Most of us reading this site want Steam Machines to do well. Not all of us will be interested in buying the hardware, but we're aware that its success is also tied to the success of Linux as a gaming platform, which is why I'm pretty miffed that the OEMs and Valve have messed it up.
Valve have done well with the controller and with making SteamOS pretty coherent and user-friendly, but messed it up when it came to defining what a Steam Machine actually is, leaving it open to interpretation. I've said this time and time again, but the original Steam Machines line-up was a complete mess. We had everything from $1500 PCs to ludicrously overpriced machines which didn't even have discreet graphics cards.
Even the best offerings fall short. Alienware's cheapest offering comes in at $450 (this should be the ideal price point in my opinion), but offers a mere 4GB RAM. If you want to scale this up to 8GB, you have to pay $750 since it also means upping the CPU to an i5. Does a GTX 960 need an i5 to do its thing? No, not really. You might get a few extra frames or do better in a more CPU-intensive game, but if one tries to step outside the worldview of a PC gamer and into one of a console gamer, then it doesn't take long to realise that those $200 aren't worth it, but $20 for an extra stick of 4GB RAM would be worth it.
This is perhaps the most frustrating thing. Most of the time, the specs are completely wrong, but when they're not then the price is a serious problem. An Intel i3 and Nvidia 960/1060 series (or AMD equivalent) are the perfect mass market specs for a sofa 1080p gamer just coming off a console. Someone with more needs than that will know how to build a PC and will do it cheaper and better than an OEM.
With the GTX1060 coming out, estimated to have a performance somewhere between a 970 and 980 (probably more on the side of a 980, but I like being conservative) at $250, and if AMD's Zen architecture lives up to the hype and delivers the same price/performance ratio benefits that the Piledriver architecture did, then we could be looking at a new era for the Steam Machine if things are done right this time round.
So what should be done right? First and foremost, deliver the best performance at the lowest cost possible. There is absolutely no room for diminishing returns here, which is why I can't advocate i7s or even i5s. Upgradability would also be a nice plus and a huge selling point if it's approached in a way where a non-technically minded user can get an upgrade easily through using modular designs (there's a lot of possibilities here, but too much to go into for this article). This has the potential to be a massive selling point over this last console generation, which was underpowered on release.
The second, and perhaps more controversial, point is that Valve should really take a few lessons from the console world. By this I mean manufacturing their own machine (which doesn't mean exclusivity). While the idea of everyone building their own box is amicable, the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits. This is what makes consoles so competitive, gives them (historically, not this last generation) great performance compared to PCs on launch at a much better price, with a considerable lifespan.
There's a few reasons for this. Firstly, there's economies of scale, with a single manufacturer pumping out tonnes of machines, the production costs are lower for a number of reasons which this article won't touch upon. Secondly, the benefits of optimisation are tremendous. If everyone is developing for the same hardware, it's easy to accommodate for and optimise a game to get the most out of that hardware - this is one of the main reasons why consoles have such a long lifespan, considering this optimisation also gets better with time. The third reason is simply a retail one, since a high street vendor is far more likely to stock Steam Machines if there's only one option, again for a number of reasons. There's probably more, such as the ability to sell hardware at a loss or a significantly lower profit margin (since that money is made back through game sales), but those are the main ones.
In essence, for Steam Machines to succeed, I would like to see something priced at just over $400 (might be a bit optimistic, but possible with lower profit margins) made by Valve and at those sweet spot specs I mentioned earlier. The original launch was very underwhelming, but there's still a lot of potential to turn things around significantly if Valve come to their senses. Even without them making their own hardware, there's still room for OEMs to improve a lot. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Valve have done well with the controller and with making SteamOS pretty coherent and user-friendly, but messed it up when it came to defining what a Steam Machine actually is, leaving it open to interpretation. I've said this time and time again, but the original Steam Machines line-up was a complete mess. We had everything from $1500 PCs to ludicrously overpriced machines which didn't even have discreet graphics cards.
Even the best offerings fall short. Alienware's cheapest offering comes in at $450 (this should be the ideal price point in my opinion), but offers a mere 4GB RAM. If you want to scale this up to 8GB, you have to pay $750 since it also means upping the CPU to an i5. Does a GTX 960 need an i5 to do its thing? No, not really. You might get a few extra frames or do better in a more CPU-intensive game, but if one tries to step outside the worldview of a PC gamer and into one of a console gamer, then it doesn't take long to realise that those $200 aren't worth it, but $20 for an extra stick of 4GB RAM would be worth it.
This is perhaps the most frustrating thing. Most of the time, the specs are completely wrong, but when they're not then the price is a serious problem. An Intel i3 and Nvidia 960/1060 series (or AMD equivalent) are the perfect mass market specs for a sofa 1080p gamer just coming off a console. Someone with more needs than that will know how to build a PC and will do it cheaper and better than an OEM.
With the GTX1060 coming out, estimated to have a performance somewhere between a 970 and 980 (probably more on the side of a 980, but I like being conservative) at $250, and if AMD's Zen architecture lives up to the hype and delivers the same price/performance ratio benefits that the Piledriver architecture did, then we could be looking at a new era for the Steam Machine if things are done right this time round.
So what should be done right? First and foremost, deliver the best performance at the lowest cost possible. There is absolutely no room for diminishing returns here, which is why I can't advocate i7s or even i5s. Upgradability would also be a nice plus and a huge selling point if it's approached in a way where a non-technically minded user can get an upgrade easily through using modular designs (there's a lot of possibilities here, but too much to go into for this article). This has the potential to be a massive selling point over this last console generation, which was underpowered on release.
The second, and perhaps more controversial, point is that Valve should really take a few lessons from the console world. By this I mean manufacturing their own machine (which doesn't mean exclusivity). While the idea of everyone building their own box is amicable, the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits. This is what makes consoles so competitive, gives them (historically, not this last generation) great performance compared to PCs on launch at a much better price, with a considerable lifespan.
There's a few reasons for this. Firstly, there's economies of scale, with a single manufacturer pumping out tonnes of machines, the production costs are lower for a number of reasons which this article won't touch upon. Secondly, the benefits of optimisation are tremendous. If everyone is developing for the same hardware, it's easy to accommodate for and optimise a game to get the most out of that hardware - this is one of the main reasons why consoles have such a long lifespan, considering this optimisation also gets better with time. The third reason is simply a retail one, since a high street vendor is far more likely to stock Steam Machines if there's only one option, again for a number of reasons. There's probably more, such as the ability to sell hardware at a loss or a significantly lower profit margin (since that money is made back through game sales), but those are the main ones.
In essence, for Steam Machines to succeed, I would like to see something priced at just over $400 (might be a bit optimistic, but possible with lower profit margins) made by Valve and at those sweet spot specs I mentioned earlier. The original launch was very underwhelming, but there's still a lot of potential to turn things around significantly if Valve come to their senses. Even without them making their own hardware, there's still room for OEMs to improve a lot. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Well apart from some games that can be played on a RPi too or even any andriod tablet the only games left will be adult in nature or at least the pool of games will be small enough to not justify the $400 spent for most people.
Last edited by on 12 July 2016 at 2:25 pm UTC
I agree.
I said it before and I repeat it now: The lack of big games for Linux is not about user base; is about brain... To make a big game for Linux is not easy. A powerfull brain is needed for that, and most developers just don't have it...
Example: A game developer with a powerfull brain will choose a multiplatform engine and multiplatform middleware, (take Croteam as an example of a developer with high level of programming skills)
Good products are what should drive sales. Driving sales by having a crappy product but bribing the industry to use it over better products is not good for the market or for customers. It stifles innovation. Good products and being willing to work with others openly also brings third parties. Look at the Linux Kernel, how many third parties contribute to it? They are different approaches to the same problem. Cathedral and the Bazaar anyone. Both can successful, but one is hostile and toxic while the other is friendly. One benefits a small subset of people while the other benefits everyone.
Choosing the platform with the most exclusives is not what makes one a fanboy, it actually excludes one from being a fanboy.
Last edited by m2mg2 on 12 July 2016 at 3:53 pm UTC
Also being released after Windows can be turned around - majority of casual games really don't care when games are released. They care when they can play lot of games they want on their system. If they can, they don't really care that much of release dates. At this point it doesn't matter that much imnho. In future it will.
Overall I think we in circles with this. There are rehashed arguments without strong basis or data to chew on. Lot of speculation and assumptions.
We might get some answers during Steam Dev Days:
http://steamcommunity.com/devdays
Then we might have a clearer portrait about Valves's level of dedication into Linux.
[edit] i forgot to comment that.
alienware relased an new model recently so its very unlikely.
"Good products are what should drive sales"
in a perfect world, consumers are smart and do the right decision, but in a perfect world they already use linux on desktop anyway.
in the real world, companies put 75% of their bugdet on maerket instead of Research/Development, only 25% goes to R/D, Q/A etc.
if an good product were what drive sales, gamecube would sell more than ps2, it was stronger.
people would be using linux because it have an better performance (but since they arent, we get poor ports and poor performance as an result)
"Also being released after Windows can be turned around - majority of casual games really don't care when games are released. "
80% of the sales of an AAA are done in the first 2 months after the relase.
Last edited by elmapul on 12 July 2016 at 5:21 pm UTC
We are basically in agreement here. In an equal environment the quality product wins. When companies manipulate markets by doing things like purchasing exclusives and pressuring/threatening third party companies not to work with competitors product quality doesn't matter. That is a problem. People don't use Linux because Microsoft cornered the market through manipulation and has used vendor lock in tactics and OEM pressuring.... People don't use Windows because it is a better product, they use it because they know it, it comes pre installed on everything and if you want your office Docs to work with other peoples by default you have to.
Good products do create sales, but money and market manipulation are more powerful. Just because something works doesn't make it right. Unfortunately being rich is more appealing to most people than being right.
Maybe not most people, but definitely most of the powerful ones. After all it is how they got powerful isn't it?
Last edited by m2mg2 on 12 July 2016 at 5:03 pm UTC
The Steam Machine ecosystem does have various shortcomings right now. But Valve can do things about many of them if it chooses to spend resources. It can have people work on graphics drivers, on tools for Vulkan, on stuff for SteamOS like what Johners was talking about (streaming, multimedia etc), even on improving certain back-end features of Linux that relate to gaming performance and polish.
That Valve are choosing not to do much of this kind of stuff suggests they've got the Steam Machine, and Linux generally, on the back burner. Frankly, I think they've made their point to Microsoft now and they just want to keep those projects alive enough to restart at short notice, effectively saying to MS, "We're packing. We won't pull the trigger if you don't threaten our business model again."
There's an open source driver for the Steam Controller. I wonder whether at some point it will be worth forking SteamOS? They could call it "VaporOS" and start building in the things we wish Valve would do with SteamOS, all open source so Valve can use them if they want.
Not sure if it coincides with what you had in mind though.