You're assuming people are responsible with their money.
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*** Valve Steam Machine ***
- Thread starter kakarott
- Start date
And it seems a lot of people are assuming that their situation must be the norm for a lot of others.
I’m sure plenty of people don’t have to get a spreadsheet out to work out if they can afford something.
Plenty don't but the majority should. My point was that people shouldn't buy it just because it exists or tolerate high prices because a bunch of crazy people think we need more data centres.
Can you remember if it was the 512GB or 2TB model you chose ?Tbh I thought I had but I’m old so I might have just thought about it rather than actually doing it.
512gb with controller.
Had the Steam Machine for a few days and tbh it’s just not for me. It’s not really a bad device it’s just not a very good one either. It’s woefully underpowered for the cost and struggles a fair bit and you need to spend ages tweaking everything to get it running well enough. For me it’s just still too PC and tbh I would rather just use the Xbox or PlayStation and just game. The controller is fantastic I really do like the controller shame it does not work on consoles. lol
Sold it to CEX yesterday made a nice £155 which will pay for another year of gamepass or PS+.
Sold it to CEX yesterday made a nice £155 which will pay for another year of gamepass or PS+.
Yeah so my invite came through to purchase, I've decided against it. Went on the reservation list with the expectation that I'd go ahead but honestly the performance seems underwhelming to be fair. Did get the controller about a month ago and I will say I find it excellent.
At least my invite should drop down to someone else and hopefully a buyer who isn't planning to scalp
At least my invite should drop down to someone else and hopefully a buyer who isn't planning to scalp
Yeah so my invite came through to purchase, I've decided against it. Went on the reservation list with the expectation that I'd go ahead but honestly the performance seems underwhelming to be fair. Did get the controller about a month ago and I will say I find it excellent.
At least my invite should drop down to someone else and hopefully a buyer who isn't planning to scalp
That's cool and 100% feels like the point of the reservation system, giving you a bit of time to decide if this is for you. Fingers crossed the space doesn't drop to a scalper!
Decent result then.
SM works for me as games box for the living room TV. I have no investment in any other consoles. CEC support is a fairly big deal in that environment & it just works.
People are going to say "its too expensive" and they're right. Valve say they're right.
Those are the times we currently live in.
I had completely written it off when I didn't get into the initial batch but I got the email about 2am this morning inviting me to purchase the 512GB w/ controller... Got 3 days to make the decision about whether I can justify the convenience of a dedicated machine in the living room vs. the cost for the performance of the thing. At least I am going into the decision making process with a clear idea about what it is. We've got gaming PCs in the office but this would give an option to use the living room a bit more!
I guess it's more having an option with a low barrier to entry for the amount of time that I get to do gaming. I have a steam deck and a dock that I could use, but you'd like to think that a steam machine with CEC and constantly connected would be a more convenient option! I don't think that there is anyone out there disagreeing that it is a lot of money for what it is though, if it was pre-RAM crisis price, I think it would be an easier purchase to justify.
This isn't a dig at you. I just find it mad that people are so much in need of CEC. Or so much in need of CEC that it's one of main reasons they use for justifying a very expensive spend. Are we really gone that bad in society that taking a few extra seconds to press another button is too much hassle and is now a barrier to entry? If a person's gaming time is so limited that taking the time to turn on the Tv is too much time and effort, then they don't really have time for gaming.
I said it would be more convenient which is very arguably is! Certainly compared to hooking up a dock, making sure a bluetooth controller connects properly etc. If you take "barrier to entry" to mean "this is too much effort for me to do", then I completely see your point. When I say barrier to entry, it means "I've got 15 minutes to fire up a game and have a bit of a play, I don't want to spend 5 minutes of that time getting things setup and then another couple of minutes getting it all turned off again". I fully agree that I don't really have time for gaming a lot of the time, there's a reason that the steam deck is a great option as you can sleep / wake up with the press of a single button and be right back to where you were before. It means I do have time for a bit of gaming every now and again, it's a nice option to have! It is part of what makes something like the steam machine a viable option for a living room 'thing' like a console, you can wake up from a press of a controller button and then everything turns on and is ready for you. People pay a lot for convenience, I'm just seeing if I can justify it to myself!
I suppose the other way of looking at this is why on earth is a technology like CEC, that's well over 20 years old by this point, not something that a regular PC can just do anyway.
Some form of patent/licensing cost on HDMI IIRC.
Edit - its not that big a deal but having things work from one remote is a lot better when it's SM->Onkyo box->TV involved. Put the SM into sleep and it'll turn off the other stuff. Its just less faffing about trying to find a remote you never use if something doesn't support CEC. Also its pretty much silent and eats under 200W.
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You could also look at it another way, why after all these years is CEC such a terrible technology that still causes so much problems.
Looking at the price and people saying they just want to PC game in their living room, as long as you've got reasonable Internet, wouldn't a Geforce Now Ultimate subscription be better value for money at £200 a year and allow you to play at a 5080 level?