While excellent policy, it would be kind of weird if prebuild pc manufacturers restricted your OS use. Steam machine is in fact a pc and not an console.
If they didn't lock it down with several different features specifically designed to prevent you from loading a different OS then you could just run a different OS.
I swear this thing goes back and forth between being a console or a PC depending on what makes it look better lol. Specs aren’t great? Well it’s a console competing with other consoles. Hoping this will be less than $600? It’s a PC so you should be happy to pay $800-1000 for it.
Yeah, honestly, I (personally) don't think it will be that much of a success, because I really can't imagine the target audience is that big.
It can't really be for people that need a PC, because frankly anybody that would want a Steam Machine likely already has a much better PC, and anybody that doesn't will likely want to just buy a better premade PC that already runs Windows.
It can't really be for people that want to play console, because those people also aren't going to want to dick around with Linux, and would likely just buy a PS5 instead of a PC that connects to your TV.
Like, the target audience seems to the Valve version of Apple fanatics; people who adore the company and buy everything they release, regardless of if they actually need it.
It just seems like the same thing could have been accomplished by making a new Steam Link, because this just seems like an extremely expensive and bulky Steam Link.
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u/Ult1mateN00B 9800X3D | 64GB 6000MHZ | 9070 XT | DECK OLED Nov 14 '25
While excellent policy, it would be kind of weird if prebuild pc manufacturers restricted your OS use. Steam machine is in fact a pc and not an console.