Do you think the Steam Machine can compete with the Playstation 4?

[RobertoUK73]

Thanks dean

 

[nickjt]

I don't think that they will trouble the PS4 and Xbox but I expect they will be a pretty good success. I won't get one as it looks like they will be very much like PCs, with the ability to upgrade and tinker with the settings. The reason I play consoles is that I can play any game and don't have to worry about anything.

 

[The Unlosing Ranger]

I don't think that they will trouble the PS4 and Xbox but I expect they will be a pretty good success. I won't get one as it looks like they will be very much like PCs, with the ability to upgrade and tinker with the settings. The reason I play consoles is that I can play any game and don't have to worry about anything.

They're exactly that, PCs. Pre-build PCs. And they don't even have Windows, they have some... Linux distro, I think, SteamOS.

Not really anything special, IMO.

 

[sparkblade14]

It'll need to be cheap since it's a new entry to the market. The Xbox and PlayStation names have been around for more than a decade, so Valve will need to make some noise to be relevant on the console market. I like the idea though. The main attraction is the ability to be upgraded. But I don't think I'd like the controller. Hopefully, they'll let you use other alternatives.

 

[dean290000]

There is what big in change in my eyes now. The fact that you can turn any decent speed PC I5 or better into a steam PC for not a lot of money. All you need to do is buy a $120 or better graphics card from NVidia or a Good Radeon from ATI. Valve is doing a fantastic job of building a interface around the games and making them all work with a decent or better graphics card. I am able to run any game so far including Bioshock Infinite in 1920x1080 at MAXIMUM settings with no slowdown. I have two $160 graphic cards in crossfire but it would run fine with just one.

My previous complaint of how some games will only run with NVidia while others only run on ATI is pretty much a think of the past because Valve is getting the games to launch from their Steam interface and automatically have Xbox controller support, as well as play on any Medium to High end GPU. Most of the new games have the same GPU requirements as 3 - 4 years ago as far as specs.

THe best part to me is that only the big AAA releases that are released on all three consoles are priced $60. There are a ton of AAA games for $19 - $29 dollars.

Steam definitely feels like less of a captive market than the PS4/Xbone. The steam machines are not running Windows for cost reasons but you can put together a steam PC for a reasonable price assuming you have a need for a desktop PC.

Steam is already a shit with hardcore gamers. They just need to get the attention of people that gave up on desktop gaming for the "Plug n Play" aspect of the consoles. My computer boots up with the Steam interface which can be controlled by a Universal Remote, a wireless keyboard and mouse, the Xbox 360 controller, or an app from my Tablet or Smart Phone.

The great part is the computer is running as a media server in the background that goes to my NASes and catalogs my videos/movies/pictures/movies and pushes it to my SmartTV or Roku Box on the non Samsung Smart TVs. I also Remote Desktop into the PC from my laptop to run accounting software, and some custom programs I have running that need to be up 24x7. So far, no game or Steam has interfered.

If you have a Quad Core CPU or better then you might as well make it double as a Steam PC which is essentially the same as the Steam Box except it runs on Win instead of Linux. The Steam Large Screen TV interface is virtually identical and saves your game data on the cloud for free, has chat, shows trophies/achievements, the amount of time you have played each game.

It is also very nice that the Steam interface will show the Metacritic rating of games when you are looking at the shop to see which game would be the best to purchase.

I do think the steam machine is the perfect 2nd machine. If not for the PS4 exclusives, I would probably just have this Steam PC. However, Sony has some great developers and they always release exclusives that fight it out and play for the game of the year. However, I just am not going to buy overpriced crap from Sony anymore in that want way too much money for a lot of crap games on PSN.

 

[Madcat32]

Nope Steam doesn't interest me in the slightest.

PS4 offers more than enough games for me and I love the DS4 it's amazing. When we have games like Final Fantasy 14 and Infamous it does everything I want and more.

Also made some great friends from gaming online and most Playstation users generally seem a good bunch.

Many PC gamers are a bit well "strange" in my opinion LOL!!

 

[dean290000]

Infamous Second Son was a disappointment to me. The Angels and Demons come out of the large screen TVs was so choppy it was unbelievable. At this point, the Steam Games set on maximum settings look MUCH BETTER than NBA2K14, The Show, and any other of the so called Next Gen Games.

Don't get me wrong, The PS4 will have great exclusives but it sure is nice to be able to play games that were exclusives to Xbox/PC.

I was in a unique circumstance. I was buying a new high end PC anyone and the only difference is that I spent an extra $150 on the high end graphics cards. So I am considering this a game system for $150 bucks.

If anyone things steam is not a serious good deal then I would highly recommend trying it first on a large screen TV and then tell me it is not a true gamers system. It has less casual games thant he PS4.

Dean


Dean

 

[Madcat32]

Infamous Second Son was a disappointment to me. The Angels and Demons come out of the large screen TVs was so choppy it was unbelievable. At this point, the Steam Games set on maximum settings look MUCH BETTER than NBA2K14, The Show, and any other of the so called Next Gen Games.

Don't get me wrong, The PS4 will have great exclusives but it sure is nice to be able to play games that were exclusives to Xbox/PC.

I was in a unique circumstance. I was buying a new high end PC anyone and the only difference is that I spent an extra $150 on the high end graphics cards. So I am considering this a game system for $150 bucks.

If anyone things steam is not a serious good deal then I would highly recommend trying it first on a large screen TV and then tell me it is not a true gamers system. It has less casual games thant he PS4.

Dean


Dean

I'm probably still raging from when my PC died and I was skint so could only afford a £300 replacement to look for jobs and sadly it won't run anything (Dual core 1.8 with HD7340 graphics) and I can't even swap the processor out.

I guess if my machine wasn't 6 months old and I was looking to replace the entire system it may make sense.

Then again I just prefer the console gaming scene it's just more fun.

I understand you get better graphics but for me no way could I afford £600+ on a gaming PC - £350 for the console and then trade games in when I've finished them so if I get through them quickly sometimes it's £20 plus game trade which is more do-able for me.

Then again a nice Alienware PC and a decent *ahem" torrent site and I wouldn't say no!

Fair play Dean that does sound a great gaming set up - I'm off to cry about how unfair the world is now LOL!!!

 

[dean290000]

I'm probably still raging from when my PC died and I was skint so could only afford a £300 replacement to look for jobs and sadly it won't run anything (Dual core 1.8 with HD7340 graphics) and I can't even swap the processor out.

I guess if my machine wasn't 6 months old and I was looking to replace the entire system it may make sense.

Then again I just prefer the console gaming scene it's just more fun.

I understand you get better graphics but for me no way could I afford £600+ on a gaming PC - £350 for the console and then trade games in when I've finished them so if I get through them quickly sometimes it's £20 plus game trade which is more do-able for me.

Then again a nice Alienware PC and a decent *ahem" torrent site and I wouldn't say no!

Fair play Dean that does sound a great gaming set up - I'm off to cry about how unfair the world is now LOL!!!

Trust me, I didn't want to have to buy another computer myself. My old main system that acts as a server for things was 5 years old and it had a built in intel graphics card. My concern is will I be able to play newer games in three years? The one positive I see with the gaming PCs now is that the technology does not seem to be changing as fast from a hardware standpoint. I feel like six 4.5Ghz CPUs should be good for 5 years but I will probably have to buy a higher end graphics card(s) in three years. You used to be every 1.5 years, your computer could not play the newest games but the GPUs don't seem to be changing much. The RECOMMENDED systems requirements are 2GB graphic cards but even heavy duty games like Bioshock Infinite will run on 1GB mid range graphic cards.

I personally like the AMD FX chipsets right now because you can overclock them very easily. The downside is that not many games are optimized for Six Cores.

I always went with NVidia cards in the past but the R9 (HD 9000 series) are really fast and since AMD makes the chipset, it makes sense to go all AMD. You can save a lot of money with the AMD. The main key is just not to get a motherboard with a integrated GPU.

 

[abcdefghijun]

This Steambox sounds more next gen compared to the Ps4 or Xbone, and there are some pretty cool titles offered on Steam and nowhere else (Indie games are prominent on Steam) still have to stick with my Ps4 though and wait till this Steambox comes out as a yay or nay.

 

[Madcat32]

This Steambox sounds more next gen compared to the Ps4 or Xbone, and there are some pretty cool titles offered on Steam and nowhere else (Indie games are prominent on Steam) still have to stick with my Ps4 though and wait till this Steambox comes out as a yay or nay.

LOL it's a PC mate so probably the oldest gen there is pretty much!

 

[RobertoUK73]

I'm loving the ps4 but am keeping an eye out on steam box as a potential second machine to game on

 

[JaydonTyler]

At CES 2014, Alienware unveiled their version of the Steam pc/console thing and the comments are that this machine is going to be the end of the Playstation 4. Personally, I think it's going to be a competition but it won't come close to the console giants. What are your thought on this? Do you think that the Steam machine is going to be a threat to the Playstation 4?

I highly doubt anyone takes down Playstation. They might take out some of Sonys competition but not Sony itself. Doesnt seem like its that big of a deal. Computer gamers will be a little happier, alot wont even care. My friend is a big computer gamer and to him it makes little difference as he said.

 

[dean290000]

I have bought 5 quality titles on Steam for around $100 bucks. I have paid $120 dollars plus tax for The Show 2014 and Watchdogs. The Show is fine but it really isn't any difference from the PS3 version and sports games get too repetive to me (and am a big sports fan) and Watchdogs looks NOTHING at all like what footage was shown for the PS4. In fact, Watch Dog plays and looks like a standard PS3 game from 3 years ago. The PS4 has done nothing to this point. There is either some bottleneck in the hardware or devs are too busy trying to make versions for the Xbone inferior hardware because Second Son was the worst of the three Infamous games and the PS4 is not anywhere worth the money I have spent to this point.

The big cross platform games like Watchdogs are $60 for the PC also at release but I bet watchdogs will be down to $29 bucks in no time.

There is a lot more value on steam in the pricing. Also, it probably hurts that Naughty Dog is working on The last of US 1.5 for the PS4 when they should be spending all their time on Uncharted 4 and another TLOU title for the PS4.

Someone needs to figure out how to program for the PS4. This is why the cell processors and their crazy cost where a thing of beauty on the PS3. The PS3 did not have it's potential used until TLOU. I am afraid with the PS4 being basically a mid range PC that we really wont see anything look that great. I am still holding out hope for the PS4 on the AAA titles but so far I have been really disappointed in both Infamous: SS and Watchdogs. They are both Decent gams and both deserve a 7.5 but these were both supposed to be NEXT GEN games of the year games.

 

[JekPorkins]

Valve is a fantastic company, and the steam machine is a wonderful idea. It could potentially become a pillar in the gaming industry and I honestly think the platform of developer driven consoles based off a linux operating system will be the future. No more disks, more leniency and customization. But it won't have a huge affect or competitive edge in the market against Sony and Microsoft. At least for a while.

 

[mauricioq]

This Steambox sounds more next gen compared to the Ps4 or Xbone, and there are some pretty cool titles offered on Steam and nowhere else (Indie games are prominent on Steam) still have to stick with my Ps4 though and wait till this Steambox comes out as a yay or nay.

I agree, the only advantage that the Steam Machine has over the Playstation is the titles, because there's A LOT. But besides that, I don't know what more they could offer that could make the Steambox superior.

 

[dean290000]

Valve is a fantastic company, and the steam machine is a wonderful idea. It could potentially become a pillar in the gaming industry and I honestly think the platform of developer driven consoles based off a linux operating system will be the future. No more disks, more leniency and customization. But it won't have a huge affect or competitive edge in the market against Sony and Microsoft. At least for a while.

The Steam Machines look very good but it is nice that anyone with a halfway decent computer can hook the computer up to their TV and use the large screen format version of steam and launch and play games from a very nice interface that has more options that the PS4/Xbone.

I am considering the PC I have hooked up to the same TV as my PS4 a steam box even though it is just a Windows 7 Pro Box with a program that lets me choose either the Steam Interface or Plex Home Theater interface whenever I choose the HDMI input for the Steam/Media Center PC.

I am not saying it will hurt Sony but am saying that their are a lot of great games for steam for really low prices.

The Steam machine seems to be the ideal second gaming system. I am switching from Watchdogs on my PS4 to Xcom: Enemies Unknown on the PC which is a game I loved ever since it was free on the PS3 for plus members.

Dean

 

[SpaceGuy]

I think the steam machine will take some time before it competes with anyone, while steam does have a large fan base a lot of the games that they have in their store do not require that much computing power. That being said, they do have games like Skyrim, and the new BioShock which certainly need a strong PC, but the the steam machine will have to be cheaper than a self assembled computer for it to have any chance of competing.

 

[Derri]

I don't have a clue where the steam machine is aimed at.

First of all I thought a long time ago the SM was going to be a console that allowed you to play PC games and have all the benefits of a console e.g. make one purchase and your done. However since I've seen you still have to upgrade it and you'll still have the usual PC gaming problems e.g. this won't work at X quality setting.

And I also don't believe it'll be cheap e.g. less than the PS4 and less costs to upgrade but from what I've seen its expensive and therefore begs the question: Why?

Where is the market gap? Am I missing something?

 

[Nackles]

I honestly just feel that Steam is competing for a different audience. They will still attract current PC gamers primarily and will have to truly offer a unique experience to capture hardcore console gamers. Then again if Steam want's to through a test unit my way I will happily research the subject thoroughly, lol

They're pre-built computers, basically. The idea seems to be bringing PC gaming to the living room, so to speak, by making it easy to setup among other things.

^this

I am astonished that this thread has made it this far. The "steambox" is a custom PC built using miniITX (or similar sized) motherboards. It uses a "SteamOS" version of Linux instead of Windows. The end. The main difference between this and a PC with Steam on it is that SteamOS allows easier navigation using a controller instead of having to use a mouse to navigate between games. This is more of a threat towards gaming on Windows than it is against consoles.

KN1GHTMARE nailed this one on the head - it is competing for a different audience.