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What is Valve's ultimate goal with Steam Machine?

Shogmaster

Shogmaster

Sloppy seconds
What's Valve's ultimate goal with Steam Machine?

Is it to dominate Mini PC market?

Is it to destroy the MS XBox Magus console/PC hybrid before its even born?

Is it to wipe out MS Windows from gaming market?

It's none of the above. It's to sell more software on the Steam store (30% cut per sale = more $500M yachts for Gaben!).

Valve does not want to dominate Mini PC matket. Currently a Zen 4 Mini PC without discrete GPU averages around $500. A new Zen 4 Mini PC with RX 7600M XT goes for around $900. Even if you give that unit a bit generous margin of 15%, it's still ~$770 device. So Steam Machine will be at least $700 if Valve does not want to sell at cost. Also selling Steam Machine below cost will not sit well with device ODMs when Valve actually wants them to make more gaming Mini PCs, so ultimately gamers will install Steam OS on them and buy more Steam software @ 30% profit for Gabe.

Valve does not want to compete with XBox Magnus. it's simply too underpowered (by the 6x Steam Deck math, Magnus is also 6x as more powerful than Steam Machine). Also Magnus is a hybrid, meaning it will function as an XBox as well as a PC, meaning a different market segment. If anything, Valve want Steam software sales for Magnus on the PC side of that hybrid.

As for Windows, a significant chunk of Steam software sells on Windows. And Windows can play anti-cheat enabled games where Steam OS cannot. Until that is addressed, Windows gaming will stay unaffected.

Steam Machine was created to more gaming Mini PC development by ODMs to increase SteamOS footprint under the TV and ultimately to sell more Steam software. Dominating Mini PC narket, hampering Magnus before launch, nor Windows gaming accomplishes none of that.

In fact, those false goals will cost Valve lots of money. Gabe like expensive yachts.
 
I assume their three major interests to be:
>Help popularize the concept of form factor gaming PCs (be it handhelds or mini-PCs for the TV)
>Increase the marketshare for linux gaming (since windows controlling the ecosystem for PC gaming is a major risk)
>Long term goal of slowly gaining space on the hardware business
 
MidGenRefresh said:
Get more people to use Steam. I think it's pretty obvious, right?
Click to expand...
I'm starting to think it's all about KEEPING people on Steam.
With the cost of PC parts reaching levels of stupidity, I think Steam is in danger of people grabbing their phone and playing match 3 games for the rest of their lives.
Valve is saying, here is a cheap way to keep playing your library.

Don't look at that Playstation over there.
Don't look at that Xbox/PC whatever they got going on over there, some day in the future.
Don't look at your cellphone that can play Capcom games and possibly everything else soon.
 
Simplify PC gaming and draw more customers to their store so they buy more games. Everything they do hardware wise, is done to compliment their storefront. But I wouldn't be surprised if their real end goal is to kill off Windows. Gaben has a bone to pick with Microsoft.
 
World Domination Crypto GIF by Pudgy Penguins
 
To continue growing Steam. This brings PC gaming into the living room, to a more casual userbase. Anyone who's already into PC gaming is using Steam, so they have to grow PC gaming to grow their userbase.
 
Nobody cares about the "mini PC market" and Xbox Magus lmao, who gives a shit - Microsoft is run by idiots. Valve has nothing to fear from that circus.

They want to entrench Steam as a platform. The most valuable thing you can have is a platform and everything you should be doing is around safeguarding and extending it (which is why Sony is so stupid by torching PlayStation for immediate cash).

But I also think Valve does want to show "a better way" with PC. Compare the simplicity and ease of use of SD vs. all those other shitty handheld PCs. Windows, overlays, stuttering, all that bullshit. At a certain point, people just don't want it and there needs to be a better way.
 
Valve wants everyone to continue thinking they are a monopoly because they give people more options to stay inside the Steam ecosystem on PC.
 
In short, Valve is an auxiliary arm of Microsoft in the fight against PlayStation. This tactic is old: shaping the culture around an ideological adversary to make its ideas sound strange to others. The goal is to create an open PlayStation via a lobby.
 
Honestly I think it is just for PC gamers that want to play on their living room TV without moving their PC.

I think the steam machine is too weak compared to the other consoles (PS5/Series X) and too inconvenient to convert people that only want to play on console.

If you were console gaming for the past 10 years your not going to abandon your library to now play on a steam machine.
 
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To cut into the console gaming marketshare. If Sony is smart they will get the memo and stop releasing games on Steam. Start their own PC client and get what money they can while protecting their interests in selling console hardware.
 
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Magic Carpet said:
I'm starting to think it's all about KEEPING people on Steam.
With the cost of PC parts reaching levels of stupidity, I think Steam is in danger of people grabbing their phone and playing match 3 games for the rest of their lives.
Valve is saying, here is a cheap way to keep playing your library.

Don't look at that Playstation over there.
Don't look at that Xbox/PC whatever they got going on over there, some day in the future.
Don't look at your cellphone that can play Capcom games and possibly everything else soon.
Click to expand...

Nobody in the PC space is looking at PlayStation, Xbox or mobile. None of these platforms can offer what a PC can offer.
 
Geometric-Crusher said:
In short, Valve is an auxiliary arm of Microsoft in the fight against PlayStation. This tactic is old: shaping the culture around an ideological adversary to make its ideas sound strange to others. The goal is to create an open PlayStation via a lobby.
Click to expand...
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maybe an attempt at establishing some sort of hardware baseline that devs can target? It all depends on how they're pricing this thing.
 
MidGenRefresh said:
Nobody in the PC space is looking at PlayStation, Xbox or mobile. None of these platforms can offer what a PC can offer.
Click to expand...
Not anymore, now that there is a cheap (I am assuming it's going to be cheap) PC that 70% of the Steam userbase can upgrade to.
Instead of pitching their old PC into goodwill and buying a Switch 2.
 
People are used to public companies, which need to have clear and ambitious goals to satisfy their shareholders, and they don't understand that when you have a private company, you can do whatever you want, even if it doesn't necessarily mean it will generate a return.

I remember reading somewhere that Valve was very open, there wasn't much hierarchy, and employees were free to try different things.

Valve's main product is the store, the rest seems to me to be just fun things they'd like to do.
 
diffusionx said:
Nobody cares about the "mini PC market" and Xbox Magus lmao, who gives a shit - Microsoft is run by idiots. Valve has nothing to fear from that circus.

They want to entrench Steam as a platform. The most valuable thing you can have is a platform and everything you should be doing is around safeguarding and extending it (which is why Sony is so stupid by torching PlayStation for immediate cash).

But I also think Valve does want to show "a better way" with PC. Compare the simplicity and ease of use of SD vs. all those other shitty handheld PCs. Windows, overlays, stuttering, all that bullshit. At a certain point, people just don't want it and there needs to be a better way.
Click to expand...
Yes, Gamescope is a god like interface. You can run a living room PC 100% off of the controller. Something that is not remotely possible on Windows.

Valve should also be approaching nvidia to work with them to improve their Linux drivers. nvidia's drivers have come a LONG way in the last year, but DX12 titles still have a drastic performance penalty.
 
Magic Carpet said:
I'm starting to think it's all about KEEPING people on Steam.
With the cost of PC parts reaching levels of stupidity, I think Steam is in danger of people grabbing their phone and playing match 3 games for the rest of their lives.
Valve is saying, here is a cheap way to keep playing your library.

Don't look at that Playstation over there.
Don't look at that Xbox/PC whatever they got going on over there, some day in the future.
Don't look at your cellphone that can play Capcom games and possibly everything else soon.
Click to expand...
You make it sound like a bad thing.
You have free will to do whatever.
Play whatever you want.
 
The lesser nefarious version is they want to demonstrate the pc as a console. Much like they wanted to demonstrate the pc as a handheld. And the pc as VR.

I think it's as much for OEMs as consumers. I don't think they really want to be in the hardware business.

They just put some stuff out to try to "educate" the market. To give OEMs a blueprint. To get consumers used to the idea.

Sort of like how Google wants everything to be internet. They don't want it closed off in apps etc. They want web everything for better and worse. Because the more people are on the internet the more money flows Google's way.

But ultimately it's to protect the gold mine. To keep them there customers in house.

Valve doesn't want MSFT to come along with their Surface Box X and tie it to the MSFT store. And shut them out.

They saw the same threat with handhelds and with VR.
 
Seeing that Steam Controller is such a big part of the Steam Machine it's probably catered to console gamers wanting to try a PC experience without big hassel and enjoying the Steam Library.
 
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To get me away from Windows...

...and they're succeeding.

JohnnyFootball said:
Yes, Gamescope is a god like interface. You can run a living room PC 100% off of the controller. Something that is not remotely possible on Windows.

Valve should also be approaching nvidia to work with them to improve their Linux drivers. nvidia's drivers have come a LONG way in the last year, but DX12 titles still have a drastic performance penalty.
Click to expand...

There's been some movement by 3P groups in the Linux circles getting more Nvidia driver compatibility enabled, but yes it would be great if Valve worked with Nvidia directly on such.

I think Nvidia would only be interested though, as a means of leveraging Linux as part of a complete vertical ecosystem stack of their own: GPU, CPU, and maybe their own OS that's Linux-based but derived from SteamOS in tandem with Valve. It seems like Nvidia want to become their own self-sufficient platform and that probably eventually means not relying on companies like Microsoft for an OS footprint. Windows compatibility being so good in Linux these days thanks to Proton and WINE is not going unnoticed by companies like Nvidia, I'm sure.

This doesn't mean Nvidia would stop supporting Windows; that'd be stupid of them to do financially. But it does mean they'd have a viable alternative market to draw in more money from, which is ultimately what these companies want anyway. Plus who knows if Windows development eventually starts to hamper or impede their own GPU & API ambitions down the road with further pushes into AI or what comes after like robotics.
 
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Keep more customers on them.

Yeah, there is little competent competition, and they already have some zealots fans that will defend anything they do, but that can change a lot. And there has been a lot of discussion these years about physical format, and Steam is just the exact opposite of that trend that, if it catches on, it can cost them greatly.
 
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