this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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Gaming
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After being away from consoles for a long time now, they really have little appeal beyond their easy setup and cheaper hardware. The exclusives on any console are not worth buying a whole new console to play. There's so much more value in PC gaming, the intial barrier of entry and possible technical problems just put people off.
I really think Steam Machines could make a major comeback now, the deck has proved the software side, SteamOS is much more mature.
I couldn't agree more. Back during the initial pitches of the Steam Machines, I was a supporter of the concept and was looking forward to the release. In my market, they took a long time to release and ended up being stupidly expensive. To give an idea, in my market an i3-powered unit was expensive as an i7-powered one in the US despite not having that problem with PC components or even prebuilts. Eventually I spent the money on a parts to build my own rig that was significantly more capable than what the Steam Machine of equal cost would have been. I found little ways to make being a couch PC gamer viable without breaking the bank on horribly expensive niche products like lapboards and it's enabled me to become a PC gamer despite having been a console boy for so long. It's a shame because I think Steam Machines would make PC gaming so much more approachable to the average consumer (which I was at the time) and I hope they still manage to in the future.
Oh I agree with that and I'm a PC gamer 99 % of the time (well, like 95 % desktop PC, 4.5 % Steam Deck, 0.5 % consoles). I mainly use my PS5 for playing BluRay nowadays. I don't fancy paying more for games, a subscription for online gaming and getting a worse experience (in terms of graphics/performance and things like modding but also voice chat options etc.).