Steam Machines Are Nothing New And Unexciting
The Steam Machines that are set to release this November? I hate to break it to you, but they’re nothing new. Steam and Steam big picture mode? Now that’s revolutionary. Steam Machines? Nope.
You see, when the Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 X2 launched in 2008, I had a pair of them running in CrossFire and hooked up to my 46 inch Sony Bravia HDTV via a DVI to HDMI adapter and good old HDMI cables.
I also had a Wireless Xbox 360 receiver and hooped up my 360 controller and a wireless keyboard and mouse combo. I played games as you would play on a console attached to a big TV. Only my experience was more immersive as I had the full might of my custom built gaming monster to drive every inch of those pixels very hard.
So, the Steam Machines themselves do not excite me. But the concept does and I’m really glad that this is catching on. This only means that Steam’s 10 foot user interface will get more refined and I’m hoping that other companies will follow suit (I’m looking at you EA and your Origin). Once the concept and the hardware reaches critical mass, game developers will be further incentived to make better ports for PC, with good controller support. I know that the mouse and keyboard trumps controller with one hand tied behind its back, but at the end of a hard day’s work, all I want to do is sit down on the sofa and enjoy some video games.
One thing the Steam Machines will help do is bring this concept to the limelight, that a PC can be hooked up to a big HDTV and offer a similar if not better experience to console gaming. The average console gamer may not even be aware that such a feat is possible. So, the next time a console gamer heads up to a local GameStop or EB Games and catches a glimpse of the new Steam Machines, he maybe tempted to try it out for himself.
And that is where Valve will succeed, in ensuring that the idea reaches widespread recognition, if not adoption. But I do not believe that the current state of the Steam Machine(s) is the way forward as it only serves to confuse the average gamer. But that’s a topic for another post entirely.
Until then, keep on gaming!
Nov 6th, 2015 at 9:31 pm
People see computers as complicated and messy. They are associated with emails, web surfing and doing other complex things even if it isn’t that hard to do. The Steam machines will treat the PC like an appliance or just like a console. Having several different levels of Steam machines means you can possibly upgrade your Steam machine with more and/or faster memory, CPU, storage, etc. and still have it be a Steam machine. This will allow the tinkerers to tinker and the casual I just want it to work crowd enjoy to whatever level of complexity they desire. If done right people will be open to playing even more on PC than they do now. If done wrong it will fragment the gaming market and the concept will die an ignominious death. Fortunately, Gabe Newell doesn’t strike me as stupid.
Nov 7th, 2015 at 12:47 am
@Dirk I’m all for choices and such but there’s a simplicity in having a single choice and making that be upgradeable. Having a bunch of Steam machines will just confuse the average gamer who knows nothing about PC gaming. Also, I believe steam/Linux needs more AAA games and even one or two exclusives because at the end of the day it’s what sells consoles – the games themselves.