even the Steam Controller is useless without Steam Input, but I’d argue it won’t necessarily sell more games. Maybe they could include it with the Steam Machine for “free” to bump the price of the machine up enough to not make sense for a company, but still sell it at a tight margin to sell more games.
Why would they sell any hardware at a loss at all? Console manufacturers do it to lock people into their ecosystem and sell them games at a premium, Valve doesn’t need that, people are already overwhelmingly favoring their store.
The same reason people go into debt for a burrito. It’s easier for people to justify a smaller cost now, and valve will make than money back later with extra games sold, especially in the case of the Frame.
Outer Wilds was my favorite of the bunch. I didn’t know anything about it and went in blind. It’s gotta be in my top 5 favorite games, if not number 1.
Subnautica felt similar due to the exploration element. I wish there were more games like this.
Outer Wilds and Subnautica was stunning. One of my favorites too. I loved the exploration aspect to it, they kind of got me exited very similarly. Did you like Obra Dinn? I tried blue prince but didn’t have the patience although I heard great things about it.
Obra Dinn and outer wilds are two of my top 3 games ever made. If you liked outer wilds I’m pretty sure you’ll like Obra Dinn.
Blue prince is great until you “win” the first time. After that, imo, it starts falling off. Slowly at first, then harder. I have completionist friends to whom I have given it negative reviews. But if you just want to win and explore the space for a while, even potentially hundreds of hours if you don’t use guides, it’s fun. Don’t start a game day aiming to work on something specific. Work on what comes your way, and it is easily possible to make substantial progress every single game day.
I did really like Obra Dinn! I thought I might not due to the theme of the game and the color pallette but those worries were gone after playing it. It was a lot of fun piecing the story together. I played both Obra Dinn and Blue Prince with my spouse and I think it made it more enjoyable for me because I tend to hyper focus in on like random details or I’ll look at the big picture and forget other little things, so it was fun to play and experience them together.
I enjoyed Blue Prince but the repeating structure of the game started to wear a bit thin as you progressed. I kinda wish there was a toggle to ensure quicker completion once a person completed the main objective. I didn’t bother to go and finish the extra bits n bobs because I felt like it was just too much busy work at that point.
I love how so many of these old games has custom servers up and running. Metroid Prime Hunters apparently has a thriving community too (though I left the biggest discord as soon as I joined because it looks the lead admin is literally a DHS nazi 💀)
The bigger hurdle really is the DS’s wifi compatibility since WEP is so outdated and insecure. I haven’t actually messed with it in ages, but seems like hotspots are the way to go and are super easy to set up on linux, so maybe I’ll dust mine off and give that a try.
I’ll have to figure out what exactly that enables and how to set it up but it looks neat! If its just setting the DNS like the page says that seems super duper easy
I’d have to take a look. They’re nothing fancy, just some simple bash scripts that go through the folder and do some actions. The Pixelfed one though has an API key in it though so I’ll have to see if I can remove it (my codes a bit of a mess. In hindsight that was not A great practice)
Yeah. I think it’s because no matter how much you improve, you keep learning new stuff to make your code better, so it always feel like what you have already written is a mess.
PSA: Don’t buy a gaming laptop. They are trash. The plastic case will melt, the wifi card will come loose, the battery will die within minutes. A steam deck is truly your best option.
And never ever buy alienware. Screw them in particular.
Literally every higher end laptop gets called a gaming laptop… It’s a nothing term. Even the absolute least flashy laptop with no RGB and is basically just a glorified Thinkpad with a 4080 mobile in it gets called a gaming laptop just cause of the 4080.
Saying don’t buy a gaming laptop basically means you can’t buy literally any good high end hardware full stop.
It’s a short sighted and frankly stupid piece of advice that just hurts people.
The Alienware bit tho, that’s spot on. 100% fuck em.
Correction, don’t buy a cheap gaming laptop. There are plenty of ones like the lenovo legion and rog strix g16 that have good build quality and will last you years.
The ones with crappy plastic and overheat regularly are usually the ones under $1000
Yeah. And Dell bought them a long time ago so they would have a ‘gaming’ brand. Just buy a regular Dell machine and save money, it’s about as simple as that.
I just started playing on Turtle WoW a few days ago and never had as much fun in WoW before. Just amazing classic+ experience and a really nice community. Also free, is pretty nice.
Turtle WoW is just amazing. This is how you release new content without power creep or losing meaning from the existing content. I never enjoyed WoW more than with Turtle.
They just were, you can read up on it but from what i understand they actually didn’t want to destroy the data this time but instead have it handed over.
The System76 Pangolin has an AMD APU that's pretty powerful. I have the Ryzen7 model, but the newer ones are Ryzen9. Comes pre-installed with Pop_OS!, but they also provide firmware packages for Arch, Ubuntu, Fedora, and NixOS. I've also tested Nobara and Bazzite on it with good results.
I can play pretty much any game, as long as it runs in Proton normally, with very little FPS issues. Only games that chug are poorly optimized to begin with, but usually dropping the res to 1600x900 with FSR on will fix most issues.
Also, "most economical" is tough these days with the tariffs and all. I got my Pangolin for $1000 shipped, then a few months later the tariffs hit and the price rose to $1500 before shipping.
The System76 Pangolin has an AMD APU that’s pretty powerful. I have the Ryzen7 model, but the newer ones are Ryzen9. Comes pre-installed with Pop_OS!, but they also provide firmware packages for Arch, Ubuntu, Fedora, and NixOS. I’ve also tested Nobara and Bazzite on it with good results.
Thank you I will check it now
Also, “most economical” is tough these days with the tariffs and all. I got my Pangolin for $1000 shipped, then a few months later the tariffs hit and the price rose to $1500 before shipping.
By most economical I actually meant value-for-money option (original retail price) I have edited my post.
I just saw your other comment where you mention wanting to play CyberPunk 2077. FWIW, it runs great on my Ryzen7 model almost highest settings, so I'm sure it won't have any issues on the Ryzen9.
I just saw your other comment where you mention wanting to play CyberPunk 2077. FWIW, it runs great on my Ryzen7 model almost highest settings, so I’m sure it won’t have any issues on the Ryzen9.
Does it support dual-booting Windows and Pop!_OS? I might still need Windows for a few games. How hard is it to install Windows and steam and run games properly on this laptop? Is it basically just using Rufus and clicking through the install? thank you very much!
I'll never touch Windows again, and stopped using it over a decade ago. I unfortunately don't have any experience related to this laptop, but when it comes to dual-booting other OS's it's no different than any other machine. I can't imagine it would have issues with Windows, and System76 has some info on installing Windows
I don't have to do anything special to run games, though. I pirate a lot, and play legit Steam games as well. Only issues I run into are related to anti-cheat, but that's nothing new for Linux gaming. Once you're in Windows, it likely won't be any different than using Windows on another machine.
You probably don’t, unless it’s for multiplayer anti-cheat. I don’t think I’ve had any significant issues with Linux gaming in 6+months. Basically everything just works now, Cyberpunk very much included.
Not a guarantee of course, but in my experience it’s pretty awesome and I don’t miss Windows at all. Dual-booting for a year was silly and overly paranoid, in actuality I ignored the Windows partition almost entirely.
Linux preinstalled is going to remove a lot of candidates. If you relax your requirements to include known setups/components that work well with Linux then that would help expand your options. The amount that Microsoft gets from the preinstalled license is likely negligible.
The only reason I’m asking linux is I don’t want my money taken by microsoft. I believe most laptop like dell would work with linux well enough. If I’m good with windows preinstalled, which laptop would have the highest ratio of quality / price?
Lenovo Legion. If you pick a configurable one and remove windows they'll lower the price accordingly (sometimes 100€ for windows pro). Some models offer Linux pre-installed.
Even that amount of interaction can be exhausting/taxing after a while. Hell, even passively observing hateful remarks, even if you never respond to them (which, generally, you shouldn’t. Don’t feed the trolls) is emotionally exhausting. My recommendation is to just curate your community. Make a private space wherever you want, invite your friends and the most positive fans (people who you would like to be friends with perhaps) and that’s it, close the door. YOU decide who gets to come into your house and speak to you.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne