I bought the low end $450 i3 Alienware Steam Machine at launch - it's a good machine!

It looks attractive and tiny under the TV, plus very quiet - and surprisingly decent 3D game performance for such a small and quiet PC form factor. It's what I was looking for: a modest gaming PC for under the TV, that looks attractive in the living room, and adequately runs about 90% of my games library, since the majority of my titles have more modest hardware requirements.

Glad to see some kind of movement here, any movement :-) I recently convinced a local friend to buy one. And I was honest with him: install Win 10 on it, it'll basically be considerably better for gaming in general: almost uniform better game performance head-to-head same hardware/same game, better games compatibility.... But that's not the point, Linux is a new gaming OS option doing surprisingly well in a short amount of time, plus it's a better choice over Windows at a desktop usage level for *many* many reasons. You really are taking your PC's life in your hands using Win 10 as your desktop.

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Quoting: STiATYou don't see it .. that was never the plan. It was never the plan to establish steam machine as a competing platform.

Not even remotely correct. Valve made a huge push for Steam Machines early on. Valve showed up at GDC a few times with a very large SM presentation/pitch. Valve was even going so far as to give away free Steam Machines to users and developers to "make it the best it could be".

It became a sidelined plan when it didn't get received well at release. Honestly, a little before release.

Just because it is now a failed plan, or there are other plans still afoot (ex cross-plat) doesn't even remotely somehow retroactively negate that Steam Machines were 110% indeed, a very big and loud plan for a time.

EDIT: Note, I'm not saying your point about their push for cross-plat being also a selling point is wrong, just that such a point retroactively now means SM's were never the plan as a competing platform, you bet your a$$ Valve wanted them to be - it just failed to pan out.

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Quoting: godlikeSteamOS was and still is Valve's backup plan. If things with Windows store go south SteamOS will be a viable alternative for them.

There is no need for SteamOS/Linux to be perfect or shinny or with 100000 games. The only requirement is to appear as a good Windows alternative. I think Valve managed hit that goal already by
- porting their infrastructure (steam etc),
- with the excellent performance of their games,
- the fact that more engines support Linux now and
- finally with the push of a low level API (Vulkan).
Now SteamOS/Linux has almost all the infrastructure in place for a potential move.

To me SteamOS appears like a loaded gun pointing to M$. I wish it was something more and I think Valve genuinely tried to grow the user base but it didn't quite worked out.

Since Steam Machines didn't sell well or get received well by the overwhelming majority of critics and gamers, the above is where Valve is at, now. It sucks.

Because you know: if Steam Machines had been strong in sales out of the gate, Valve would be putting a *lot* more effort into further developing SteamOS right now.

But since SM's did not sell well, and sadly, they more than likely sold very badly (as far as numbers vs. other recent console rollouts), Valve has moved SteamOS to the side of their war table as a mostly idle hedge bet at this point.

Hence all the comments from Liam, which I agree with. Valve is not focusing on SteamOS anymore, and we get all the "unforced errors" Liam is seeing. Valve has obviously pulled most of its work force away from SteamOS at this point - and the lack of TLC has been blatantly obvious for several months now - all the way from the absolute lack of any SteamOS press statements to no longer staying as current as they used to on SteamOS's nVidia drivers, to silently delaying VR support, on and on.

Sad, but at least we got a lot more for Linux than Linux *ever* had before on the PC gaming front.

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Quoting: mulletdeathNot even half of what Steam has to offer is available on SteamOS. That's absolutely bloody unacceptable, is it not? If Steam Machines are supposed to expand PC gaming, then it seems like it's doing a shitty job of it since you can't play so many great games that STEAM has on a STEAM MACHINE. So I feel like if that's never remedied, Steam Machines will never have much success and they certainly won't seem like an early success to people who don't have Valve's vision.

I think Valve hedged their bets by also developing the Steam Link and including IHS into the Steam Client (of course in Steam Machines too) with the theory that streaming games from Windows would be a stop-gap to cover the new SteamOS not having all Steam games available. So it would make early adoption of SteamOS easier to sell.

As an old saying goes: there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. Notice what's being hawked as a Weekend Deal this week? Both Steam Controller and Steam Link 30% off! Not Steam Machines, they're not being talked about on the Steam storefront anymore.

I think what happened is most people were like: then why the hell would I pay extra for a Steam Machine and crappy Linux when I can just buy a very cheap Steam Link? Which is exactly what most people did who were interested in getting Steam games in their living room.

Complete bummer. Most gamers are fat dumb and happy with Windows, they couldn't care less about exploring a new OS that has a lot to offer once you learn it. Windows is what they know, and they aren't interested in change there.

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Quoting: HalifaxLack of "console polish": for console players, this can be summed up as above argument about how Steam Controller is not an improvement over DS4 for a console player + lack of AAA games in general + lack of 100% of titles 100% working with the Steam Controller = lack of "console polish" by any metric they look at it.

One of many examples: Euro Truck Simulator 2. On a clean install of SteamOS, the official ETS2 Steam Controller binding just doesn't work. It's broken. A partial mix of mouse+KB and gamepad mappings for gamepad analog triggers and left joystick. The mouse+KB mappings work, but not the gamepad mappings.

You're boned trying to play this on as-intended BPM only SteamOS with only a Steam Controller. Just won't work unless you do a lot of futzing around in both the BPM Controller Configuration + in-game Settings menus to find something that works for you that doesn't include any gamepad control inputs.

Which for any comparison to any of the big consoles would constitute: go f*** yourself game dev - fix your game or it doesn't go on our console. Valve's like pff, f*** it, post it, who cares - we'll list it as a SteamOS compatible game. Optionally fix it if/when you get to it, game dev.

A *severe* lack of polish vs. what is expected of a console system these days. Many games are a hit - but also a lot of games are serious misses that simply would never happen on other consoles.

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Quoting: elmapul"SteamOS is still a "beta" it's not a released product "
the SteamOS is not an relased product but its embed at an relased product, i'm the only one who see an issue in sell an piece of hardware in which the OS embed to it is not ready for relase even 7 months after they start selling the hardware?
any consumer would go nuts with something like that.

"as was said they (MS/Sony) have 3>4 generations of system to have gained a market"
PS1 sold 100M units at the end of its generation, it won the consol market at its first gen, the first xbox sold 24M at the end of its gen, and at 7 months after relase im pretty sure it had sold more than 500K units. (that being optmistic assuming all 500K controlers are bundled with Steam Machines)

True and true.

Beta: SteamOS hit the big time with official roll out on retail console form factor PCs, AND - the version number itself is at "2.0" Brewmaster: the time to call it beta is past, IMO.

1st gen adoption slowness: Yep. The problems with slow adoption cannot fully be placed on Gen 1 factors. Any console gen 1 rollout has that challenge - even the gen 1 rollouts that were runaway hits. It's the other factors surrounding that gen 1 rollout that will make or break it as a new platform. Which I talked a little about in a previous post, and many others have already in this thread.

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I like my Alienware Steam Machine, it sits under my TV and runs many native Linux games with the innovative controller just fine. I think one part of the problem is: if you load Windows 10 on it, blowing away SteamOS, for the casual gamer who doesn't care, everything is an upgrade. More games supported, especially in the AAA category - plus generally better game performance + less bugs in those AAA titles. And it also works for all your Windows only non-Steam game, etc.

Of course SteamOS does not compete toe-to-toe with Windows yet, Windows has decades head start. with every game and gaming hardware company devoting their best sustained efforts to 100% optimizing for Windows. Valve is huge, but not huge enough to equal that in just a few years time.

The key to SteamOS is wanting to support how far it's come in so short a time - which is nothing short of amazing compared to Linux pre-Valve days, as far as gaming goes - and wanting to support a more open OS platform in general.

Another problem when considering Steam Machines vs. consoles is unfortunately the Steam Controller itself and lack of associated "console polish". Yes, the Steam Controller is innovative. Yes, you can get used to it. But honestly, the PS4 Dual Shock 4 has better hand feel - the DS4 doesn't have the flexibility or the precision. But were console players wanting that? Nope, just PC gamers were. Hand feel and comfort are king in a controller for console players - and the DS4 *totally* has its sh** together and beats the Steam Controller here.

The Steam Controller does have overall very good ergonomics, but you're not going to have any kind of mass exodus of existing console players for them touchpads. They solve a problem no console players cared about and feel way less familiar/comfortable to them.

Lack of "console polish": for console players, this can be summed up as above argument about how Steam Controller is not an improvement over DS4 for a console player + lack of AAA games in general + lack of 100% of titles 100% working with the Steam Controller = lack of "console polish" by any metric they look at it. Oh, + lack of any of my friends are on it. I mentioned Steam Machines to a co-worker who was shopping for a console for his son, and it was a non-starter for him, because none of his son's friends were on it.

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Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: seveni don't know anyone who uses steamOs, i honestly think not alot of people use it

Most everyone who buys a Steam Machine?

How many do you know who's done that?

... Exactly.

I bought an i3 Alienware Steam Machine and I run SteamOS 2.0 Brewmaster on it in full desktop mode with the main Debian repos added.

I actually like the machine quite a bit. Tiny, runs super quiet, hibernate/resume is fast and reliable. It's a nice little gaming+desktop Debian mini PC. It easily has enough horsepower to run just about all my games well, except for the larger more AAA graphics titles - which I still run on my main Ubuntu PC.

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Quoting: GuestOnly real way to succeed is perhaps via what Obisidian do and actually listen to what the PC playerbase wants and it wasn't a streamlined action RPG (I suspect a lot of those 50% who were happy would also be happy with a more traditional in depth RPG).

You are probably right. For my part, I was surprised the reverse of that didn't hold true. Which is me, I totally love the more detailed and in-depth RPGs too. But I was OK with a streamlined version - mainly because it was well done, it had a good flow to the combat and had a real inventory system/item economy. (I don't like it when they streamline inventory completely out - that's too much streamlining.)

I especially thought SCL made a good fit in this current games market, with a resurgence in "old-school" RPGs making a come-back in a big big way, there was room for it. It's not like we're starving for modern takes on "old school" RPGs anymore, Internet crowd funding has revived that genre 110%.

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Quoting: slaapliedjebut then no one liked most of their decisions.

Pretty sad.

Closer to the truth was it was about a 50/50 mix, about half of their player base was fine with the streamlined action RPG gameplay mechanics. But the jeremiads from the 50% that didn't like it were intense and amply posted, for sure.

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