LucShep

Sorry, but couldn't help commenting this one - the whole “real gaming computer” label carries a lot of baggage, and not the good kind. It groups people, it gatekeeps, and it creates the exact kind of negativity that has always pushed -and still pushes- a lot of potential players away from the hobby. This is the part that clearly - to me anyway - you clearly haven't understood. A lot of people are excited for this Steam Machine precisely because they’re not interested in “hardcore gaming” or chasing the highest-end hardware. Precisely because they can't relate and hate that "grouping" and "elistism" aspect of the hobby. It's more than just the money aspect (as relevant as that is). They want something small, simple, quiet, affordable, supported, and capable of running the games they actually enjoy - without the ultra-high expectations that enthusiasts (like in these forums) aim for. Whether it’s for gaming in the living room, in a bedroom, at a friend’s place, with family, or during a party… let’s be honest: your $4,500+ tower isn’t exactly ideal for that, is it? And honestly, that’s what kept LAN parties alive back in the day (good times - anyone remember those?) : portability and convenience, not 2-kilowatt monster rigs. Nobody needs a $1,500+ GPU to have fun. Plenty of people buy them, sure - but spending that kind of money doesn’t make anyone more “legit” than someone happily playing on a modest box. It just makes them an enthusiast - the same way someone with a friggin $20,000 carbon/titanium push bike isn’t “more of a cyclist” than someone enjoying a basic $200 one. Valve understands this broader audience, and they clearly saw a huge gap - a real opportunity - that nobody else was addressing. That’s exactly why a small, efficient SteamOS box makes sense for so many people (more or less depending on the final unknown price). Different kinds of players, different needs - and there’s room for all of them. And who knows, some of those folks might eventually jump deeper into the hobby and end up flying DCS...

Again, nobody’s denying that bad engineering decisions can happen anywhere. But there’s a major point you keep brushing aside and contradicts yours: Valve has no shareholders to appease. That single fact changes everything about how this should be evaluated. Instead, you should look at this "Steam Machine" from a different analytical perspective (i.e, see the "bigger picture") instead of just focusing on the tiny little box "hardware perspective". I'm pretty sure then you'll understand why all the commotion around it, why this is such a big thing. Not "how it ventilates" or "how many FPS for the dollar"... Some points to digest that are very, very relevant: Steam Store = instant ecosystem + zero effort. To get games Valve doesn’t need to negotiate ports, pay for exclusives, or convince publishers to support their platform. Every game that runs on Steam already “supports” their hardware! No other console maker has that luxury/advantage. Money + stability. Valve is private, absolutely and absurdly profitable, and under zero quarterly pressure. No forced release cycles, no investor panic, no market-share chasing. They move at their own pace and only release hardware when they feel it's right. Steam Deck experience. The Steam Deck gave them real hardware R&D, a mature SteamOS/Proton stack, controller tech, and millions of users stress-testing compatibility for them. Something nobody else has. Telemetry data nobody else can match. Valve sees the entire PC landscape in real time: GPUs, CPUs, framerates, screen sizes, what games people play, what “good enough” performance looks like, how often people play handheld vs docked. Sony/Nintendo/MS-Xbox only see their own walled gardens, all limited to their own platforms, and nothing as broad as the entire PC gaming landscape. Zero existential risk. Valve could release a Steam Console, Deck 2, mini-box, GPU dock, VR box - whatever. And none of these decisions risk collapsing their business. You see, even if a Steam PC Console only sells moderately well, every sale boosts SteamOS, Proton and Linux support from devs, every sale pushes people deeper into the Steam ecosystem. They benefit even at medium scale. Basically, they win even without “winning”. Sony/Nintendo/MS-Xbox can’t afford a flop. Valve can, and still profit from it indirectly.

Nobody’s disputing physics - small boxes have thermal limits, sure. We’ve already covered that. My point is simply that Valve isn’t building a tiny Windows PC. Just like an Xbox Series X, a PlayStation 5/Pro, or a Nintendo Switch 2 aren’t “tiny Windows PCs” either. SteamOS lets them run games efficiently on much lower power budgets than a general-purpose Windows system, which is exactly why the Valve's Steam Deck performs as well as it does in such a small chassis. Physics still applies, of course - but the performance targets and the software stack are completely different, and that matters when judging the design. So the real question is: what specific design problem are you assuming exists here that somehow escaped Valve’s own engineers during research & development?

No, you’re also evaluating this as if it were just a tiny Windows PC - but that’s not what Valve is building. You're experienced with system building, sure. But how many systems have you actually built and tuned around SteamOS? Because the performance and thermal expectations simply aren’t the same. SteamOS ≠ Windows. It doesn’t carry the same legacy overhead, driver baggage, or thermal assumptions. Valve controls the entire software stack end-to-end - it’s a purpose-built, highly refined Linux environment, prepared by themselves for their device. And that fundamentally changes the hardware requirements. It’s the same reason the Steam Deck delivers both stable performance and good thermals, on a fraction of the power that a Windows handheld would need. People have tried Windows 11 on it, tuned and debloated to the bone, and it still performs noticeably worse. So when you bring up heat concerns, you’re applying the logic of generic prebuilts or small Windows boxes. That’s simply not the design model here. And this loops back to the original point: we were discussing Valve’s track record in integrated hardware + software. Not your shop or your clients. The Deck already proved that a tightly validated Linux system can run efficiently, reliably, and without the usual small-form-factor headaches. That’s why this Steam Machine concept could become genuinely disruptive, a possible new branch of PC gaming - even if the specs are very far from top tier. It doesn’t need high-end hardware or blistering performance to succeed. It just needs to deliver the right experience for its target audience - mainstream and casual gamers.

@kksnowbear Look, none of this has anything to do with the hardware being discussed. What me and others were talking was specifically about how Valve designs and supports their devices compared to generic prebuilts - not about anyone’s shop, business, or personal philosophy. People can treat their customers however they want, that’s not the point here. The point is simply that Valve’s track record with Steam Deck gives us reasonable expectations about build quality, support, transparency, and long-term updates - which was the context of the discussion. I’m keeping my comments to the hardware side, not the personal side.

A handheld and a desktop-class device aren’t interchangeable. The Steam Deck is definitely not a "power-house" in PC terms. But, really, for what it is, yes it's amazing. It has limitations because of its size - low thermal headroom, strict power budgets, tiny cooling volume. Nobody here is claiming otherwise. The point is simply that Valve has a track record of engineering around those limits, better than most companies in the same class (yes, again judging by the Steam Deck, it is a very good reference and indication). That doesn’t erase physics, but it does say something about expected execution. Sure, some constraints are visible before cost enters the equation. Small form factors always mean tighter thermals, stricter airflow paths, and harder noise control. Those concerns are valid no matter who builds the thing. All I’m saying is: the form factor creates the risks, not the fact it’s Valve. If the final chassis is larger or better ventilated than it looks now, great. Until then, pointing out the inherent limits of compact designs is just normal hardware analysis, not doomsaying.

Of course, nobody said otherwise. But the point is not that Valve is incapable of making a bad product. The point is that when a company has a recent, hugely successful, well-supported hardware line in the same domain, it’s reasonable to set expectations based on that. Track record doesn’t guarantee perfection, but it absolutely informs the baseline. If it didn’t, nobody in the industry would care about reputation at all. That argument only works if Valve behaved like “other outfits,” which they don’t. Have you've been in unofficial populated forums with SteamDeck users, where it's pretty visible how happy users seem to be? Have you ever even tried a Steam Deck for that matter, to see how good it actually is? Valve doesn’t ship bloatware; doesn’t use mystery OEM parts; doesn’t hide thermals behind marketing; doesn’t lock hardware; doesn’t nickel-and-dime repairs; doesn't update hardware and software aggressively; it openly documents and supports modding, repair and OS flexibility. Comparing this to random OEMs promising “tight integration” is just a false equivalence. And yes, every device on Earth has a percentage of unhappy customers. That’s normal. But the Steam Deck’s satisfaction rate is extremely high - and that is relevant evidence. Sure - analysts, reviewers, OEM partners, hardware leakers, etc. But unless you’re claiming to be one of those people (and if you are, you’d be bound by NDA), then we’re all in the same position: we don’t know the price. And the price is the entire determining factor of whether this becomes one of two things, either 1) a mainstream PC-console or 2) a niche enthusiast box. So yes - until the price is known, any prediction is just speculation dressed up as certainty.

I’m not “assuming a ton.” I’m going by Valve’s proven behaviour with the Steam Deck - not by the horror-show OEM prebuilts you keep referring to. Valve already ships hardware with: - zero bloat - zero OEM corner-cutting - no garbage PSUs - no thermal disasters - no BIOS locks - no shady activation tricks - full transparency and repairability This is their established pattern. Pretending they’re suddenly going to turn into HP or Walmart because it fits your narrative is what doesn’t make sense. If anything, the burden of proof is on anyone claiming Valve will abandon their entire hardware philosophy overnight - not on the people pointing to their very public track record. Exactly - and that’s why the entire discussion hinges on the price. No one is claiming a $1200 Steam Machine will convert the masses. The point, as I mentioned before, is that the device has two completely different destinies: $600 - $700 --> mainstream, console-adjacent, massive adoption potential $1000 - $1200 --> niche box for a tiny audience So saying “at $1200 it won’t pull many people in” is just restating what’s already been said. Nobody disagreed with that. That’s why judging the whole concept right now, before the price is even known, doesn’t actually lead anywhere.

No, not really. You’re assuming the support load is for OS-tinkerers - it isn’t. Valve knows perfectly well that 95% of buyers will never install another OS - they have the stats from many thousands (millions?) of Steam Decks. The “install your own OS” option isn’t there to create support overhead. It exists so Valve doesn’t artificially lock down the hardware and get roasted by enthusiasts or the tech press. Same reason the Deck allows dual-boot. Supporting that tiny minority doesn’t meaningfully increase cost - they already handle it today. And the “prebuilt myth” angle still misses the real picture. You keep bringing up your clients with awful prebuilts. But those buyers are exactly the demographic that would benefit from a SteamOS machine - which has no bloatware, no garbage-tier PSUs, no mismatched OEM parts, no thermals designed by a drunk intern, no Windows activation tricks, no BIOS locks. Your clients come to you because they bought trash. A Valve-designed, tightly-validated SteamOS (Linux) box aims to be the complete opposite of that. Calling it a “toy priced like serious hardware” also ignores Valve’s entire hardware philosophy: low margins, ecosystem expansion, long-term thinking. They can price aggressively (or so everyone hopes) because the real money comes from Steam, not from selling boxes. The Steam Deck already proved this approach works: sell near cost, grow the ecosystem, and the rest follows. Whether this machine succeeds or fails comes down to price. Not whether a handful of people install their own OS, and not whether you’ve had to save people from Walmart prebuilts.

You're still merging completely different groups into one bucket, and that’s where your logic breaks. “Why allow OS installs?” Because it costs Valve almost nothing and keeps the enthusiast minority happy. It’s the same reason the Steam Deck allows it, and yet 95% of Deck owners never touched BIOS, GRUB, or drivers. Flexibility ≠ target audience. Sony adding “Developer Mode” didn’t mean the PS4 console was marketed to game studios. The people who buy terrible prebuilts aren’t “in-betweeners”. They’re uninformed buyers. They don’t compare value, they don’t know what VRMs or power limits are, and they definitely don’t swing by a boutique PC shop before buying. They buy whatever looks simple and available - a console, a laptop, or a flashy “gaming tower” from a megastore. Those are the people a Steam Machine can actually pull away from the garbage-tier prebuilts you’re describing. And yes, ironically, that benefits small PC shops too - fewer customers burned by trash hardware means fewer people entering the hobby with a bad first experience. SteamOS is precisely why this product has a shot. You keep comparing it to Windows prebuilts, but that’s not what Valve is selling. SteamOS is dramatically simpler than Windows for a gaming-only machine: no drivers to hunt; no telemetry; no popups; no forced updates; no bloat; no “Windows being Windows” moments. For 99% of mainstream users, SteamOS is less friction than a Windows PC and closer to a console UX. That’s the whole point. “My clients made bad prebuilt buys” Of course they did - but that’s still a different demographic. Your clients are people who 1) know enough to seek help, and 2) are already inside the PC ecosystem. The mass audience Valve is targeting never ever makes it to your door. They’re buying a console, or the BestBuy special, or a gaming laptop with a single heatpipe. That’s the market Valve is trying to intercept. And that’s why judging this thing as “just another prebuilt PC” is missing the strategic intent entirely.

Those people are not the target for this product. Here’s the key point: casual customers - the ones who buy prebuilt systems - outnumber enthusiasts by an order of magnitude. They don’t want to research parts, compare components, diagnose issues, update BIOS, or ask for help on a forum. Their priority is convenience, stability, and a big known established brand behind the product. A good analogy is motorcycles: I can do basic maintenance on my motorcycle - buy the parts, change the oil and filter, coolant, spark plugs, maybe atempt the clutch or secondary transmission if desperate. But I’m still part of a single-digit percentage of the entire motorcycle customer base. Most riders will never do that. They go to the official dealer or workshop, because they want convenience, support, and zero hassle. It’s the same with PCs. The same logic applies here. Laymen don’t care about what enthusiasts can do for $600. They’re not going to search for your advice, my advice, or anyone else’s. They look for a large mainstream corporation that offers a plug-and-play product and 24/7 support - the same way Nintendo and Sony sell consoles and games to millions of people who don’t want to tinker. For the mainstream customer, a “PC-console” with official support and a huge library is appealing - and that’s why this has the potential to be successful. Not because it beats what enthusiasts can build, but because it targets the millions of people who will never build a PC in the first place. That’s exactly why this device has the potential to be successful - and yes, a game changer. Not for us. For them.

I'm seeing people on other forums already crucifying the device without understanding what it actually is, who it’s for, or what Valve’s strategy looks like. The reality is very simple: the Steam Machine can either be a massive success or a complete non-event - and the deciding factor is the price. If Valve launches it around $600 - $700, it becomes a true “PC-console” for mainstream/casual gamers. Accessible, simple, fully supported, with instant access to the biggest game library in existence (often at unbeatable prices, especially with third-party key sellers like Eneba, Kinguin, etc), and without the complexity or cost of building a PC. At that price point, it will sell extremely well and dramatically boost SteamOS adoption - which is clearly Valve’s long-term goal. But if the machine comes in at $1000 - $1200, the story changes completely. The casual audience disappears, enthusiasts will just build their own rigs, and the Steam Machine becomes “just another prebuilt PC", losing its entire strategic purpose. The key thing people keep forgetting is this: Valve has no shareholders. They don’t need to appease anyone. They can afford a long-term plan and sell a ton of units slowly over time. They can sell hardware at low margins (or even at a loss) to push the ecosystem - and the Steam Deck’s huge success already proved that this strategy works. So right now, judging the product without knowing the actual price makes no sense. At $600 - $700 it’s a game changer. At $1000+ it’s a niche box. Price is literally the whole story.

I agree that all this stuff should come pre-installed, but it's just a matter of time now until apps will be jumping to get on Steam OS, now that the Steam Machine is coming out. Worst case scenario, the Steam Machine will do this like on the Steam Deck. On the Deck, from desktop mode you install apps that you want through Discover (the app that has a shopping bag icon), which is the "store" to get your apps. Then, on Steam (change to desktop version if you're in "Big Picture Mode"), on bottom left press "add a game", select "add a non-Steam game", and add an installed app to it. Then you can go back to gaming mode if desired and launch your installed app from there. Spotify is in there. Whatsapp is in there. Kmail or Thunderbird (for mail-client) is in there. As for streaming services (Netflix, etc), I believe it's still done like this on the Deck:

Yes, a “PC console” designed for the massive audience that wants PC gaming without the complexity of PC gaming. The idea is brilliant, IMO. The price is really what will determine whether it becomes an overnight massive hit or sees slower adoption than antecipated. Either way, I think the Steam Machine will find its audience. It will do very well for casual gamers who are interested in PC gaming but feel intimidated by the whole environment - and that’s the key to its success. The Deck can already run modern AAA games at 1280×800. Multiply that performance (6x faster, so they say) and casual gamers will be more than satisfied. Steam’s catalog is the real weapon here, we’re talking about twenty years of (thousands of) games - the largest, cheapest, and most accessible library in gaming history. Putting that into a plug-and-play box is a huge deal. There’s a huge number of players who already buy games on Steam but feel intimidated by PC hardware, drivers, settings, crashes, troubleshooting, etc. A fully supported, pre-built PC with SteamOS bridges the gap between consoles (simple) and PCs (flexible). They want one thing: click play -> game works. A supported, console-like PC solves all that. This machine is for them. Some more details for those that missed it:

I'm not going to skim through two pages of posts, most of it filled with misunderstood back and forth posts. What I'll say is this: We're witnessing something important here - potentially a new branch in PC gaming. This will have repercussions. What Valve is showing isn’t a cheap solution for simmers or hardcore users. It’s a way to democratize PC gaming for the mainstream: people who lack the money or time to learn, build and maintain a gaming PC, but still want full guaranteed compatibility and proper support. Valve did all the research; they have the money and the means. Most of us here aren’t the target audience. This is aimed at laymen who just want to get into PC gaming, buy games on Steam and play them, whether alone or with others, without worrying about hardware, drivers, BIOS tweaks and updates, OS, conflicts, or troubleshooting. Some of them will eventually grow into enthusiasts later. If the rumored price for the Steam Machine ($800 to $1000) is accurate, it’ll be hard to match the same hardware, pre-built, fully tuned, ready-to-go, and backed by 24/7 support. And pairing that with a highly optimized Linux-based OS (SteamOS) makes this not only competition for consoles, but a direct challenge to Windows. I can already imagine more advanced users installing Linux distros on it (like Bazzite, Nobara, Pop!_OS, etc), running far lighter than Windows ever would, turning the machine into a lightweight, fully capable daily-use PC that still games well. Meanwhile, SteamOS improvements (drivers, kernel, Vulkan), thanks to the involvement of major players like AMD, Nvidia, and Valve, will spill over into the wider Linux ecosystem, benefiting everyone. At a time when PC hardware and game development feel stale, overpriced, and overly complex - consoles aren’t doing great either - and when younger generations love tech but hate technicalities, this fits perfectly. This might end up being even more important than many already expect. The biggest impact won’t be the hardware itself - it will be: 1. The normalization of pre-built Linux gaming PCs. This alone forces Microsoft to react, and also pushes OEMs to start taking Linux seriously. 2. The massive refinement SteamOS will bring to Linux gaming. And as mentioned, all other distros benefit from that work - drivers, kernel, Vulkan, etc. 3. The existence of official support + console-like stability in a PC form factor. This directly addresses the exact problem that the average user doesn’t want to deal with. 4. A “Steam Deck ×100” effect. The Deck already shook the industry. A full Steam Machine will do it even more.