How the fuck did Steam machines failed? The idea was flawless
>>342355146
steamOS doesn't provide wineskin wrappers to be created for windows games.
Because that shit doesn't even play all steam games
They were ahead of their time.
Because they're prebuilt PCs and there's no reason not to build one yourself.
>>342355146
have they failed yet? based on what?
that said they're neither PCs or consoles, so neither the average muh mustard race-fag or the casual don't want them
>>342355146
>linux for gaming
nah there was flaws.
Linux was the main one but the second main flaw was having multiple 3rd party steam machines. Valve should of made like 3 machines at different price points instead of just licensing them out.
>>342355146
>pre-built PCs
There's your problem.
>>342355146
It's fucking 800 dollars bro are you shitting me
>$800 to install Steam on Linux
I mean I get that some people just can't into Linux but come on
cant we install windows in it ??
>console plebs don't want to go someplace there friends won't go
>pc friends already have their machines
gee i wonder what was going to happen.
>>342355146
There were more than one of them.
>hey guize lets make a console competitor
>...and not do the single thing consoles have over PCs, common hardware
>>342355146
Pc was so desperate to get a chunch of the console market, but forgot one thing: games
Also they were expensive as fuck, they were a complete ripoff
>>342356795
>Pc was so desperate to get a chunch of the console market
Meanwhile Sony went on record explaining their scared of pc marketshare. And MS are bringing games to PC.
>>342355146
My friend wants to get one, I told him he should just build a pc but he just refuses, he said he only cares about steam games anyway because the rest is on ps4, even though he refuses to pay for online.
>>342356924
No one is scared of the pc market share
Pc has been dead for years
>>342357042
?
Mine works fine.
>>342357019
tell him it wont run most games because of loonix
Not the complete steam library you need windows.
Too expensive.
>>342355146
Clearly its not
Valve can't make anything besides games to save their fucking lives. Not even the controller is worth the money.
>>342355146
the idea was good I agree, but largely unpractical. Valve should have planned for this for like 2020, bring exclusives and dont allow 3rd party.
>>342357371
> doesn't know dx will die in a year because of apis that are closer to the machine
Microsoft saw its flaws, and then took the concept and redesigned it for Xbox Scorpio.
>>342355146
because pc's for nerds.
>>342358053
>i have no idea how graphics APIs work so I'll just parrot something that every API has advertised for years
Because Alienware took their design and used it for their own shit.
>>342355146
Valve has been fucking up a lot lately.
>Steam broadcast is fucking pointless
>Paid mods were executed and marketed terribly
>Steam machines completely pointless
>Steam controller apparently functions well but looks retarded and is still overall pointless
Greenlight may have been helpful for some, but since they lack creative control over anything they do, that also became a huge fucking mess and is the reason why the Steam store looks like fucking Miniclip or some other shithole.
Also, no Half-Life 3. I don't know why they haven't banked on it yet, it makes no sense.
>>342357371
Good point, not sure he will understand that 100 percent but I can dumb it down
>>342355146
>The idea was flawless
>Make a bunch of overpriced pre-built PCs
>>342355146
Its because they didn't serve a clear MARKET.
Those of us with PC's already don't need one, but the tiny Steam Link at most!
Those who play console games would have to be incentivized to buy this or other prebuilts by some PC exclusive game, and I can't recall any that would play well on a controller...
>>342355146
I guess you could say they were full of hot air.
>>342355146
because
1.linux and oGL are shit compared to windows and direct x
2.they were expensive as fuck with no subsidizing like ms and sony do with their consoles
3.there was literally 0 advertising for them so nobody knew about them
this is what ms are trying to copy with the future of xbox though and the'll naturally have an advantage. it will probably take off iff ms do it and then steam can attempt to ride the hype wave by bringing out the steam machine again as a windowsbox alternative.
>>342358296
Steam broadcast isn't pointless per say...
It's super fucking easy to use and requires no set up, so anyone can use it
That being said, those who are already successful streamers have no reason to switch from their source of income on twitch over to steam
So all in all, its only really useful for watching a friend play who wants to put no effort into it
>>342358680
Name one thing about OpenGL that is worse than dx3d that isn't "Microsoft paid us to use it"
>>342358680
>>342358952
Not him, and I regularly make use of Open GL, but it is slower than dx3d
However a lot of the time, either can be worse depending on how shite the developer is at optimizing
>non upgradeable small factor gaming PCs with linux
>flawless idea
>>342358680
Valve created SteamOS & SteamMachines because they were afraid of Windows 8 pushing people away from Steam. But now that Windows 10 has calmed Valve down, there's no need for the SteamMachines anymore.
>>342358952
>>342359168
Actually, I change my stance
Apparently according to Valve, OGL can be faster, its just that more people use DX3D and it has more documentation.
Interesting to know. I figure the exact same thing will happen with Vulkan, since it is even harder to use and has even less documentation
>>342359734
>and it has more documentation.
I honestly thought it would be the other way around.
letting shitty companies like ibuypower and alienware make boxes
>>342355889
>Linux was the main one but the second main flaw was having multiple 3rd party steam machines. Valve should of made like 3 machines at different price points instead of just licensing them out.
But capitalism will be able to correct itself out!
>>342359858
I may have worded the sentence poorly, I meant to say that DX3D is a cleaner API with better documentation, so more people end up using it, more optimizations found, and cycle continues.
>>342355146
no exclusives
>>342360098
Do you actually believe that is why it failed?
>>342360189
yea
>>342360189
It would have helped. If you were a console gamer who didn't have a PC, why would you want to buy a steam machine unless it had a game that interested you.
Keep in mind you would be playing only with a controller.
>>342360269
I don't believe you.
>>342355146
They were all overpriced pieces of shit.
>>342355146
>Flawless idea
The concept has no demographic to appeal to. Console gamers will just stick with consoles because they're cheaper and easier to use while PC gamers will just stick to PC and buy a longer HDMI cable if they want to play on the couch
The OS shit and the hardware is way overpriced.
>>342355146
Attempted to fill a market that doesn't exist and outperformed by competitors. It's as simple as that.
There's nothing to prevent me from placing a full fledged PC in a small case next to a television. Because DX will outperform whatever the fuck it is SteamOS is using, there is no compelling reason not to use Windows.
>>342360310
>It would have helped.
Maybe, but it wouldn't help shake the idea that the entire concept was pointless.
![441416_521120_01_front_zoom[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/euAou6j.jpg "441416_521120_01_front_zoom[1].jpg")
>>342360331
Intel Core i3-4130T Processor 2.9GHz
Exclusive Alienware Alpha Console Interface w/ Microsoft Windows 8.1
4GB DDR3L-1600 RAM
500GB 5,400RPM Hybrid Hard Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX
10/100/1000 Network
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160+Bluetooth 4.0
Not that bad for $299 for a HTPC and something the size of a Wii.
>>342355146
Don't most PC gamers play on toasters? Why would someone go out of their way to buy a steam machine when they already have a toaster and don't care about upgrading?
>>342360501
Are you fucking kidding me, 300$ for something that will not do 60 fps of any game released 2015-2016?
that is a piece of trash, for 500$ you can throw together something much better
>>342358708
>So all in all, its only really useful for watching a friend play who wants to put no effort into it
it sucks even for this. It's very low quality and horribly laggy - I can stream to twitch at much higher resolution with less performance impact using OBS or Shadowplay or whatever and my one friend who's watching can actually see what's going on
>>342360524
Most of /v/ are mid-range.
>>342358120
Nah vulkin/metal cuts the amount of time your cpu compiles code into machine language your gpu reads. Its not rocket science. Open gl was created at the advent of computers. There's a lot of bloat and archaic principles. Dx is windows based and that's just a joke as is. Nothing Microsoft makes is efficient and any real powerhouse application uses open gl. As technology advances you can't just day what we got now is good enough because its not
>>342360685
>number sign after amount
Doubt it.
prebuilts are so 2006
You can doubt all you want, it's not going to change the facts.
Lads, why would you choose pleb tier PC ports and shovelware when you can taste the pure 10/10 PS4 exclusives, have fun getting hats in tf2 while i play the luxuriously creamy Horizon on my godtier ps4.
>>342360501
>i3
>4gb RAM
>Win 8
>5400rpm
Why not just give them half of what you were going to spend on this piece of shit, they take you out back and kick you in the crotch and you call it even?
>>342360729
Really? I've found the opposite here
>>342361005
>pay 1.6x the price
of course it will be better
>>342361053
upgrade the RAM, it's p. cheap nowadays, also it was over a year ago so you can do better nowadays
Why do people still praise Valve?
>>342361237
they don't
they're basically a lazier MS just providing a service we use every day
>>342361005
Not for the form factor. Even an i3 NUC will cost more and have a much worse GPU.
>>342355146
>The idea was flawless
It appeals to literally no one. How the fuck is it flawless?
>>342361217
>pay 1.6x the price
of course nigger, but that piece of trash isn't even worth 300$ nor you going to make a PC that can survive at leat a few years for that price, for sightly more you can make something that run future stuff on lower settings and is upgradeable, an i3 isn't going to cut it.
Shop smart.
>>342361317
People still shill TF2, Dota 2 and CS:GO. Despite being practically abandoned if it weren't for the e-sport money Valve can squeeze out of them.
WHERE. IS. PITLORD?? People have been making fucking excuses for this game not being finished by saying "the game doesn't need more characters." That's like saying Street Fighter 2 doesn't need Balrog.
>>342361439
>an i3 isn't going to cut it
Even a $50 G3258 beats out an 8-core AMD in most benchmarks. inb4 you need a i7 to play muh PC games
>>342359983
It did, company's went back to standard prebuilts using the most popular os.
>>342361504
>People still shill TF2, Dota 2 and CS:GO.
I haven't seen a legitimate TF2 thread on /v/ in ages.
Dota 2 basically resides in /vg/ as well.
And e-sports popularity have brought even more shitters to /v/.
But CSGO is trash and we have >QUAlITY threads every now and then with CSGO's wonderful RNG being posted.
>>342355146
Most of it was licensed out to Dell under Alienware. Which is overexpensive fashion pc garbage. What little wasn't under Dell was under ASUS.
>>342361575
why
why would get that shitty cpu with that fucking gpu
>>342355146
They tried appealing to the console market, but the reality is that console players don't care about pc gaming.
PC gamers already have gaming pcs, and most PC gamers in the market for a new PC know that prebuilts are garbage.
There just was not a market for them. Also they are all overpriced and under powered.
>>342355146
They are overpriced pre-built-small-form PC's that can't do everything a Mac or windows machine can do that can't even play all the games steam has. It was a terrible idea from the start. The only good development from the project was the controller which I don't want or need but is still functional in any matter.
Why would you want to make a PC more like a console when modern consoles are already a lot like PC's? Upgrading a steam box is plausible but you're still paying $500+ and you maybe limited by power supply. You're better off with either a console or a DIY PC.
>>342355146
Lack of control/standardization over the hardware specifications and immaturity of Linux-based firmware over the much more established Windows.
Had Valve tightened the specifications to a select few hardware components (like standardized RAM sizes, # of CPU threads, and onboard controllers (no that that controller)) but allowing the GPU to be swapped out at will, the Steamboxes might have had a better chance purely out of better firmware and support optimization (less hardware variety = less time spent on updates and refinements). But there is an inherent problem to using Linux as a basis of a gaming machine: the lack of GPU support for one vendor, AMD and the immaturity of GPU driver support within the Linux environment. They don't even have a fully-established API that can perform at the level of DX9/11 on the same hardware because there was no financial incentive behind it before. The only solution to this is for Valve to standardize the GPU architecture those Steamboxes would support as well, which would defeat the purpose of the Steambox to begin with.
It was an alright idea that just wouldn't work in the real world for a variety of reasons. Not only that, but the library of games for the SteamOS was quite small, which meant that the PC userbase was better off sticking to Windows to play most of their games, ultimately cucking the SteamOS out of its primary market.
>>342361801
>shitty cpu
nope
>>342361217
People don't buy the equivalent of consoles to upgrade them.
>>342362076
Computers in general unfortunately. Apple popularized soldering everything to the board and now it's difficult to find any laptop without soldered RAM.
>>342362038
that's pretty odd.
Have any more benchmarks?
Instead of actually expanding the reach of PC gaming, Valve went with the tried and true method of "fuck Micro$oft; Linux nigga!" and the rest was history.
>>342355146
>oversaturated market with so many different companies with different versions of their own steam machines
>linux based os limiting game selection
>flawless
>linux
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
>>342362038
Your limited by those two threads. Right now, you're good for most AAA titles because they rely on more powerful cores rather than the number of threads available. But multi-threading is becoming more and more mainstream in video game development, and you'll start feeling the limitations soon enough.
Not going to lie though, those Pentiums are hella fun to push to the limits.
>>342362231
That's the Pentium's single core performance coming into play. The difference in core architecture between the G3258 and the i7-4790K is minimal, with the Pentium having onle 3MB of L3 cache and the i7-4790K having 8MB. Assuming clock speeds are the same, the G3258 can perform the same as an i7-4790K in single-threaded applications only.
>>342362452
>But multi-threading is becoming more and more mainstream in video game development, and you'll start feeling the limitations soon enough.
Been saying that since Pentium 4.
>>342355146
>linux
this is what happens when u listen to the socially hated neckbeard of the company baka
>>342355146
anyone who honestly expected alienware (+valve sorta) to release something with 0 marketing to compete with the established consoles is lunacy
valve releases new technology all the time and expects no return on it, people seem to forget the novint falcon or the razor hydras, hell go back to the start of valve when they signed all those ISPs to use some weird 56k-packet-prediction tech that was supposed to change the world and then quietly dropped it like starcraft ghost
If they came pre installed with valve games i would CONSIDER it. And i mean all valve games.
They should have launched it with hl2 ep3 if they wanted any amount of success but we all know how incompetent valve is now.
>>342355823
They were aimd at consolefags who wanted to PC.
But failed because it still requires you to log into an operating system.
Consolefags are scared of that. They just want to pop in their game and be done with it.
PC Mustards didn't liked them either because as usual, a custom built is superior and cheaper.
Who was left? Absolute valvedrones that buy anything valve related and novelty morons, you know, the same idiots that bough an OUYA.
>lincucks
>>342355146
>People use PC because they can do whatever they want with it
>Sell them a PC-console hybrid with LINUX
>Why did it fail
I wonder
>>342355146
Too risky for console gayfucks, and everyone else is playing PC already.
>>342361575
>1440x900
>980ti
Why
>>342362518
>Been saying that since Pentium 4
There are more titles that are coming out now that require a minimum of 4 threads to even start. Far Cry 4 and Primal are one of the more notorious ones, where you have to go into the ini files in order for a Pentium build to be able to start them.
And even then, the experience is subpar because both cores are being pushed to near 95% utilization. Even the Athlon X4 860K could beat the Pentium in pure experience; even though an overclocked G3258 can hit higher peak FPS, the difference between it and the minimum FPS is staggering and frequent. The Athlon X4 860K overclocked delivers a much lower peak FPS, but the difference between the peak and the lows are within 15FPS, which is a smoother experience overall.
That being said, most modern games (if not all of them) are utter shit. Older games run much better with an overclocked Pentium than an Athlon X4.
>>342355146
>"let's make world of warcraft for the people who already have world of warcraft"
>"let's make consoles for the people who already have consoles"
>pay full PC price for subpar gaming machine on gimped linux OS that normie fags never heard of just to SOME steam games on a awkward as fuck controller, with no real upgrade path and with none of the functionality of a real PC
What could go wrong?
>>342355146
The problem is that a personal computer can do more than just gaming, but these are clearly meant to be focused on gaming.
Which is dumb because people would rather just buy a big tower and build their own and upgrade it over time, it's cheaper and more logical.
>can't play nearly all the steam games because they run linux
>since the hardware manufacturer doesn't see money on the software sales, they have to make a profit on the hardware themselves, making it more expensive than consoles
>you can get a much better PC for a similar amount of money or slightly more AND it will play all games if it runs windows AND be an actual computer
flawless idea? pls
>>342363165
Did that they do GTA5?
that really hits it hard.
>>342355146
>How the fuck did Steam machines failed? The idea was flawless
No games
Disgusting premium for basic things like a 7200 rpm hard drive
Wonky OS since the it is bloated for with drivers for a cornucopia of hardware and cpu architectures instead of just one
Poor marketing
Didn't wait for VR and market it as the "first and best vr console"
I thought it was a nifty idea though. If only valve had the head room or the ability to partner with only one manufacturer (Intel for example) and managed to include windows license AND steam os with well priced hardware, they could have nipped Scorpio and PS4k in the bud.
>>342363259
You're kidding yourself if you don't think games are being optimized for more cores. Enjoy your bottleneck.
>>342362969
my friend has a 1440x900 screen and he's got a founders 1080 (evga) I had the exact same goddamn reaction
it's shit like this that's why steamboxes can never be a thing, ignorance has it's own market that is so happy to take care of you for the right price
see also: headphone market, people buying 150$ ears with the same specs as 19$ ones but more likely to spend more because price = quality
>>342363348
>more cores
You mean threads.
>>342355146
As a console gamer I'd love a steambox but they cost more than my PS4 and give less performance and won't even run most games!!!
Steam should've taken this seriously.
>>342363361
>people buying 150$ ears with the same specs as 19$ ones
wwwwwwwwww
>>342363348
consoles have 8 cores so of course games (99% of which are console ports anyway) focus more on core-driven processing than actual ram - for nearly a decade we've been stuck with dx9 512mb ram shit, imagine what gta5 or skyrim would be like if it wasn't developed for such a low bar
>>342363605
>tfw socketed U-SKU Skylakes will have 512MB of L4$/eDRAM
My god, those DX9 games will play gloriously on those CPUs
>>342363725
I just got a 6700k (my z77 sabertooth 3770k died last week) and it literally plays skyrim and overwatch at a 45-60 fps on medium settings
blows my fucking mind
>>342355146
>The idea was flawless
>Goes against the appeal of PC gaming and upgradable hardware
Pick one.
>>342355146
They are prebuild PCs with a preinstalled linux distribution. Who gives a shit.
Take your console war shit elsewhere.
>>342363994
I was talking about the upcoming Skylakes with the massive Iris Pro iGPUs and eDRAM. They're coming out this winter alongside Kaby Lake.
They have the same niche as the desktop Broadwells that came out last year. The iGPU is rumored to BTFO a 750 Ti/R7 360.
>>342363994
Am I missing something? How is a rig that runs Skyrim on medium with ~45-60 frames 'good'?
>>342361575
I'm so confused with what I'm looking at
>>342364771
The CPU and IGPU m8.
>>342364223
I've got my doubts, we've reached a processing bottleneck and the only solution is smaller and smaller die cuts (10nm etc) but any cooling solution means the tiny framework physically breaks
better skylakes are 2+ years away and even then i'd say the only real benefit they'll have is better cooling (holy shit, the 6700k under the hood is disgustingly awful design for heat)
>>342364771
I'm saying just a cpu can run modern games decently (for 99% of people) which was amazing for me to see, onboard graphics (to me) have always meant 600x400 minecraft graphics, not killing floor 2 on medium (xbox runs it on medium)
tldr, people are spending 500$ on graphics cards when cpus can basically run this shit on their own
>>342364916
>>342365102
Huh, I can't believe I've never come across the term 'IGPU' before. That's pretty crazy performance in that case.
Just curious though, do all CPUs have these or only specific ones? Also, where do you even plug in your DVI / HDMI if you're not using a GPU?
>>342365102
Skylake is a gigantic improvement over Broadwell for thermals. My 5775C can not go past 4.2GHz without all cores spiking beyond 70 degrees with an NZXT X41, no matter how low the voltage.
For reference, my 4790K can hit 4.7GHz below 70 degrees at +0.113 volts
>>342365102
>when cpus can basically run this shit on their own
Because some people want the best when they take the money and time to put a computer together. And getting barely above console isn't worth it to a lot of people including me.
>>342365259
It's an intel thing, AMD have their APUs.
>>342365259
>Also, where do you even plug in your DVI / HDMI if you're not using a GPU?
Modern motherboards come with VGA/DVI/HDMI ports.
>>342365591
That's what I guessed, it's been a while since I've built a PC so I've been missing out on some of the newer stuff.
That's pretty neat though. Not necessarily needing a GPU to run is pretty cool
>>342365259
cpu only gets 45-55ish on Medium settings, but Low is a steady 60 with no dips
>>342365448
yeah my 3770k was blazing until the mobo died, 5 years 1 month too on a 5 year warranty
>>342365259
>Just curious though, do all CPUs have these or only specific ones?
Core i7s and i5s usually have better iGPUs than the lower-end i5 and i3s, but certain laptop i5s (Apple stuff, usually) have Iris iGPUs which are really good (think $100 GPU performance in an integrated GPU).
AMD has the A4/6/8/10 series APU. The A10s have the best iGPU of them all, beating i7-6700Ks of all things, but losing out to the i5-5765C (which costs the same as an i7-6700K anyway). The Zen-based APUs that are coming out next year (this year will see an Excavator APU refresh for the new AM4 socket) will have the newer GCN 4.0 iGPU that will have Xbox One/PS4 graphical performance due to the sheer number of GCN cores they could fit into the new lithography.
They failed because they half assed it.
The idea was not flawless, it was risky as fuck.
For the idea to stand a chance they could have:
Have fixed hardware specs, either working with few oems, having strictier guidelines, whatever with valve getting a bit more involved. Have steamos work as flawlessly as possible on those few machines. Have some kind of wine layer to play windows games, test the fuck out of them, certify the ones that work and ship them with the wine settings configured. Lend employees to work on relevant projects (like driver development, game porting and os components). Have an exclusive or two (even though exclusives suck).
I don't know if all of it could be done but what valve did was maybe 1% of the work needed to make steam machines stand a chance.
>>342356305
Yes
>>342355146
Because prebuit specifications are shit every time.
>ok cpu
>decent gpu
>Fuck all for storage and ram
or
>Shit cpu
>decent gpu
>Alright amount of storage
>>342366218
how do you half-ass making a pc for people who don't want a pc?
how do you half-ass making a low-end pc for people who want something more complex and modular (ie, the reason people pick a pc over a console?)
valve knew it wasn't a battle worth fighting but they've put the tech out there for people to play with anyway, like the steam controller
you have to remember gabe is retiring in a few years and knows full well robin is going to sell the company and make his own studio with the fat stacks, gabe is doing this good guy shit for his legacy + kids (and possibly so he can sit on the couch and play video games when he can't sit in an office chair anymore, which has already happened, he uses an exercise ball because of his back and don't google his eye issues)
>>342365801
Yeah, if you're building a to do unintensive things like playing older games or watching video, it really is a convenient addition.
Also, integrated GPUs can be use for hardware-accelerated video encoding, aka record gameplay with 0 performance impact.
>>342366218
My point being it would requiere a ton of effort to pull the steam machines the way valve wanted to and they just sold some prebuilts with linux
>>342365897
>tfw when I get only ~90 frames on Overwatch on low with my GTX 460
My performance was pretty decent in SLI until one of my cards died. Still, I'm surprised at how well optimized Overwatch is
>>342365931
Really? I've got an I7 950 3.07 GHZ from a couple years back, but how would I even make use of the IGPU if my motherboard doesn't have a dvi / hdmi out?
I can't believe I've never heard of this before though. What're the limitations of an IGPU? Does using it put more stress on the CPU? Also, if they're this powerful, can't they be utilized alongside a regular GPU?
>>342366614
Fuck, I hate being reminded of this
We're literally living during gaming's Jesus era
Because for the same price as a "midrange" steam machine, I built a gaming PC for my living room that blows that shit out of the water. I can also run Windows, allowing me to play anything. Only being able to run Linux supported Steam games only killed its potential.
>>342366736
>I7 950
That's on the LGA1366 socket, which means it has no iGPU. The i7s that are on the 1366 and 2011/-v3 sockets (aka the i7 Extreme) do not have an iGPU, so their motherboards do not have video output ports.
The AMD AM3+ motherboards are the same (all FX CPUs have no iGPU), only the FM2/+ and AM1 motherboards have video outputs (and only the Athlon X4s have no iGPU).
>>342366614
I don't know, I can think of some consolized pc designs but I suppose whatever you do involving hardware costs a lot.
Regarding gabens personal stuff I don't know but if that's the case why start projects with an scope so ambitious and then half ass them?
>>342367512
there is no solution as long as all the parts are made by third parties seeking a profit, the way consoles do it is by huge contracts that mean they lose money on each sale (cost of making an xbone is higher than the retail price, only the kinect made a profit per sale but microsoft blew billions on its research and development)
you simply can't do that with pc parts, a decent "future proof" graphics card (like a 770, which was like a 4 year solid graphics card that only now is getting outdated) was literally 300$, the price of an xbone S or the price of 2 Xbox Elite controllers which fall apart as soon as you touch them
no one who knows anything about the market expected steamboxes to be a competitor, but the release got the technology out there and that's all valve cares about
also of note, valve makes all their hardware (controllers, etc, boxes are all 3rd party) in the USA with taxes out the goddamn ass for importing rare earths, if they wanted to compete and make a profit they'd have set up a factory or rented foxcon like everyone else in china
literally everyone uses foxcon
>>342367512
if you half ass a good idea someone else will do it properly.
see: mp3 players which were varied and "okay", then steve jobs came along with the ipod and made it better
>>342368858
except you can't sell an underpowered pc to people who want a pc
>>342368198
Well they could sell different GPUs fitted inside cases that stack on (or below) the base case, connect to it through some kind of riser cable and have its own small psu for the gpu. The thing is that only they (or a licenced partner ) could sell steambox compatible gpus so they'd have a console-like approach to upgrading the gpu (at least in the beginning).
The components should not necessarily be cheaper than regular PC parts, the value is in the consolization. The rest of the third parties should be invited on board when the base systems have already some traction, with rough edges solved, bugs fixed, the os thoroughly tested, the guidelines set in stone and a certification system working.
>>342368858
That's probably what ms wants to do with the xbox make it the ipod of gaming.
>>342370078
Then you're halfway to building a PC, the whole set of hardware is not certified, if the CPU is not swappable than it may bottleneck it anyways, you have to have driver support for this, you lose the stability of a fixed hardware config...
The type of people who would buy a steam box and would buy external upgradeable GPUs are probably minimal when compared to people who would prefer that option over building a PC that can do other tasks like productivity and browsing the internet.
>>342370078
consoles are innately non modular by their very definition and market model, it's a self defeating system and pc part makers won't ever play that game - it costs intel 2 billion to make new dies so they just make everything fit the same 2-3 sockets now
>>342370562
The CPU would not be swappable I suppose, but the drives, gpu and maybe memory could be modular (and drives should be inside some kind of case or on a tray and swappable like in the ps4). The drivers would come with the os and would have been tested to work in the certification process, the games could come with premade configs for each config (favouring framerate or resolution, up to the player).
A lot of stuff along these lines could be made but it would cost a lot of money, it would still be risky and as you said people might not buy into it in the end. But it would be a lot more serious than what they did in the end.
>>342371405
>but the drives, gpu and maybe memory could be modular
They already are. Standards exist for a reason
>>342371405
nobody is going to make a non modular pc, apple, microsoft and sony can only do it because they are already juggernauts in the tech fields
>>342360098
>PC gaming
>no exclusives
we have whole genres of games that are exclusive
it does less than you can do for yourself while being cheap. i put a dollar on that you can build an entire pc perhaps windows discluded for the price of one and still exceed the performance offered.
they tried to consoleize the pc and didn't work because theres already a market for that - CONSOLES
>>342373679
we also have all of xbone's library soon, the future is pretty set for pc IF vr proves to be more than a waggle gimmick
microsoft's own incompetence has cost them the console war since they can't get their heads out of their ass and make a killer app, the focus on kinect cost them everything
meanwhile sony hasn't had a decent game in a decade
