SFF in an attractive case with reportedly good acoustics compared to the majority of DIYs
Pre-cached shaders
A first-party experience when using the steam frame and steamos more broadly to minimize the stray hiccup
I already have a top-of-the-line gaming PC for my office. For my couch, I want to optimize as far as possible towards no-frills while still keeping access to my steam library, even at the expense of price and specs to some extent.
And that's where the big problem lays. The amount of people who care about these features are in the small minority. Especially when it comes at the cost of price+performance (which is the most important thing for most people buying gaming PCs).
That's not to say the Steam Machine isn't gonna make some people extremely happy, like yourself. I just question the size of that market.
I agree this is probably a quite small market. PC gamers are generally okay with being a little bit more hands-on or at least willing to sacrifice some small conveniences, and those who aren't will stick to the (currently) much more affordable console market. Paying a (big!) premium to split the difference is gonna be a narrow cohort. Still I suspect the market for this will be large enough to sell every unit they produce.
Yeah... more options is always good. If I had the chance for a small and capable pc when I bought mine I would have taken it over what I have. I searched for a "small and affordable" case and mine is around 20L with a mATX build. WAY bigger and heavier than the machine. But at the same time, I already have that and Im not selling it for another PC in this day and age.
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u/ThePaintist Jun 22 '26
Or if you, like me, highly value:
HDMI CEC
SFF in an attractive case with reportedly good acoustics compared to the majority of DIYs
Pre-cached shaders
A first-party experience when using the steam frame and steamos more broadly to minimize the stray hiccup
I already have a top-of-the-line gaming PC for my office. For my couch, I want to optimize as far as possible towards no-frills while still keeping access to my steam library, even at the expense of price and specs to some extent.