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.
Even with the most cynical point of view making gaming more viable on linux is a profitable option for valve, because microsoft most likely wants to get a piece of the game store market too, and they have the means to fight unfairly
The end result is good either way I guess
“I can build a better PC For less money.”
How would you know? They literally haven’t announced a price, yet.
EDIT: The only official word we’ve had on pricing is that it will be priced “like a PC”. Their stated reasoning is that because it’s a general purpose PC on an open platform, making margin back on games isn’t a guarantee.
If they priced it too low, there would be nothing stopping volume purchasers (like companies) buying them all up at scale because it’s the best compute / $ and then not using them for actually playing games.
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
Step 1: already have a better PC
I don’t think you’re their target group…
I think everybody should be happy then. Imagine you have a good PC, then you don’t have to buy the steam machine and yet you can still buy your games on steam and use the steam controller on it.
Why are people upset?
“I can build a better computer for cheaper” great then just do it and be happy you’re not wasting money.
No one is forcing y’all to buy the steam machine.
