The Steam Machine is the new Commodore 64 or Apple IIe. For one price, it’s going to do almost everything just good enough.

If the price isn’t ludicrous, it will likely be my default recommendation to anyone asking what PC to get for grandma.

Can she check her email?

Yes.

Can we just hook it to her TV?

Yes.

Can it play some kind of cooking simulation party game with the kids?

Yes.

Okay send me a parts list.

No parts list, just buy one and hook it up.

Okay. How often do I have to buy an OS upgrade?

Those are free.

Which game controllers work with it?

Pretty much all of them, but it probably also comes with one.

This is going to be the stupidly easy answer for casual gamers and casual PC users, as long as it doesn’t cost double what either of those would.

The use case is it’s going to introduce gamers to Linux. And it’s going to prove that in PCs, just like consoles, you don’t need Microsoft to game.

It’s a console for people who like PCs

People want a console but also:

• A wider game library (Missing on Playstation and Xbox)
• No subscription (missing Playstation and Xbox)
• a working 10 foot UI (missing in windows)
• controller os navigation (missing in windows)
• no bimonthly fullscreen nags to use edge, office365, onedrive, etc. (missing in windows)
• Working ACPI sleep states. (Missing on most cheap mini PCs)
• Backwards compatibility for older titles and not needing to rebuy games when upgrading (Missing on PlayStation)

Microsoft could probably build an XBox that fixes the first problem but would probably fill it with nag screens.

People with technical skills can probably run Bazzite on a minipc but might hit issues with sleep depending on luck while purchasing.

People without technical skills just want a package that works

It’s DoA unless they have an absurdly low price. Give me a steam deck 2.