It’s a small form factor PC, pre-installed with Linux and steam. Period.
Can you build something more powerful cheaper? Probably
Can you build something more powerful with the same form factor for cheaper? Maybe, probably not… We don’t know.
All of those are beside the point.
They sell millions of desktop PCs pre-installed with windows, they often make terrible hardware choices, and don’t even have a small form factor, if they do they have the computing power of a laptop. All of this at an unreasonable prices. At the very least the steam machine will be better value than those. Anyone who would consider one of those PCs, might consider a steam machine instead.
“Its got what gamers need…”
is that not gamer supps?
How do you know you can build something cheaper when you don’t know the price?
Trying to be that guy huh. Will there always needs to be one 🤷♂️.
Many people seem to ignore the fact that its a 3.7l case :D I love small PC’s. My PC case is 20l with a 4070. I could go down to maybe 15l if I wanted but that would be pushing it. This thing is small af!
You can always build a PC yourself. You wont be able to get it this small with the same performance.
Not gonna buy one, but I just think its neat!I’ve never stopped to think how many litres my case is. I’m curious, heading to the sink now to check
Make sure to use distilled water so you don’t hurt the components!
Not sure if this is a joke but not even distilled water is gonna save you if you dunk your entire PC in water
Hi Curis!
Eureka!
Look, I’m not going to buy one because I already have a kickass rig running linux, but if I hadn’t done my recent upgrade I’d hold out for a steam machine. Everything I care about will run on it just fine, and it’s an easy sell for people who want a console but need a pc.
Also fuck microsoft.
I was so up for getting one until I heard the strategy on pricing, now I’m thoroughly disinterested in owning one, but am still hopeful that this will help open up the latest Steam OS builds for custom devices
I’m not the target audience for this, but I’m still happy to see GNU/Linux installation numbers getting pumped up in the near future. That’s why I like it.
I want an unmolested computing experience, and the more people use said unmolested computing experience, the better for the entire platform.
No, the interesting part is not that Valve is releasing a box.
The interesting part is that they are releasing a desktop platform linux OS that is basically a commitment from the largest and most integrous digital distribution platform in the world that has an unshakable chokehold on gaming, past, present, and future. It’s a declaration of war upon Microsoft, in a time in society where the people also desperately need a champion for home computing.
The interesting part is Valve is positioning themselves to potentially do an incredible amount of good for a lot of people fed up with publicly traded companies min-maxing extraction of money and forced reliance upon inferior service and software.
It’s not a box with steam on it. It’s an OS option for those of us that want to game in peace.
I imagined brave men and women humming The Impossible Dream in the background while reading your post.
Both can be interesting in different ways
- Its better than 70% of Steam users PCs
- Its standardized hardware thats consistent and has a level of quality that you can expect, if it breaks you can get it fixed
- You’re paying for software support, specifically SteamOS
- Its not meant for ultra hardcore PC gamers who build PCs with used parts to get the absolute maximum value, its meant for console gamers who explicitly dont want to do that
- It looks pretty yet it fits in with any entertainment center
- It has greater integration with other Valve products, specifically the Steam Controller
It is also really quiet even when playing modern games.
95% of the time when my best friend and I want to play together (and that’s 3-4 times a year these days with him having a family and my starting one), we end up trouble shooting for a decent portion of our gaming time.
I’m not going to fool myself into the steam box never having any issues, as I am truly cursed (so much so that we even have unique problems with our decks), but taking Microsoft issues out of the picture would probably reduce our tech fixing instances by half.
He has the money for a full gaming rig, I don’t have the means to get one going (believe me I used to, but I don’t any more), this has already been agreed on to be a day 1 purchase in my household, and the wife gets full custody of her monster train 2 machine (“my” deck)
“I can build a better PC For less money.”
How would you know? They literally haven’t announced a price, yet.
Probably won’t be cheaper than a PC. Otherwise people are just going to buy it just for cheap compute.
As long as it’s not sold at a loss, that’s not a problem for Valve.
And if they want to they can sell it like they did initially with the Steam Deck, one purchase per Steam account.
It’s a safe bet that this will be true. It’ll be priced like a prebuilt PC which are always a little more expensive than building yourself
Lol prebuilts were actually cheaper when GPU prices skyrocketed and it may happen again thanks to RAM prices
Prebuilts are often cheaper due to the manufacturers selling bloatet crap as “preinstalled OEM Windows” where they get paid to include a bunch of unnecessary software into their images. That way, they can sell their PCs for cheaper while still making a profit.
They also get better parts prices than consumers if they buy bulk.
Step 1: already have a better PC
They just saw one of those predict (absolutely horrific because they don’t even count companies partnerships, prices being different for companies vs common folks etc etc)
it has some unique console features, such as size (you can build one that size but it’ll be pricier for the same specs, see linus’s monstrosity), CEC support, and a dedicated internal antenna for lower latency wireless controller support
the pre-built market is still huge actually and this will be a pretty reasonable prebuilt for the majority of households
The form factor looks nice. A small box that fits under the TV.
Until we know the price point, it’s really hard to judge if the SteamCube is going to be a good entry point for Console > PC gaming, but I’m hopeful. Mostly because I don’t have time to build a PC and don’t wanna pay out the nose for pre-builts.
Looking at the specs of it, it’ll likely be around PS5 level of performance for PS5 Pro pricing.
Exact pricing will have to wait to see what happens to the price of RAM, because that shit is mental right now.
My local PC hardware store offers assembly and setup services for ~20€. Includes installing and updating the OS and drivers, as well as stress testing to verify that the components perform as expected. More places should offer that option, really. Especially if they also sell pre-built PCs that are assembled in-house.
I hope the price is not that much high, companies actually pay a lot less the hardware so Valve can just put a lower price than the market theorically Like instead of a 750€ they can put a 700€ or even 690€, who know
Yeah. I’ve watched a couple tech YTers break down the price and they seem to land on 699 or 799 for the price point. 799 might be too high for me personally as someone looking to replace my Xbox S and OLED switch with a Deck and Cube.
You have time to play video games but you don’t have time to build a PC? Doubt.
TBF there’s quite a lot of time that goes into researching the right parts and the right shops to buy from, which depending on the person might be considerably less enjoyable than gaming and also requires more mental presence than many games.
Doesn’t need to be. Pick a budget and your priorities, then bang together a shopping list on pcpartpicker. There’s plenty of easy guides and which processor is best for each budget range. Yeah if you’re trying to min/max it can take some time, but I just get the cheapest of every component (except SSD) and it’s been great.
I always build my own PC. It’s only relatively easy if you’re used to the process, and even then it’s still substantially more difficult than gaming, because mistakes actually have consequences and many parts can’t just be sent back after you tried installing them.
mistakes actually have consequences
You can just copy someone else’s build on PCPartPicker. There are so many to choose from.
You are clearly NOT the target audience of the gabecube. The steam machine is fricking useful for whoever want a tiny PC and not a fucking tower, a machine that is quite good and that is plug and play
It also targets people who don’t (want to) know about pc building. I have a few friends who just stick to consoles and laptops, because they are to scared of trying a pre-build or building on there own. But they seem to be intrested in this cube
I would also be in the target audience I think.
I’m a software engineer, been one for 20+ years. Built my own PCs before.
I’m just not super interested in doing it anymore. A reasonably priced steam box that just works out of the box without any troubleshooting and is a common enough hardware profile for developers to put in the effort to make work so I don’t have to burn the precious hours of my life fixing stupid bullshit to play a video game, yes, take my money.
This is me. I’ve built enough PCs both for myself and my siblings to recognize the value in hardware that’s been purpose-built and tested by people I trust more than myself. Plus ongoing software and firmware updates I don’t need to manage and a form factor I don’t think I could match.
I have a feeling the RAM shortages are going to fuck us all over on price, which might keep me from buying one right away. But it’s gonna be tempting for sure.
I’m kinda considering. Cause if I’d build a custom PC, it could be a home server of sorts - some webserver or AI machine.
I have only certain amount of time I can spend on personal tech activity and if I could play without spending that energy that would be fantastic. Also that’s decent PC for Godot gamedev right?
Myself as well,
A decade ago I built custom PC’s for my family and for my neighbors, the last ten years, ever since the chrome-books became viable, I’ve suggested just going with a bargain price laptop and GeForce now for gaming, I don’t need people asking me for help fixing issues, I don’t want to chase down bugs in hardware or compatibility,
I’m not proud of losing my interest and letting my abilities be not put to use, but my time and blood pressure is better utilized in other areas. I have a 7 year old Dell laptop, a steam deck, and (until recently) an Xbox S. It’ll be nice to have something that plays my (very large) library at console quality without a subscription service/Internet requirement. I have GeForce now, but I don’t have the latency to run it.
I’m also a software engineer and am still interested in building my own PCs, but I like the GabeCube anyway because you literally cannot build a PC that small, not even with mini-ITX.
I kinda feel like I’d want a Strix Halo (Ryzen AI MAX+ 395) in that form factor even more, though.
So much this! I have 20+ years in IT as well, and I just want a plug and play box, that has HDMI Arc, and can play my Steam library at 1080p or higher.
Agree.
Steam os is also probably the best usability / stability linux for people who don’t want to know or care what a linux is.
For what it does i think it’s a very intuitive OS; and desktop mode is pretty good too. It’s genuinely terminal free linux, so for all those who cant terminal, then it’s accessible.
Can you install steamos on a regular pc? will it work as well?
If its cheap enough i’ll buy it to replace the USFF pc connected to my tv, just for the controller interface as an alternative to mouse.
It could seriously attract some gamers who are hating windows direction, but scared of linux. TBF stemdeck already does this, so it’s just for sofa+tv gamers really.
I think people forget to mention the benefit of having standardized hardware. I build my own PCs, but I’m still considering the cube, because I know there will be optimizations targeted directly at it.
