I don’t quite understand the criticism. It’s not gonna be top of the line, but it’s more than enough to replace my dying laptop from 2015 that I pretty much only ever use like a desktop anyway. And I can save myself the time and effort of picking parts, building, and dealing with shit not working as expected.
I have to keep using the megacorporate OS because the other megacorporation won’t let me play their slop game unless they can install a virus on my computer!
It’s Activision-Blizzard. It’s the same megacorporation
Ah right, I forgot MS bought them.
ActiBlizzcroSoft
Macroshaft
Honestly more trustworthy.
MicroVisZard
Man I remember when both those names were something to get excited about.
been playing on linux for many many years.
never once have I been stopped by kernal level anticheat.
Weird, its almost as if good games don’t use invasive spyware rootkits.
I feel like the steam machine could actually change the trajectory of gaming. I mean look at the playstation 5. It was crazy overhyped, they don’t have any games, pay to play online, the next one is around the corner. The xbox is somehow even worse. If the steam machine sells, linux is gonna see an insane push and the game developers have to sink or swim.
If that was true the steam deck would have already done it.
Steam Deck is held back by the perception of mobile gaming. Many don’t know how powerful it is, so it competes with the Switch more than PS5.
Well and even then it revolutionized gaming on Linux somewhat. We are now at over 90% playable games, while a few years back we scratched at the 50% mark.
Steam deck hasn’t sold that many devices compared to PlayStation, switch, or xbox. Wildly successful for what it is? Yes. Was it ever going to become a significant % of all gaming consoles? No.
As much as i love video games, steam devices and all that jazz, i never saw a reason to get a steam deck.
Yeah, I know I’m not the target demographic.
That doesnt mean I dont think its an interesting piece of tech, and I would like one as a toy/curiousity… but i’d only get one if I can get it used/second hand and dirt cheap (and probably broken, so i can drive the price lower and fix it myself)
The steam deck competes with consoles and most of the pc world. It has different form factor but it is a pc.
Eh, it’s gonna depend on your taste in games. If competitive multiplayer games are your thing, then it is a problem. But sure, there’s lots of people who have zero interest in competitive multiplayer.
Not all competitive games require kernel level anti-cheat. Marvel Rivals, Overwatch, Valve’s games, and Halo all work under linux. It’s only a problem for people who want to play certain games like LoL, CoD, or Apex.
Sure, but as it happens with multiplayer games, you typically have a friend group that plays a certain game. Getting all of them to switch to another game can definitely be a problem.
I don’t need it but I want it. The GabeCube has basically the best of both worlds, the ease of use of consoles and the multi purpose usage of a PC. That’s also why it can’t be priced like a console I’m afraid. It has to be sold at least at cost (production+development) and can’t be subsidized by game sales like a PS or Xbox. A console without games is pretty much useless, the Steam Machine without games is still a damn fine PC.
If it was sold at a loss, businesses would scrape the whole supply and pave them for windows desktops.
That just wouldn’t happen unless the steam machine costs less than $300. That’s usually the top a corporation is willing to pay for bulk mini nucs, which is all that they want for clerk desks. Information workers get laptops with dell or HP embossed in the lid. Workstations for top design or video editing require way more juice than the Steam Machine can deliver, those are bought on order to professional boutiques, or they just buy Apple. Also, no administrator will sit on the steam shop page to buy one at a time, they like their bulk purchases and Valve can simple refuse anyone buying hundreds of machines. Then, corporations don’t just want the PC, they want tech support, advanced guarantee schemes, etc. This usually come with a subscription per seat. All things Valve simply won’t provide. It won’t even register as an option for businesses.
This is an unfounded concern.
Lotta small businesses out there.
Not enough to cause a shortage. As I said. No business will pay more than a couple hundred for a PC. If they need more juice, then the steam machine won’t be it. It is more like an enthusiast or a content creator midlevel machine.
No business will pay more than a couple hundred for a PC.
This definitely isn’t true. Every company I’ve worked for has provided fairly expensive laptops. Really curious where you got the idea that businesses are universally so cheap they’d end up spending more long term because they bought absolute trash computers.
Way to take the comment out of context and build a strawman. I was reiterating something I said in more detail in a higher up comment. Companies do buy expensive laptops. I said so. Mind you, the steam machine is, emphatically, not a laptop.
I don’t know what point you’re making. Just because it’s not a laptop doesn’t mean many companies out there have some $200 limit on computers.
You are taking the comments too literal. If something is subsidized (which means cheaper than normal) and it is useful as a PC or PC parts, it will be vacuumed up by non-gamers as well.
You are technically correct about mega corps and such but missing the point being made. Every subsidized PC not bought by gamers is lost money for Valve.
Megacorps won’t sit and refresh Steam sure, but fucking scalpers absolutely will. There are lots of shady middlemen companies that will buy them up from eBay and resell to small businesses too.
Hell, I’d snap one up and resell on eBay in a heart beat myself if this thing goes for anything close to what a PS5 sells for. Let’s say $1200 in parts, I buy for $700, I resell for $900, reseller scoops up a few hundred at a time off ebay, sells in bulk to small businesses for $1100… Everyone wins… Valve fucking loses. Now, let’s say a million people do the same thing because it is free money.
This is how this works and why they can’t subsidise this thing like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have. (Also why Xbox doesn’t run actual windows for that matter.)
Not an unfounded concern if you remember the PS3. The original model was sold at a loss, and also able to run Linux.
People were buying them like crazy for non gaming uses, including building super computer clusters. An entire aftermarket of various small vendors essentially flipping PS3s with various Linux distros flourished, including offering the usual suite of tech support services that Sony didn’t. There was even a black market for the gutted bluray drives, which were expensive, but useless in clusters.
PlayStation 3 cluster - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster
Meh, sure it was an operational loss for sony. But there’s a slew of condintions so different from the ps3 to the steam machines that it’s very hard to compare them. First of all, the Linux PS3 never actually worked. It was janky and required a ton of workarounds and hacks, not really a viable desktop PC. The famous calculation clusters were created by universities and technology enthusiasts. The processing units are too niche for day to day use, having virtually no consumer software for them.
Second, Sony got pushed into a higher cost of manufacture than planned because of a shortage of blurays and the rise in costs of their unique silicon manufacturing. Some say it was more than 100% over their expectations. And I still remember people in the gaming scenes complaining that it was too expensive.
Third, speaking of bluray, the ps3 was way too ambitious technologically speaking, to not be a good target for this type of scalping. First commercial bluray, first HDMI output, a “supercomputer for the living room” vision. If anything, it was the cheap bluray angle that drove scalping and shortages, not the OtherOS capabilities.
I still think it is an unfounded concern with the Steam Machine. Valve already said, it won’t be sold at a loss. It has no specialized technological advancement in particular. It is a mid range entry PC at the most. Having worked with many IT teams and business acquisition teams, it is just not a very attractive proposal. It will be seen as a gaming toy. No exec wants to buy toys for employees.
I dunno. The Deck is/was sold at a slight loss in the hopes it would drive Steam sales.
Maybe so, but while the Deck has a desktop mode it is primarily still a console and used as such by the vast majority of its users. No-one in their right mind would use it as their main PC unless they absolutely have to.
The Machine on the other hand, I can totally see that happening.I’m currently using my steamdeck as my main PC, because of my cramped dorm room space at college lol.
It’s kinda neat figuring out what works and what doesn’t. The worst part is the immutable updates removing non-flatpack software.
There’s a project that persists non-flatpack software, though it might screw up if it changes something that Valve updates: https://github.com/Chloe-ko/SteamDeckPersistentRootFs
A more reliable method would be installing them in distrobox. It’s kinda like a VM, but it uses the same kernel so it’s not much slower.
And it worked, anecdotally from my perspective as a Steam Decker. If there are two identical sales on differing platforms (like Ubis🤮ft) I choose the Steam one so I can play it on the Deck.
I think the main problem is since the steam machine is relatively open and, if it is sold at a loss, then companies will bulk buy them to replace their infrastructure. A bit like what happened to one of the PlayStation releases.
The playstation 3 sold like that because of the super powerful (compared to cost of equal pc at the time) cpu. The gabecube isn’t unique hardware wise, so even at cost, or slightly below, I couldn’t see this being a goto machine for infrastructure replacement. Many current sff devices already have more powerful cpu options available.
I mean thats gonna be the joke. If steam machine really does take off, developers will come, just like they’re starting to cater to the deck. It’ll set a standard for what people want to play on and what they need to make sure their game works on. This is beyond anti cheat and DRM but it’ll be interesting to see how the momentum picks up.
I’d bet that Microsoft is already thinking about getting gamepass working on it (for better or worse)
Depends how much the thing costs.
Oh yeah I don’t mean to imply that it’s a guaranteed success, you’re right.
The hype is real though.
The hype is earnest
I wish laws represented the interests of the 99%
Wish granted, laws represent the owners of 99% of all wealth.
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Just don’t turn it on?
Until 6 months from now when they turn it on by default, forcing you to apply a registry hack to disable it after every update from now on.
But that’s only if Microsoft decides to continue consistent behavior going on for decades. Yeah, you’re right. Totally nothing to worry about.
The only thing I have to fuck around with like that is the setting for Windows Update itself. It’s pretty annoying but also pretty different from an AI feature (because the modification I want to make delays updates, which is less secure). Maybe you’re thinking of something specific?
Anyway, yes, if they add an AI agent that you can’t turn off without hacks, that would be bad. But given that they haven’t done that, complaining about the law (without saying what the law is lacking) is silly. What would the law say - “don’t add features to software if any user doesn’t want it?” there is no way to make what the commenter above said make sense.
There’s a plethora of settings that Microsoft reverts on updates. That’s well known.
Guess you agree that this isn’t something the law should be involved with. Cool chat.
No specific policy was mentioned. I certainly think Microsoft should be subject to many, many more laws than they are currently, and I wouldn’t mind if they were prevented from circumventing user preference repeatedly. But you don’t even believe that this insanely well known thing happens and that sort of prevents a further conversation anyhow, so yes, cool chat.
The computer you mean?
I don’t think I need it, but I’m super glad it’s going to exist.
If it came with a native DVD reader and my PS4 suddenly died, I’d have some choices to make, however.
I’m 1000% certain you could attach a Blu-Ray drive via USB without internet telemetry, unlike Sony’s policies ;)
Edit: fixed rogue “care of” character, will contact GrapheneOS team lol
The idea did occur to me a minute after I’d commented. After my PS4 gives up, I’ll have choices to make.
Wow, I just realized that’s the default key on GrapheneOS lol, I should file a bug report.
The DRM measures of blurays make a hassle to play any legitimately purchased movie, especially 4k ones, a big hassle on any operating system. Not as plug and play like with DVDs…
I don’t want to rip them before watching them or search hours in obscure forums for a leaked description key…
This would be more useful for game ripping - did that for a lot of my PS3 games due to the large filesizes.
MakeMKV thankfully exists, though 4k is a hassle even with that.
I wonder if it could support an external DVD/BD drive via its USB ports. I assume yes, but that would be an extra purchase for you.
My Steam Deck feels about on par with PS4 in terms of power, and they say Steam Machine will be more like a PS5, so it sounds like it would be an upgrade over your PS4. Just more expensive, especially if you’re buying a disc drive.
I think that this thing coming out will only be beneficial to PC gamers, especially Linux users. This will encourage further development and standardization.
Kinda yeah. Like I said I’m happy it’ll exist, it’s just that I don’t like to spend money on upgrades for the sake of upgrades.
If it does not work on Linux I simply won’t buy it.
Yes, the same. It being the machine of course
Machine, software, peripheral, whatever.
I am excited for the steam machine because of the anti cheat issue. If we push for linux gaming, they are forced to either find a
spywarekernel anti cheat solution for linux or drop thespywarekernel anti cheat.IIRC, kernel level anti cheat works for linux. It’s at the company’s discretion if they enable support for Linux clients
Of course, it works. The tech was never the issue. The issue is that they think that linux is easier to modify to break the kernel anti cheat. It is a PR issue, when there is enough money, magically the pr issue is gone.
I think the main issue there is that the player base is not big enough to justify developing a kernel-level anti-cheat. The variability in Linux kernels might also be a bit of an issue.
The classic “it is not big enough” while actively preventing the user base to grow.
I stopped gaming because of this shit.
Of course. For a large corporation only having to support a single platform is perfect. Having to support multiple platforms increases the cost and we have to think of the poor, poor investors.
On the other hand, there are more than enough great indie devs making actually fun and innovative games.
Screw AAA games, they suck anyway.
Is it kernel level on Linux, though? It may have some privilege inside wine, but I’m never gonna give root access to some game.
No, EAC, BattilEye, and a handful of other anticheat solutions have a native user space linux binary, and wine provides a way for the windows portion to hook into the linux portion, allowing the anticheat host to work with wine/proton games.
This involves the developer enabling the option to allow this when building their game which most devs do except for the notorious few that refuse to enable it because they don’t want to spend the extra .00002% worth of budget into making proper anticheat solutions and instead rely on kernel rootkits to solve that problem for them.
They just don’t need to build their shit on something that requires wine. While there are solutions, just make it run natively.
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In all honesty, I think it might be overall better if games like Fortnite, CoD or Fifa never get patched for Linux. The vast majority of their players are just addicts who fell victim to the predatory mechanisms. One of the few effective solutions is to cut them off this stuff.
Ideally, these games shouldn’t exist, at least not in their current form. But it’s not like billionaire sociopaths will stop feeding on the weak and poor anytime soon.
Remember when Linux was about freedom? If the OS lets me delete root recursively, it can also let me play slop. It’s not my mom.
Linux isn’t stopping you from playing that slop, it’s just to sloppy to work on Linux.
That’s the only thing I worry about personally, not the users so much, but the capitalists who see “opportunity” once Linux gains a hold, and start figuring out how to make it disgusting like everything else they touch with their greedy little slop mitts.
It won’t be “Well, Linux doesn’t permit anticheat”, it will be
“Okay how do we create some centralized power structure that makes invasive DRM and anticheat that runs on Linux?”
And they’ll move to colonize.
Embrace, Expand, Extinguish.
There are already anti cheat options on Linux. They just don’t put any dev time into them because it’s a small market currently.
EAC works fine enough, and it turns off when the game is off, and should uninstall with the game, so people don’t hate it so much.
But I dropped all interest in Helldivers 2 because of that crap, which sucks because it seemed like such a fun game. And I’m not touching anything Riot for the same reason. These “just trust us bro” always-on, deeply embedded rootkits are just unethical.
That is too far even for taking school tests, it’s indefensible and absolutely nonsense for a game.
It’s definitely something I can see both sides of though. It would suck to put a huge chunk of time and effort into a multiplayer game just to have cheaters ruin it for everyone on launch. Any game that isn’t moderated or making effort to deter them gets overrun quickly.
I don’t understand the mentality that drives people to buy cheats just to feel better about themselves, but it’s clearly there.
TBH though…I don’t remember stuff being this bad when private servers were more of a thing. Battlefield 2 / 2142 / 3 / 4 had ranked vs. unranked servers. The good private-run ones had mods to ban cheaters, the ranked ones had stricter enforcement. It seemed fine and we had fun…
Maybe I’m missing something…
While I don’t like these games either, I think it would be better for them to support Linux, so all users can enjoy the games they want.
Let’s not forget the whole Counter-Strike economy is based on gambling, which I think is also not good, especially because there’s a lot of young kids picking that up and becoming gambling addicts, which I think is a net negative for people.
Edit: People make games did a deep dive on this, as did Coffeezilla did a series on the whole ecosystem.
Oh wow I haven’t played since the original Source. I thought you were just talking about how you had to manage an equipment budget in a match. But no, legit gambling scheme with real time and money for what amounts to NFTs that can only be used within Steam’s ecosystem.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a black mark on valve however I imagine it prints a lot of money and they seem reticent to put an end to it.
The vast majority of their players are just addicts who fell victim to the predatory mechanisms.
I don’t play Fortnite, but the only players I know are kids, and they just play it because that’s what everyone else is playing and they want to play with their friends. I’m not excusing the company for monetizing the shit out of it, but (anecdotally) the players’ behaviour just reminds me of me and my friends playing Dooms, UTs, or Quakes back in the day.
they are not games they are slop that normies consume.
The best part of Linux is shitty games don’t work on it.
You don’t use Linux because of kernel anti-cheats
I don’t play CoD because kernel anti-cheats
We are not the same
I do both!
On Linux?
I use FreeBSD btw!
I am honestly curious how do Sony and Microsoft react internally to Valve deciding to get their part of cake. Nintendo shouldn’t care, their cake is a separate cupcake at the top anyway, but Sony and Microsoft are directly in the line of fire.
Don’t be surprised when one or both of them starts doing some shady shit to sabotage things if Valve starts eating a larger market share.
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I doubt the Steam Machine will affect their bottom line in any meaningful way, and that’s not Valve’s goal, anyway. Most people aren’t like me, who got a Steam Deck right after the terrible Switch 2 reveal.
On one hand, maybe. On the other tho, a lot of parents are gamers themselves with big steam libraries. That can be really good argument for steam machine, and also Valve has brand loyalty on par with Sony or Microsoft, just not in consoles (yet).
I’d be (pleasantly) shocked if Valve made significant inroads with lifelong console gamers. Fortunately, we benefit from having an open console-like experience from them either way.
Nintendo will always care, especially since you can easily currently install emulators on stem deck, and I seriously doubt it would be impossible to install those on steam machine. Now aside from the emulation stuff, having another contender in the console market may always affect each of the companies simply because not everyone can afford all the consoles. Growing up the parents who raised me didn’t buy us a single console, so my first consoles were from the parent who only visited (divorce), in lieu of child support payments, and we generally only had one at a time until we started buying them ourselves.
If you’re on a limited budget, even with kids, you may only choose 1 or two consoles, and your choice may be the most “comprehensive”. While Nintendo makes excellent games for kids, it’s not like the PC market doesn’t have anything for kids. Plus new consoles in a market could convince publishers to expand that way too.
While true overall, I was more going for the fact that people buy Ninendo because they want to buy Nintendo rather than because they want any random console. Meanwhile Sony and Microsoft are fighting for the same consumer - someone who wants an alternative to PC gaming. Which is also what Steam Machine is.
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.
Sounds like an Activision-Blizzard problem to me.
I will gladly give up a few games for running an amazing operating system instead of windows shit. :)
There’s no need to wait. You can switch right now.
Im about 15 years into fulltime Linux, man… :)
So you’re already there.
