I am pleased to see hardware not being locked down as a selling point:
> Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it's still your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?
It feels very commonsense that you should be able to run whatever you want on the computer that you have purchased, but it is surprisingly uncommon.
Valve gets it. I very much want to support them and vote with my wallet. Unfortunately the Steam machine isn't a good fit for me. I will buy the frame in a heartbeat though. HMD with a FOSS OS? That's in its own class.
One can still be a billionaire and not use shady tactics.
For at least a short while. I'm not sure it's a stable configuration.
unfortunately, not that straightforward in valve's case.
they created a nasty gambling system with their loot boxes that exists outside controlled casino environments and which impacts young adults a lot.
The systems in Counter Strike are some of the least abusive in all of gaming.
Open up Roblox and see the sheer amount of loot boxes via Robux with Pay 2 Win items, battle passes, daily rewards, etc.
Counter Strike meanwhile has item skins which don't impact the game. They aren't more OP, in fact, most of the time they give you a disadvantage.
Counter Strike is an 18+ game. Kids shouldn't be on this anyways.
The problem with visual only loot boxes is that people will pay for rare skins and so everyone still gambles on that stuff. I don’t know if they solved that, used to be you’d buy the keys to unlock them and hope to profit from selling a skin. Adults should also be protected against dark patterns like this.
Being the lesser of two evils doesn't make it right. It's also possible to not have loot boxes at all.
The "lesser" of 2 evils here isnt practicing evil?
Loot boxes are, by any and all definitions, evil. It’s gambling. Worse even, it’s gambling with real money over digital ephemera.
Loot boxes are not a fun mechanic. Loot boxes are not designed to entertain you or give you good value for your money. Loot boxes only exist to make you gamble with your money over something that could easily be sold as a single purchase item, or better yet, be rewarded in-game. Simple as that. It’s a gambling scheme. Always has been. Always will be.
To clarify, the loot boxes in Roblox are game specific. The platform itself just has the catalog where you buy stuff directly
But still, Roblox should do a better job regulating the games on its platform
Color AR is a thing Frame doesn't support so sadly it's behind the times and I can't go back
genuinely what do you use AR for? I see alot of people saying this same thing. I don't have any VR/AR experience as the frame will be my first VR headset
Not op, but I use it for seeing the joystick + throttle and the "real" instruments in flight simulator.
Virtual boxing with friends (Thrill of the Fight 2). AR allows me to see my room instead of some virtual ring so there's less risk of hitting walls or furniture
It has cameras so you should still be able to see everything, just not in color because the cameras are monochrome.
wasn't it strongly implied that things like that would be enabled via the expansion port and aftermarket products? I would not be surprised to see color AR within a year of launch
If I may ask, what devices would you consider to be "with the times"? If there's some dope AR headset that I don't know about, I'd love to learn more.
The Apple Vision Pro. I really wish Valve would release a $3500 Steam Frame with all the bells and whistles. Of course, with the price of RAM it might be $7000 so maybe I'll just have to wait until hopefully the market cools down a bit and baseline hardware advances some more.
Notably with the Steam Frame you're stuck with the high end snapdragon and 16GB of RAM even if you'll use it with a computer, but they didn't want to splurge five or ten dollars on color cameras. Weird priorities.
The whole front part with the lenses and processors is removable, and there's an expansion connector on the face piece for future accessories, so it's certainly possible that colour cameras could be released later, and be an add-on for the Frame without needing to buy a new device.
Sure, and I'd really like a true black display. I accept that any mass market device coming from a niche will have compromises in the interest of reaching a broader market. The high end is already served by pimax and bigscreen.
And yet Steam Controller somehow only works with Steam...
Would you rather have it degrade to the functionality of an Xbox 360 controller without Steam? That's the best they could do without all games including support for the controller (latest SDL3 has it).
> Would you rather have it degrade to the functionality of an Xbox 360 controller without Steam?
Yes? What's wrong with that? Then it's at least usable.
Not really. Can't really map a touchpad as an analog stick. Can't map a gyro as a joystick. Can't take XBox rumble and map it to the Steam Controllers haptic feedback.
Can you hack it together in theory, get something working but making sacrifices left and right? Sure. But why would Valve want to do that? Use experience would be incredibly bad.
But give it time. There will be a standalone driver for Windows eventually, either from Valve or from the community.
It's possible already. Using an open source app called PadForge. I've setup a profile that works without steam and emulates xbox360 pad. I've used it without problems in Forza Horizon 6 which is an UWP / PC Game Pass game, also in various emulators.
https://padforge.org
Usable sure, but then why did you get a Steam Controller if not to make use of the additional inputs?
There is a linux driver that allows playing without steam. Are you on Windows?
If you are stuck to Windows there are some 3rd party efforts like https://github.com/ddeverill/SteamlessController
The last generation of steam controller still had a mode you could start it in where it would register as xinput device. Seems that's gone on the new generation.
Even though I balked at the Steam Deck prices on the recent inventory restock, as they were up ~30% presumably due to the same hardware shortages, I got one anyway. Prices won't drop anytime soon and if any for-profit organization has earned my loyalty, its Valve.
When I used it I was somewhat incredulous that I could simply exit Steam mode have an actual Linux desktop environment, where I could literally do what I wanted. It was my computer, a proper general purpose computing machine, and it was (willingly* in my control. No sneaky root needed.
They need to do that because, in some sense, they're competing with Gaming PCs, not really with Gaming consoles. Gaming consoles sell their consoles at a discounted price because they can recoup a lot of it when selling games. Steam can't have a markup on games because they share their marketplace with other PCs.
Steam has a very high markup compared to its competitors like Epic Games Store.
But if they subsidize the hardware, non game users will purchase the hardware and use it for non game use-cases, where valve cannot recoupe the costs.
A interesting scenario would be to sell the hardware at cost, but include a 30% off ticket to the steam store (up to a few hundred dollars, in savings).
Instead they made the right choice and subsidise the software. Valve has been sending patches for Linux for over the last 10 years as well as giving SteamOS out for free for other hardware now.
If you don't want to play games, why would you buy a steam machine? Even with a subsidized price, you could get a mini PC with no GPU for half that or less.
Steam take 30% of the purchases made via the Steam Store. If you sell a game on Steam, you can redeem as many Steam Keys for your game as you wish. Those keys are sold at 100% profit to you, Steam dont take any.
Interesting. So you can freely sell keys outside of Steam and they don’t mind?
You have to sell it for the same price, but yes. Most games on the Humble Store give you Steam keys, where Humble takes 25% and Steam gets nothing.
You could still offer this, similar to the ad tier and ad free tier of a kindle, or a carrier locked phone.
$799 for a locked down version, $1049 for an unlocked version. Opportunity to pay $300 to unlock it later at any time. 5% discount on purchases on a locked device.
Fun fact about the kindle ad thing: I don’t know if they still do this but when I got mine, you could just write to the support and let them know you found the ads inappropriate (extra points for mentioning a child in the household) and they would just remove the ads for free.
Some people then had to re-enable ads manually to use AdBreak, the Kindle jailbreak that abused ad delivery :)
they’re gonna struggle to meet demand at $1000 already, i don’t think they need a shitty ad version to support also.
(then again i always buy the most expensive SKU they offer so im very outside the target buyer profile for such)
I would assume it also has to do with if not fundamentally manifesting from Steam being an organisation of technologists. They don't want to put out a project which has a worse operating system than their workstations.
Can you point me to any statement that any current console is being sold at a loss?
All I've seen is that everyone is doing at cost nowadays. The PS4 Pro was the last subsidized console.
Discounted doesn't necessarily mean at a loss. It could just mean a smaller profit margin than normal.
Sony have admitted to selling the PS5 at a loss during the first 8 months of sales. Even when they announced the $499 disc drive SKU was no longer selling at a loss, they admitted the $399 SKU still cost more to make than it sold for. Things are no doubt different today, but Sony absolutely subsidized the PS5 at launch.
> https://www.pcmag.com/news/sony-says-499-ps5-no-longer-sells...
I like that we can write the story that Microsoft sold their software with the home computer on the idea of productivity at home while the actual incentive was entertainment, and valve ends up justifying buying gaming hardware with the incentive that it can do productivity.
It's also convenient since they're now facing multiple anti-trust lawsuits.[1]
[1]: https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/dutch-non-profit-set...
That is why the frame will be the most interesting to the people on HN. A VR PC you can do whatever u want with.
You can install whatever apk you want on your Oculus Quest.
But can I uninstall Meta Horizon OS and install Gentoo?
Gotta get that -O3 flag.
As long as you're running Zuck's spyware OS. The frame is a a linux box with fancy packaging and peripherals. You will be able to put arch on the frame and turn your new singular hobby into building drivers.
Except without color AR it will not as many of the interesting things HNers want to do require it.
Like what? Provide examples please.
i can deal with folding my laundry in black and white
At a price point of 10k if we extrapolate to its release.
Snapdragon gaming handhelds are much cheaper than a Steam Deck, so I’m hopeful that as an Arm device it won’t be completely crazy.
The Steam Machine is nothing special either and it’s being sold at a ridiculously price. I wouldn’t hold my breath on the Frame being affordable by any stretch of the imagination.
I got a Steam Deck for my son. Docking it to an external monitor with mouse and keyboard in desktop mode is just running a nice desktop Linux with KDE Plasma by default. I showed him the basics and it's perfectly usable for his school needs. And he can still put it in his bag and play Skyrim on a train ride.
And I like knowing that I will own the hardware long term. I have so many bricks at home with great hardware and locked boot loaders.
The urge to tear down the stack of cellphones I have and pull the boot flash chip hits me occasionally. It would be a substantial project, though, so I haven't done it. Yet.
You have to do things. You can't sit on project ideas forever while they become obsolete. A lot of things on my project ideas file became obsolete while I didn't do them, and that is sad. I even had enough time to do them but still wasted it on places like HN.
I know. It hurts to let things die in my project backlog. But there's so much of 'life' outside the project log that I don't have time. I have to prioritize.
I feel the 'don't waste time on HN' thing. I'm working on it, minimizing social media usage, minimizing non-productive screen time.
how far down the chain does the protection go? if you swap the flash chips can you just boot or do the other chips expect a signature upstream?
AFAIK there are signatures that are checked at the SoC level. In other words, it's not a write lock that can be bypassed by flashing the chips directly.
and it makes Steam Deck the best console ever made.
i picked up Darksiders 3 a few weeks ago to play on my deck. at some point i realized i was pretty underleveled but i didn’t wanna grind.
so, opened chatgpt in desktop mode and uploaded my save, asked it to write me a script to set my souls/xp/money to whatever number. it analyzed the save and spat out a bash/python script. after a chmod +x it worked flawlessly. done from bed took like 15 mins to figure it out end to end.
no other what other (handheld) console in history combines the depth of library, the slick console experience, and also lets you chmod +x.
chmod +x makes it executable. Also, at this point just use a trainer
a trainer takes more work and substantially worse security. i can code review 40 lines of shell+python at a glance cannot say the same for most general purpose trainers
The steam deck is way too under-powered to be "the best console". Best handheld, maybe, if you really value portability.
It is surprisingly powerful for a handheld. Somehow Cyberpunk 2077 ran really well on it.
> It is surprisingly powerful for a handheld
It's in fact one of the least powerful handhelds (of the x86 class.)
> Somehow Cyberpunk 2077 ran really well on it.
With significant dropping of settings across the board, with 30-40fps at best and frequent drops into sub <20fps during the action.
That may count as "really well" depending on your definition I suppose. I wouldnt tolerate it, but i'm sure many would/do.
Definitely impressive for a handheld. The "really well" is calibrated for the hardware.
> Definitely impressive for a handheld
It’s just hard for me to be impressed by one of the weakest entries from both a performance and image quality point of view. It’s all subjective though so if others do find it impressive, all the power to them.
I actually think the SW2 port is the most “impressive” handheld experience I’ve seen so far. Given its a superior experience “out of the box” as it were.
crysis runs great
Out of curiosity, why didn't you just ask chatgpt to modify the save file directly?
Repeatability would be my guess.
That’s a depressing tale
Reminds me of the PS3 and its OtherOS feature.
You write this on the forum where often in apple-based topics folks here defend locked down system ie on phones for themselves as something actually superior. Its often paid PR or folks to deep in the topic to have objective opinions (or simply employees/shareholders) but still, I've had that talk few times and downvotes were flying left and right.
I’m fine with both. My phone and my “console experience that’s more open than an xbox” are wildly different scenarios, for which I have different needs and expectations.
There are alternatives for both, if/when I ever want them.
You’re comparing apples to oranges and complaining none of them are tomatoes. Not a valid argument by any stretch of the imagination.
I do hope they will release drivers for the Steam Machine, otherwise the openness isn’t very useful. Or at least make it possible for others to make drivers by publishing specifications.
Edit, reply to bjord as I am rate limited: HDMI CEC, the chipset, GPU drivers, controller receiver etc.
Edit, reply to robhlt: Thanks! Hope we can get that ported to Windows
drivers for what else, exactly? valve is already regularly upstreaming work in major open source linux drivers (and has been for a long time)
for example: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Valve-Old-AMD-Linux-Love-Song
They did take almost a year for Windows drivers for the Steam Deck OLED: https://steamdeckhq.com/news/windows-is-now-supported-on-ole...
For HDMI CEC they've already published their user-space daemon: https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/holo/linux-cec
I mean it's a PC, you can install whatever your want on a PC.
Yes, a Personal computer as opposed to Apple's computer.
Even Apple's PC lets you install whatever you want
Realistically only macOS runs on Macs, Linux worked on the early M series but not later models, as far as I know.
So long as the developer pays the Apple Tax to have their code signed. Otherwise it will be marked as sus and the user has to go into Security, and manually allow the software to run. (alternatively, you can have them use the terminal to bypass setting the security bit). This is a step back from older versions that had an "Trust This Program" button right there during execution. And indicates a clear roadmap to ensure no unsigned code can run on OSX.
Apple could handle dev keys for free, if this was actually about security. But they don't because its another step on their road to locking down OSX like they do iOS and ensuring they make every platform developer pay their taxes.
Developers also can't access the biometric security features at all without an Apple dev account either. Even for my local software that I build for myself, I cannot use fingerprint unlock without an Apple dev license.
I don't really want to pay $100/yr to release free software for OSX, so I don't.
Xbox Series S/X, PS5 and both Switches are pretty much commodity hardware.
Nobody has even hinted that it would be nice to have a 3rd party store or the ability to run whatever OS on them freely.
I keep wondering why.
I guess you weren't listening because all of them have healthy homebrew communities and people defeating the DRM.
I'm not sure if you're being dishonest or just ignorant of the console hacking scene.
Mostly wondering about legislators being Super Concerned about Apple (and Google to a smaller degree) not allowing 3rd party software.
But for consoles it's just crickets.
We shouldn't need to "defeat the DRM", it should be allowed full stop.
Legislators *use* cell phones though; very few of them use video game consoles.
You're the one being dishonest and ignorant comparing defeating DRM to something that is open from the start
Nope.
How is that dishonest? They were replying to:
> Nobody has even hinted that it would be nice to have a 3rd party store or the ability to run whatever OS on them freely.
If people are going through the trouble to defeat DRM, I would say that's more than a hint that people want the ability to run whatever OS on them freely.
Not going to jump through those hoops to run software
Probably because it's very niche. Talking to many friends, and an increasing number of posts on various console subreddits, there's lots of comments from PC gamers that embraced the console life due to it's simplicity. This has increased since the PS5 Pro released - "Close to PC-level graphics, without the PC-level costs and mucking around with settings"
There is a certain appeal to this for many people that hacking it to run your own OS isn't really sought after.
Kind of funny because most games on the PS5 Pro have performance tuning settings. It's not as comprehensive as you'd find on a PC game, but it's clear the console audience is also wanting to tweak how their game runs. And, for what it's worth, pretty much every new PC game has an auto-configuration that customizes the settings for the hardware on install. So you don't have to ever go into settings, so long as you're happy with the play experience the developer decided you should have.
I don't understand, what is so special about this?
They are selling a x86 PC. All x86 PCs sold by everyone are open and you can install whatever you want.
It's commodity hardware packaged into a small box. There is nothing special here.
Trying to sell it as it if Valve are more consumer friendly here is nonsense.
I think it's because if it was someone else (e.g. Epic), they would have locked down the hardware and sold it like a console or smartphone where you can only install things from their app store.
The PS5 and Xbox are also very close to being an x86 PC, but you're not installing your own OS on there even though there are few technical hurdles if the manufacturer removed the mechanisms to prevent that.
I think what's special here is:
1) Full compatibility with SteamOS. You won't have to fiddle with drivers/hardware/whatever to get it working[1].
2) The physical hardware is maximally condensed, more so than you'd be able to do yourself with a SFF build.
I'd have definitely considered this if I wasn't already doing my own SFF stuff. Gaming on the Deck is a delight and I'd love that console-esque experience for my primary gaming PC as well.
[1]: Incidentally, it looks like they're working on broader support. Sweet! https://www.theverge.com/games/953411/valve-steamos-desktop-...
> I'd love that console-esque experience for my primary gaming PC as well.
So does the typical gamer who's not a nerd like GP. I'm not framing it as an insult, more like a reminder: we infamously ignore the power of brands and sensible defaults chosen for you.
I'd word your first point a bit more strongly:
The Steam Machine is the best of both worlds, yes, it is a plain PC and Valve is recognizing that. However, they are also selling a fully supported Linux gaming rig that plays many Windows games out of the box.
That might not excite everyone, but it does me.
Every console on the market right now is locked-down proprietary garbage, that's the basic reality. The PlayStation 5, the Xbox One, they are also technically x86 PCs as they run on x86 processors, but they are specifically locked down to prevent any use outside of their narrow use cases that are optimized to make them money. Valve is really the only company that's developing proper consoles with a custom operating system and custom AMD chips while not locking down the hardware, despite the strong incentives of locking people into paying them 30% forever and preventing access to competing game stores
to be fair, they subsidize the hardware costs. microsoft loses $100+ on each box they sell.
So put the price up by $100 and include $100 of non-transferable digital credits on the XBox account to spend on games.
That’s not how sticker shock works.
Sure and maybe Google also subsidizes the Pixel phones because they'll make up for it with Google Play transaction fees. But what if I don't want something that's arguably illegal price dumping, and would rather pay a bit extra to actually own my hardware and be able to run what I want, even after it's discontinued? We don't get such an option.
Quickly more and more companies are adopting the model of finding ways to trap the user into continuously paying them more money after the sale, then locking down hardware and software to ensure the customer is properly trapped, and maybe price cutting their competitors a bit. The death of mobile computing is actively happening right before our eyes as Google completes the trap by restricting users ability to install apks. Ultimately customers end up paying more and having a shittier experience as a result of this.
I think it needs to be applauded when a company refuses to engage with this model and simply lets you own what you bought and paid for, and brings this idea to a market that has long been infected with lockdownitis. (Unfortunately in this case the price is not "a little bit higher", but what can you do when component prices have become crazy...)
> All x86 PCs sold by everyone are open and you can install whatever you want.
What exactly do you think an Xbox is? PS4 & PS5?
The Xbox and PS5 are x86 but they aren't PCs. They are gaming appliances purpose built to run their respective purpose built operating systems. Without hacks, they don't do anything but only run code that's allowed to run. A Steam Machine is a PC. Yes, it's intended to run games (like any other gaming PC) but you can run whatever code you want on it.
Everyone loves to say the Xbox and PS4/5 are just like an x86 PC except for the fact they are missing a huge aspect of what makes a PC a personal computer. If the vendor locks you out of doing personal computing, it's not really a PC, is it? Refering to x86 as a PC is such an outdated way of thinking. I can go buy an ARM-based laptop and do more with it than an x86 console. Even an iPhone offers a more PC like experience than an x86 console. The Hubble Space Telescope runs a 486, does that make it a PC as well?
Buddy, read the context. I think you missed the whole point.
It supports HDMI CEC, it has a built in dedicated radio for the steam controller, it ships with Steam OS, and will receive support from Valve.
If you are comfortable building a custom PC and fixated on the spec sheet sure, it's not that exciting. But there are some rough edges with PC couch gaming that are sanded off with this machine.