
Steam Hardware pre-order - joubert
http://store.steampowered.com/hardware
======
cwyers
The low-end Alienware box has specs that don't meet the minimum requirements
for Batman Arkham Knight, one of the few AAA titles coming out this year that
supports SteamOS. And it costs more than either the Xbox One or Playstation 4,
both of which will run Arkham Knight fine. I think Steam Machines are a
failure waiting to happen. PC enthusiasts can get a Steam Link for $50 for
most of the benefits of this. And people who aren't PC enthusiasts have no
reason to buy these over a console.

~~~
jcastro
The existing Alienware Alpha (which is basically what the SteamOS box is)
benches about the same as an Nvidia GTX 750Ti, which outpowers both the XBox
One and the PS4. It should have no problem matching or exceeding either
console's performance, just like the existing Alpha.

The debut price is about the same as the PS4/XBone, but doesn't include the
monthly fee for multiplayer, and if you look at the long-term total cost of
ownership it's cheaper than a console, especially when you consider that in
the future you can upgrade to new hardware without rebuying your games, which
consoles cannot guarantee.

~~~
ekianjo
> The existing Alienware Alpha (which is basically what the SteamOS box is)
> benches about the same as an Nvidia GTX 750Ti, which outpowers both the XBox
> One and the PS4. It should have no problem matching or exceeding either
> console's performance, just like the existing Alpha.

Except that it runs on Linux, which has less performing drivers than on
Windows, and Linux ports are usually far less optimized than their Windows
counterparts as well (which is not hard to understand since most games are
made with DX in mind).

~~~
jcastro
Steam Machines don't compete with Windows, they're complementary to existing
Windows machines (game streaming); they directly compete with Xbox/PS4.

Most Steam Machines are Nvidia based, which makes sense, they have the best
drivers, and they're generally 1:1 as performant as their windows drivers. I
have a GTX970 in my Ubuntu machine and it rocks, supports my gsync monitor and
everything; trumping console performance is pretty much a no-brainer with
modern nvidia maxwell stuff...

~~~
ekianjo
> Steam Machines don't compete with Windows, they're complementary to existing
> Windows machines (game streaming); they directly compete with Xbox/PS4.

I hope you are joking, because branding-wise the Steam Machines are a clear
mess and completely confusing for people who don't know how to read PC specs.
Hell, you have Steam Machines planned with only Intel HD graphics and also
called "Steam Machines" just like the Alienware Alpha and the Syber ones,
while power-wise they fall in totally different categories. That's the best
way to kill your brand, at least 3DO never did that kind of mistake.

> they're generally 1:1 as performant as their windows drivers.

No, this is clearly false. I don't know where you get this impression, check
almost every benchmark out therefore for Borderlands 2, CS:GO, Witcher 2,
Bioshock Infinite and almost every other AAA game out there, you will see that
the Linux performance is clearly behind. I'm a Linux gamer as well but at
least I don't pretend we are at the same level as Windows, because that's a
clear lie at this point.

> trumping console performance is pretty much a no-brainer with modern nvidia
> maxwell stuff...

It should be, but many ports on Linux are far from being optimized (some rely
on OpenGL 3.x to maintain compatibility with AMD while it's clearly less
efficient than OpenGL 4.x calls) while console ports are much more likely to
be tested thoroughly on a single hardware based and optimized for it.

~~~
efuquen
> Hell, you have Steam Machines planned with only Intel HD graphics and also
> called "Steam Machines" just like the Alienware Alpha and the Syber ones,
> while power-wise they fall in totally different categories. That's the best
> way to kill your brand, at least 3DO never did that kind of mistake.

Replace "Steam Machines" with "Andriod" and you could make the exact same
arguments. And the thing is people have, and they have been to an extent
completely correct. But, I don't think you would say Android hasn't been a
very successful bet for Google, despite the fragmentation and huge range of
quality for different mobile devices, and the problems with branding they
have. What I'm seeing is Valve trying to make the exact same play in the
console world, where Microsoft and Sony have it locked down very much the same
way Apple did (or was on the way to doing) with the smartphones. They want to
break people out of those walled gardens and bring them into their ecosystem,
and they're going to provide an open platform for any hardware maker to do it,
just like Android did.

Of course mobile phones and consoles are two different industries, it might
play out in a similar way or it might play out completely differently. But I
think it's a bit premature to write it off as ridiculous or even a bad idea
from the start when there is precedent for this sort of strategy working in
other industries. It certainly has a chance of playing out well for Valve,
branding and fragmentation be damned, as long as it opens up a much larger
audience to Steam.

~~~
ekianjo
I get the Android comparison, but I don't think it is very much relevant.
People don't always get Android phones by choice, and they get a phone ANYWAY
because they need a phone.

For consoles, the choice is already very clear out there and the well known
brands are Xbox, Nintendo and Sony, period. You can see how nVidia is
struggling to establish their Shield brand in the market by the way, as a good
indication of how hard it is to enter the market. There is nobody who "needs"
Steam Machines out there right now, because they already either have a
console, a PC or both if they actually care.

And additionally, Valve is too risk-averse to actually build and sell hardware
by themselves (or even take a NEXUS approach like Google), which makes me
think they don't even believe in the Steam Machines themselves. We will see.

~~~
monk_e_boy
Actually there are a few people (like myself, my brother and a bunch of our
friends) who are waiting to see what the steam machines will be like. We're
still using xbox360, wii, laptops etc to game on. Now looking to upgrade
sometime this year... we've been waiting for steam machines... but the specs
are way too confusing.

I just about understand nvidia cards and the numbering system, but how they
interact with i5/i7 and different memory?

(cue 1,000 geeks who will try and educate me)

I just want to buy a box that is better than XBoxOne at the same price. At
this rate I think a used XBoxOne off ebay is a better option. Let steam
machines bake for a year or so.

The worst thing that can happen for steam machines is when 99 people buy the
budget version and 1 person buys the dream machine, the 99 people see the
dream machine beat their budget machines and now you've got 99 disappointed
customers and 1 happy customer.

This doesn't happen with playstation, wiiU or xbox. Steam machines are going
to fail and I'm pretty gutted about that.

~~~
Shivetya
Honestly why don't they have an easy to understand rating system? Specs do
nothing for me, having been out of the PC gaming market for ages since I
swapped to Mac. I do have a basic understanding of the CPUs and GPUs but when
you combine X with Y and throw in W, what do I have?

Give me a solid number so I can compare machines quickly. How much Steam does
my SteamMachine have?

~~~
DanBC
Because this year's "Steam grade 1" will be next year's "Steam grade three".

Even if you include a date - "Steam 2016 grade 1" you're going to need some
kind of comparison table to work out if your game ("runs on 'steam 2017 grade
3'") will work on your machine or not.

~~~
e12e
Oh, I don't know. They could just take some aggregate standard benchmark, and
coerce it down to an integer. Have higher numbers be strictly better. Sure,
you might get box makers trying to game it, but it would still be better than
"here's some specs, you figure it out".

After a recent review of low-end (well, compared to an i7) AMD apus paired
with high-end gpus[1], I'm not even sure most "professionals" can get anything
meaningful out of specs alone. Sure an i7 with ddr4 is "better" than a dual-
core AMD APU -- but if your target is 1080p gaming, it might not be much of a
difference -- given the same GPU.

So it shouldn't be that hard make the statement "runs on Steambox rated 24 or
higher" be true for all generations of steamboxes. Even when that'll have to
be changed from 24 to 24000.

[1] [http://www.anandtech.com/show/9307/the-kaveri-refresh-
godava...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9307/the-kaveri-refresh-godavari-
review-testing-amds-a10-7870k/7)

------
eeho
This might be an easy and cheap option (I'm assuming you can dual boot these
with Windows) to have a PC to go with an Oculus Rift.

I'm a Mac user and don't really want to buy or build a gaming rig just for VR.
This is an interesting option that seems to meet the Oculus recommended specs.

~~~
TillE
Syber's "Steam Machine X" is the only one which meets (or rather, exceeds) the
Oculus Rift recommended specs. The critical component is the GPU, and Oculus
recommends a GTX 970. This one has a 980.

At $1419 it's quite fairly priced for the components it includes (just check
logicalincrements.com), but I wouldn't really call that cheap.

~~~
eeho
yeah that's pretty pricy. I didn't look very closely at the prices. The low
end ones are basically laptops!

I still wish there was a generic off-the-shelf computer that everyone agreed
was best for VR. I'm not a gamer and don't have the time or interest to build
something just for Oculus. I'd be willing to pay a little bit extra to have
the comfort of knowing other people will be troubleshooting the same problems
I'm having on the same hardware.

~~~
robin_reala
PS4 and Morpheus (when it comes out).

------
emsy
Strange that nobody else mentioned this before, but I'm really glad that the
Steam machines are getting away from those big ugly gaming towers and look
more console like. This was one of the main reasons I am (or was) a console
player, because PCs waste a lot of space and look ugly as hell. I'm usually
not that sensitive to the look of my devices, but a PC tower is just
extraordinarily ugly. I'm curious what others think about this.

~~~
ohitsdom
This is a non factor in my decision making. I want to play games on the most
advanced/compelling platform. If the device is ugly, it doesn't matter to me
because there are many ways I can hide it or disguise it.

~~~
Zikes
With the new Steam Link option, we can have the best of both worlds. Bulky
powerhouses in an upstairs office and a shiny little box connected to each TV.

~~~
emsy
As long as the smaller Steam machines are as upgradable as the bulky PCs, I
see only advantages in the smaller machines.

------
TheEnder8
I really wish there were standard models so game developers could optimize the
settings. These are just low-end PCs that manage to cost more than a PS4 or an
Xbox One.

------
wodenokoto
So I'm not even going to sugar coat this. How well can I use the steam
controller for my N64 emulator? I'm having trouble getting a good D and C-pad
as well as analogue stick on the normal playstation type USB controllors and
am looking for something else.

~~~
mercer
Why not get an N64 controller and a USB connector:
[http://mattgemmell.com/playing-nintendo-games-on-a-
mac/](http://mattgemmell.com/playing-nintendo-games-on-a-mac/)

I bought the GC/XB360/PS connector and the SNES connector, and it's been a
blast playing games with them! For the SNES games I even got two controllers
so I can play Bust-a-Move and whatnot with friends.

~~~
wodenokoto
I don't want too many controllers lying around and I also want to play other
types of games.

But maybe I should get just one N64 :)

------
danso
OK, I put down for the pre-order of the Steam controller. And am now
remembering what a bad idea it is to be an early adopter. No offense to Valve
but I'll be very surprised if they can succeed in a way -- and at a lower
price point -- that much more experienced controller-makers have not been able
to after decades of iteration. I just hope it's more compatible with my Mac
than a jury-rigged XBOX360 controller is.

~~~
curiously
recoup your investment by making a video review...and pray that it hits
500,000 views or more.

~~~
mparlane
Try bending it (for views)

~~~
curiously
or do a drop test haha...will my steam machine survive a fall from the 5th
floor? subscribe now!

------
jokoon
I really think this could be a huge game changer for the gaming industry.

It might take a while to pick up, but I don't see why it would not work.

The problem of drivers will easily solve itself. If valve can negociate will
AMD or nVidia, I don't see why drivers would not improve. It might take time,
and at first it might not be a frank success, but I'm pretty confident that PC
enthusiasts are already a good target, and I'm sure many PC gamers will buy it
so there's no reason it's dead in the water. There are many good markers. If I
was into the stock market I might try to invest in this.

Steam already holds a pretty big market share, so to me they got enough steam
(pun intended) to negociate and tuck their way in.

The only issue is that they're not mainstream, they might lack advertising and
they might not have a chance to be success with kids and teens. But the
hardcore gamer community is pretty big already, so why not ? I'm sure
developers will love it, and it might even allow so many more indies to make a
buck.

~~~
mrebus
what harm is it for valve if it takes 10 years to take off. they can slowly
iterate. in 10 years will xbox TWO or PS5 still be relevant?

~~~
jokoon
I don't see what the last 2 consoles generation really brought to gaming.

------
javipas
It's ironic that this effort is trying to get gamers to buy Steam Machines
when gamers already have machines far more powerful than the ones launched.
Valve will have a big problem if they want to convince traditional console
gamers. Which are the benefits for them if the cost is bigger? It seems TCO is
good on Steam Machines on the long run but that's a tough argument for people
that want instant gratification.

Steam Link seems the way to go for most HN readers, I guess, and that is the
device I would buy if I had to choose. BTW, a question on this: I've read
somewhere that although NVIDIA Shield works only with NVIDIA GPUs, the Steam
Link will work also with AMD GPUs. Valve doesn't confirm this but says that it
supports OS X, Linux and Windows PCs. Any ideas? Doesn't it run on NVIDIA's
GameStream, like NV Shield does?

~~~
fpgaminer
Steam Link uses Steam In-Home Streaming, which is a different technology than
nVidia's GameStream. Steam Streaming will even use the CPU for video
encoding/decoding, so it isn't necessarily dependent on your GPU. Though, for
best performance you will of course want hardware encoding. I do not know
which GPU's Steam supports hardware encoding on. A quick Google and browse
through Steam's FAQ on this topic indicates that they at least support nVidia
GPUs and Intel GPUs for hardware encoding; no mention of AMD. But again, Steam
will happily use your CPU to do the work if it has to.

------
johladam
I was hoping to see some updated information on the HTC Re Vive, though I'm
not seeing it on the page, especially since it's expected to release sometime
in November. However, I am significantly more worried about the performance
problems that may exist with the Vive, particularly with its twin high-
resolution displays. My 970 already has a hard enough time pushing new games
at 60 fps on High or Ultra, I can't imagine it pushing twice the pixels
without seeing significant performance problems...

------
NamTaf
Is pre-order US-only? I only see 'coming soon' here in AU.

~~~
tehmaco
It's available in the UK to pre-purchase.

------
ekianjo
Good thing Syber dropped their AMD GPU line of Steam Machines. Seeing the
state of AMD drivers on Linux...

~~~
SwellJoe
Things are pretty bad on the proprietary front, in the sense that they can't
even be installed on a modern kernel at the moment (Fedora 21 has too new of a
kernel to use AMD proprietary drivers, for example, and I haven't even tried
with Fedora 22).

 _But_ , the Open Source drivers for AMD is actually seemingly in a better
state than the nVidia Open Source drivers. According to benchmarks I've seen
they perform at a little better than half the speed of the proprietary
drivers. For me, this means I can actually play 3D games like Rust at 1080P
with reasonable, but not impressive, frame rates on my R290 card running under
Linux, without having to install the proprietary drivers. That's a surprising
and pleasant state of affairs. Admittedly, the R290 is ridiculously huge and I
should be able to do more than barely play games at 1080P at a decent frame
rate. But, it may be the first time getting a 3D game running was as easy as
"install OS, install Steam, install game, start game, play".

Also, I love that games are being ported to Linux at the fastest pace in
history because of Steam machines. I play and buy a lot more games because of
it.

~~~
BadassFractal
Is there any reason why NVIDIA/AMD wouldn't want to go the open source route
with their drivers? Is there some kind of a special sauce in there that they
need to treasure? Aren't they in the business of selling hardware, or is there
something really special about those drivers?

~~~
ekianjo
Yes, there is. Like nVidia making sure that you don't know that the chip they
use is actually the same as in a more expensive card, but controlled to act as
a lower performance chip through the drivers.

~~~
BadassFractal
Well, that's sad. So they basically have every incentive for there not to
exist decent Linux drivers until the demand is large enough that they have to
do a great job at supporting the platform?

~~~
ekianjo
I mean, as long as they make decent proprietary Linux drivers (which is what
they are doing right now), I would not complain too much. They have been
catching up in terms of features as well (compared to Windows drivers), so
they are very active compared to the sleeping engineers from AMD (who like
making announcements but do very little visible work, which renders their
credibility close to zero).

~~~
tadfisher
> sleeping engineers from AMD

[http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-
devel/2015-June/08...](http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-
devel/2015-June/084083.html)

------
jotux
Has anyone used the new controller and compared it to the original that came
with the first steamboxes? I had a friend win the steambox lottery and I tried
the original steam controller -- I found it simply awful.

------
vlunkr
Well they must be confident that this stuff it actually going to get released
soonish. It's nice to see after all the delays with the controller.

------
simplexion
I wonder whether this controller will have any affect on how the next console
controllers will behave.

~~~
kibwen
If nothing else, I hope they follow the Steam controller's lead of putting the
secondary triggers on the rear of the grips rather than trying to shove a
second set of trigger buttons up on the shoulders. This has been a literal
pain point with mainstream controllers for years, which I have never been able
to hold comfortably while maintaining a finger on each of the four trigger
buttons.

~~~
jon-wood
I've never played a game which required both triggers on the same side to be
simultaneously pressed - they're designed to be used with a finger on the
primary trigger which can be moved to the secondary one when needed.

~~~
loup-vaillant
That's because the game adapted themselves to the controllers. Moving that
pesky secondary trigger will open up new possibilities, and games will likely
take advantage of that.

------
axcocq
The controller is one of the few things I would buy from Valve( I'm assuming
it works stand-alone on a PC )[edit]. Unfortunately I can't even consider
buying their games or operating system due to the built-in DRM and/or forcing
Steam usage.

[edit]:It requires "Big Picture Mode", which in turn requires Steam to be
installed. _Sigh..._

~~~
ryan-allen
Steam ain't that bad. It's better than buying titles for consoles. DRM is
usually forced on you by 3rd parties, as far as I know Valve titles don't ship
with DRM, but you do need to use Steam to take delivery of the game.

It's a small price to pay, and a huge convenience.

~~~
axcocq
It ain't bad or better than X, isn't a defense.

Steam in itself is DRM. You can't run games without it. There are very few
exceptions where you can. You must be online to use it, unless you manually
specify offline mode( you must be online to do this ).

It is a price I choose not to pay.

~~~
madez
Just in case you didn't know it already, there is
[https://www.humblebundle.com/](https://www.humblebundle.com/) . It's a shop
with a lot of drm-free titles and let's you download the games over http(s).

~~~
ccoggins
Also [https://www.gog.com](https://www.gog.com) . Their titles are all DRM
free and they regularly have some good sales.

------
Steko
That controller really better be awesome because the thing is two years behind
the PS/Xbox and will arrive two months after Apple's new TV makes it's bid for
console killing.

------
hitlin37
since most GPUs in these box are from nvidia, shouldn't nvidia be making its
own steam box?

~~~
pjmlp
It is called Shield.

[http://shield.nvidia.com/](http://shield.nvidia.com/)

[https://developer.nvidia.com/develop4shield](https://developer.nvidia.com/develop4shield)

That is where they see business value, not on SteamOS.

~~~
TorKlingberg
The Shield is Android rather than SteamOS. It has an integrated ARM+GPU Tegra
X1 SoC rather than separate CPU and GPU. They are both competing with consoles
though.

~~~
pjmlp
Hence my remark about where NVIDIA sees business value.

------
mkramlich
pre-order = I give you money, you give me nothing (but, hypothetical promises
about a future)

gotta love cool new business models

~~~
jfoster
Pre-orders without an eventual delivery are fraud. Ignoring the time value of
money, when you pre-order you typically pay the same amount as you would if
you waited until the product was available. What you gain is getting the
product earlier than others, and what you lose is the access to reviews prior
to making your purchase decision.

Pre-orders are not a new business model. They pre-date the general
availability of the internet.

------
gcb0
PC games with a joypad that does not have a keyboard.

that is lame. extremely lame.

Almost as lame as the fact that the xbox controllers when attached to windows
box also do not recognize the keyboard attachment.

Valve copying microsoft mistakes.

~~~
awalton
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

Sounds about right.

Most of the games you buy for the PC these days are console ports anyways;
they were literally designed to be used with controllers, they just slapped on
a keyboard-and-mouse control scheme at the end (or after the original game
shipped, in many cases.)

And, since it's just a specialized PC, you can just plug a keyboard and mouse
in instead. Really, they just copied Microsoft's XBox playbook, with the
modification that they're less blatantly lying about the fact that modern
consoles are just more expensively designed and worse performing PCs with game
controllers.

