New Valve Hardware Announcement

[Bob Beaky]

So, Valve announced a new Steam Controller, VR headset and the Steam Machine.

I haven't been excited about hardware for a really long time but, man, I'm really looking forward to finally getting rid of my Windows set up and lean more into a well supported and stable new(ish) ecosystem. At least it'll be a lot more open than anything M$ is going to vomit out in the future.

The only caveat, for me, will be modding app support for the 'new' platform. SteamOS has obviously been around for a while and, again obviously, it's essentially just another Linux flavour but I'm hoping that ubiquity will help cement SteamOS as good choice for gaming AND modding.

Anyone else interested?

[Redneckerz]

I certainly am interested but ive already had discussions on what it is supposed to target. One PC gamer said to me that just having a PC is better. Well, the Steam Machine can be that aswell.

What i think sets the Steam Machine apart is:
- PC games within a console-like ecosystem. So as little messing around with settings as possible.
- A huge collection of indie titles that would never get a console release for all kinds of reasons. That essentially covers every standalone GZ/UZDoom based game now on Steam. Your PS5 can't run those. Your Steam Machine can, and with pretty high settings too
- It brings a incentive for PC titles to provide better controller support. Again, GZ/UZ's controller support is alright, but not console-like. A dedicated Steam device, provided it gets popular, is a good incentive to develop better support

I for one can't wait to play Beyond Sunset on a Steam Machine, for instance.

[Caligari87]

The main special sauce with the Steam Machine is SteamOS, which is basically a custom Arch Linux that boots into a fancy new Steam Big Picture mode.

You can get all the same baseline compatibility for almost any Linux PC just by using Steam normally.

It's a prebuilt midrange PC with console-like software, essentially. I think that's really cool but it's not something you can't do today with a little elbow grease.

[Redneckerz]

The main special sauce with the Steam Machine is SteamOS, which is basically a custom Arch Linux that boots into a fancy new Steam Big Picture mode.

You can get all the same baseline compatibility for almost any Linux PC just by using Steam normally.

It's a prebuilt midrange PC with console-like software, essentially. I think that's really cool but it's not something you can't do today with a little elbow grease.

Highlighting the bolded, that's exactly why the Steam Machine exists. Yes, you can do the bolded - But a lot of folks don't want the bolded, but do want the PC-ecosystem.

That's what this does. It is ought to be a plug and play PC-console.