From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:53:40 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <[email protected]> said this thing:

Or rather, _a_ Steam Machine is back. Valve has just announced that it
is releasing --in early 2026-- a new Steam Machine to the market.

And now it seems as if these devices won't start coming out until
2027,* reportedly due to the increased hardware costs forced upon the
industry by the AI-bros scooping up all the hardware for their
expensive and mostly unwanted LLM servers.

Which all may just be the death knell for the whole idea. The Steam
Machine was never going to take off. It was too underpowered, too
expensive and too limited for it to ever be more than a niche product.

Had Valve put more effort into the OS (natively supporting Nvidia
GPUs, which are used in 95% of gaming PCs) would be a good step.
Nvidia sucks, but they control the market and SteamOS will never be
anything but a hobbyist toy until it does. But with broader hardware
support, more people might have looked at SteamOS as an alternative to
Windows.

Selling the SteamMachine under cost might have done it. I get why
Valve doesn't want to do that, but it would give the platform an edge
over a regular PC. "Play all your Steam games reasonably well on a
$300 PC" is hard to resist... especially when consoles are starting to
push $800 USD (and the PS6 will probably be even more). But paying
retail prices for an underpowered PC that won't (easily) run Microsoft
Office? That's gonna be a hard pass for most people.

And now it's (maybe) going to be pushed back to 2027? Even if Valve
does update its hardware so it won't be two years out of date, I think
any excitement for the device will be long gone by then.

Although... while Valve is blaming spiking hardware costs, it might be something else entirely. It's generally believed that --if it is ever released-- "Half Life 3" would be a launch title for the Steam
Machine. Maybe the delay has less to do with the platform, and more to
do with problems in game development? Who knows... but I can imagine
that's a possibility.


Was a Steam machine even a glimmer of a possibility for you to buy? Do
you think it ever had a chance of real success? Will this delay affect
those chances, do you think?




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* story https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/valve-still-hopes-to-ship-steam-machines-in-2026-but-a-delay-into-2027-is-starting-to-look-like-a-real-possibility-memory-and-storage-shortages-have-created-challenges-for-us/


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On 3/7/2026 8:16 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:53:40 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <[email protected]> said this thing:

Was a Steam machine even a glimmer of a possibility for you to buy? Do
you think it ever had a chance of real success? Will this delay affect
those chances, do you think?

I don't really think so for me. I wouldn't be surprised if my son
wanted one, as he always wants the newest of every platform (well
xbox/oculous not so much.) If it could play roblox well definitely, but
I don't see that happening.

PS5 and Switch are both garbage for roblox.
--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 09:29:17 -0700, Justisaur <[email protected]>
said this thing:

I don't really think so for me. I wouldn't be surprised if my son
wanted one, as he always wants the newest of every platform (well >xbox/oculous not so much.) If it could play roblox well definitely, but
I don't see that happening.
PS5 and Switch are both garbage for roblox.

I mean, I suspect the Steam Machine would be more than adequate for
Roblox... but I say this only as a person who has read the recommended spec-sheet for the game and not somebody who has put a lot of time
into the game. Valve has indicated that, performance-wise, it should
be more or less on par with a PS5, and claims that even at 4K
resolutions it can run "Cyberpunk 2077" at 60+fps.


Roblox Recommended Specs Steam Machine --------------------------------------------------------
CPU Intel Core i3-2120 (2-core) AMD Zen4 4.8GHz (6-core)
RAM 1 GB 8 GB
GPU AMD Radeon R7 240 (from 2013) RDNA 3GPU 8GB


As you can see, the Steam Machine aces all these specs. That said, I
don't know how accurate the recommended specs are. Maybe they're okay
for the base game, but I suspect a lot of the user-created games
demand more grunt. Ask your son; he'll probably know better than me!
;-)

The problem with SteamMachine isn't its capability --it's a solid
little machine, not high-end but its got 'good enough' performance--
but that you can get something similar for the same price that's more upgradable and runs Windows. The 'hook' of the Steam Machine is that
it's a tiny 'living room PC' that you can connect to your big-screen
TV and play games on your couch... except that means gamepads, which
isn't the best tool for Roblox.

It's not that there's anything wrong with the Steam Machine. It's just
that its advantages don't really outweigh the 'its not Windows'
disadvantage (and for most people, that's a fairly major downside). If
it were cheaper, it might be a hit... but Valve isn't going in that
direction.

But if you want to get the kid a gaming rig without breaking the bank,
the Steam Machine might not be a bad choice. Just hook it up with a
keyboard mouse and use it as a desktop. Valve has indicated you can
even put Windows on it, if you really want. But look around first; you
may be able to get the same performance for a cheaper price...
especially if Valve does have to delay the platform's release for a
year.


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