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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 26th, 2023

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  • I don’t think the Steam Machine is going to be placed in the market as a competitor for consoles. It’s probably not gonna be sold at a loss. The Steam Machine is a competitor to Windows. It’s Valve’s solution to show hardware makers and publishers that a PC gaming market without Microsoft is possible. At the moment Valve’s business is way too dependent on Microsoft. With the direction Win11 is going, Microsoft is a serious threat to Valve’s survival. The more anti-consumer Windows becomes the more likely it will push PC gamers to consoles.

    Remember the first Steam Machines came out when Microsoft tried to force their Windows Store on developers in Win8.



  • I don’t see how it will have any effect beyond what the Steam store already has on the indie market. Indies already flourish thanks to Steam’s use of discovery algorithms instead of human curation.

    The Steam Machine isn’t going to compete with consoles. It’s not a replacement for a console and the target market for this machine is PC users not console users. Console gamers who don’t know what Steam is will not buy this machine like they didn’t buy Steam Decks instead of Nintendo Switches. The goal of Valve’s hardware push is to show that an alternative for Windows is possible. Valve wants to break Microsoft’s monopoly on the PC market. Since Microsoft is the biggest threat for Valve. The more anti-consumer Windows becomes the more it puts Valve’s business in danger, since a shitty Windows experience can push PC gamers towards consoles.