I’ve been away all weekend and just catching up with all of this now. It looks pretty exciting. I’ve got a Steam Deck and the software is fantastic. Moving this into a console-style device is a great idea, imo. It appears to be decently powerful, too.
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These popped up on my Steam app.
If the Steam Machine is well priced I’d be tempted.
I can see it being a useful bit of kit for squadrons and the maintenance overhead should be lower than a Windows box.
Powerful enough for the “couch gaming” experience. There are a few that don’t really get it, but they’re mostly the group that know how to build and already have a strong gaming rig, and many probably already have an old system set up as a Bazzite box hooked up to the TV.
…And it’s a six inch cube! It’s TINY and people are upset that it’s barely PS5 level.
8GB VRAM is contentious, but Valve have the stats from Steam Survey. They know what people play with and they know what they play.
As a secondary system for those that cba or don’t know how, it’s a good proposition. With XBOX bleeding goodwill and heading toward a “Living Room Windows PC”, the timing has worked well for Valve.
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I’d say it will be higher than people will be hoping, but the value proposition is form factor, style, and versatility compared to a console, rather than a direct competitor to a gaming PC.
For me, it appeals as a sofa machine for sure.
I already have a gaming PC, fantastic setup with too many monitors. But sometimes sitting at my desk gets a bit old. This sort of thing could be perfect for sticking in the living room. Using from the sofa, and with friends when they are over.
It appears to have all the console benefits, like small, efficient, easy to use, plug and play, quiet, good controller support etc. But also combines the PC benefits of full access to Steam library and cheap games, as well as a ‘desktop experience’ for the occasional bit of non-gaming. I could easily see my self using it to run a plex server in the background, for example.
I’m seriously considering setting up Jellyfin with Tailscale.
I still have an RX590 and a 3600 that is good enough for a lot of games I would play on the TV,
I would happily combine those for TV gaming and media server with remote media access. I have a Synology NAS, but that’s set up for RAID and I don’t care enough about my DVD collection to back it up twice and take up space. I’m about to swap my 2x 500GB HDDs for 2x 1TB in my main PC, so those would suit fine in a second system.
Now you’ve got me thinking about that, I’m debating whether to get a SATA SSD for game downloads on that box. More likely I’ll get a larger one and swap out what I currently have…
You’re a bad influence!
As for my PC, when my new monitor arm arrives I’ll have dual 27" 1440p 240hz IPS monitors (upgrade from 1x 27" 1440p 60hz IPS and 1x 24" 1080p 60hz VA) that my poor 5700XT has no hope of fully driving in games, so if anyone wants to donate something better then I’d appreciate it. Much of my GPU upgrade budget went to a new mattress instead, and it seems some more is going to a new SSD…
And if anybody ever asks me “why”, my best answer will probably just be “because I can”.
It would be great if it was around the £500 mark, then I could have a Mac Mini for work stuff and the Steam Machine for games, given that games are about the only things that don’t run on the Mac (x-plane being the exception). That would allow me to get a high refresh 4K screen as well.
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If it makes you feel better…
I’ve got an old Dell Proliant running my Plex server along with some other Docker containers, a Raspberry Pi for my proxy server and a few other bits for Home Automation and nerdy bits.
Mostly just because I can and it was “fun”
On a side note, I did the JellyFin for a bit but couldn’t get it working stably enough for what I wanted and remote access was a pain. Managed to get a good deal on a Plex lifetime pass last Black Friday and it’s been pretty solid since.
Just watched LTTs video on the new Steam Machine. This could well be a really solid option for Sqns… Price dependant.
They can be used as a normal PC for normal PC things. Admin, exams etc etc. But can also be used to run flight sims at 4k 60Hz.
Plus, being Linux based means there’s a lot more potential for STEM stuff too!
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This would be great to flag to our region esports officers
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Wad delivering training today to one of our largest customers (the upmarket retailer where you can get a free newspaper and coffee for shopping in there)
By the end of the day one of their people had used AI to build a mobile pjone app to use a report he built from our solution. Crazy stuff.
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If we had one (or even a wing one 
)
Could we negotiate a bulk buy via the Air Cadet Charity?
I’m so down-market that I can’t even identify who that is
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Yeah, I’ve never been anywhere shopping wise that’s given me a free coffee and paper just for existing!
Waitrose do 
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Could you, say, run Cities Skylines on them? Asking for a friend 
100%.
Approx 6x as powerful as the Steam Deck, and that already runs it very well from my experience!
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Thought the free papers had gone?