Steam Console

[Citizen Cook]

I’ve been hearing rumours about a Steam Console in development at Valve. These rumours from IGN India say that the machine will have a custom SoC just like the Steam Deck made by AMD. It will run Steam OS, and is said to be designed specifically to connect to the Deckard, Valve’s next VR headset.

What do you guys think about this? Personally I’m really excited about the possibility of a Steam console that could play all of my existing Steam games and all the latest ones as well on my TV or monitor. The only negative would be a lack of upgradability but the benefits would be in cost savings. Valve have been able to sell the Steam Deck for a very low price because A. They are not greedy, and B. They can get a great deal from AMD. Something we can’t do. I mean, a decent GPU alone, equivalent to whatever is in the Steam console will be far more expensive than the entire console.

As gamers we’re being squeezed pretty hard by nGreedia. An AMD card is cheaper, but still very expensive. I game on an OLED TV with a controller. I therefore need to play at 4K resolution. I’m currently rocking a 3080 12GB. I payed £700 for it in the UK.

If I want to buy nGreedia’s latest 4K card the 4080 I need to pay about £1080
The AMD equivalent is the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and that would set me back £1000
That’s an insane price bump. PC gaming has become unsustainable for me.
I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t just want a Steam console, I NEED a Steam console!

[C1REX]

Steam needs to make something like a laptop/mini PC or invest in a custom solution and make hardware similar to consoles. This means a relatively strong GPU with integrated CPU (not other way around) with lots of VRAM that CPU has direct access to.

Any other solution would be like a normal prebuild.

[tyl0413]

I really hope they make an upgradable Steam Machine 2 (no mini-PC ♥♥♥♥ that needs to be thrown away like a modern ultrabook when anything goes bad). I'd use it as my main PC.
Do not tell me to build an all AMD system because unless it has at least as much of a guarantee of compatibility as the Deck does I'm not building a system in hopes it games well on Linux and when it doesn't I end up with an inferior Windows machine than if I just got nVidia in the first place.
It has to happen because Windows is already terrible and only getting worse with every update.

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by tyl0413:

I really hope they make an upgradable Steam Machine 2 (no mini-PC ♥♥♥♥ that needs to be thrown away like a modern ultrabook when anything goes bad). I'd use it as my main PC.
Do not tell me to build an all AMD system because unless it has at least as much of a guarantee of compatibility as the Deck does I'm not building a system in hopes it games well on Linux and when it doesn't I end up with an inferior Windows machine than if I just got nVidia in the first place.
It has to happen because Windows is already terrible and only getting worse with every update.

Windows is truly awful.
Every time there is a mandatory update to the OS Microsoft changes some of my personal settings and asks me to accept Bing, or Edge or whatever bloody browser they are flogging this month and to purchase Office or Game Pass etc…
I get updates in the middle of games because settings have been changed again and my headset settings are altered.

I need an escape hatch. SteamOS is a gamers dream. The sooner Valve release it officially to the desktop community the better.

[🦜Cloud Boy🦜]

Valve is not gonna make a console with RTX 4080 or anything near equivalent.

The whole concept of making Consoles is to make a cheap hardware which has just enough power to run all games. So that average people can buy and play all the games in 400-500$.

People with more money can built a PC and play all the games 4k max settings anyway. They don't need consoles.

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by 🦜Cloud Boy🦜:

Valve is not gonna make a console with RTX 4080 or anything near equivalent.

The whole concept of making Consoles is to make a cheap hardware which has just enough power to run all games. So that average people can buy and play all the games in 400-500$.

People with more money can built a PC and play all the games 4k max settings anyway. They don't need consoles.

It would need to compete with the PS5 Pro that is coming later this year at least. But perhaps the best time to launch a Steam Console would be when Sony and Microsoft release their next gen consoles.🤔

[_I_]

steamos is just for the steam deck, not compatible with any pc build

use linux and steam client in bpm for a pc to look like steamos

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by _I_:

steamos is just for the steam deck, not compatible with any pc build

use linux and steam client in bpm for a pc to look like steamos

Valve has stated that they intend to release a version for PC in the future so gamers won’t have to run Windows bloatware anymore.🙂

[🦜Cloud Boy🦜]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Originally posted by 🦜Cloud Boy🦜:

Valve is not gonna make a console with RTX 4080 or anything near equivalent.

The whole concept of making Consoles is to make a cheap hardware which has just enough power to run all games. So that average people can buy and play all the games in 400-500$.

People with more money can built a PC and play all the games 4k max settings anyway. They don't need consoles.

It would need to compete with the PS5 Pro that is coming later this year at least. But perhaps the best time to launch a Steam Console would be when Sony and Microsoft release their next gen consoles.🤔

PS5 pro will cost only $499.

That's what SONY does. They released the ps4 for $399, then 3 years later when hardware became relatively cheaper (price/performance), they released ps4 pro with more powerful Hardware but same price, and then they cut the vanilla ps4 price.

Steam Console can't be a PS5 Pro / or PS6 competitor unless the price is same or near. Which is not possible with RTX 4080 class GPU inside. A Console with a price tag of $1200+ is not practical.

[Revelene]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Originally posted by _I_:

steamos is just for the steam deck, not compatible with any pc build

use linux and steam client in bpm for a pc to look like steamos

Valve has stated that they intend to release a version for PC in the future so gamers won’t have to run Windows bloatware anymore.🙂

Fun fact, you don't even need SteamOS for a desktop. Since SteamOS's only benefit on a desktop is the UI, any Linux distro and an install of Steam will do the exact same thing. Install games via Steam and enjoy Proton with any game, not just Steam games. If you really want a special overlay, use big picture.

[tyl0413]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Originally posted by _I_:

steamos is just for the steam deck, not compatible with any pc build

use linux and steam client in bpm for a pc to look like steamos

Valve has stated that they intend to release a version for PC in the future so gamers won’t have to run Windows bloatware anymore.🙂

I really hope the reason they're taking their time is to ensure it provides a good enough experience without too much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ even on nVidia.
I'm waiting.

[tyl0413]

Originally posted by 🦜Cloud Boy🦜:

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

It would need to compete with the PS5 Pro that is coming later this year at least. But perhaps the best time to launch a Steam Console would be when Sony and Microsoft release their next gen consoles.🤔

PS5 pro will cost only $499.

That's what SONY does. They released the ps4 for $399, then 3 years later when hardware became relatively cheaper (price/performance), they released ps4 pro with more powerful Hardware but same price, and then they cut the vanilla ps4 price.

Steam Console can't be a PS5 Pro / or PS6 competitor unless the price is same or near. Which is not possible with RTX 4080 class GPU inside. A Console with a price tag of $1200+ is not practical.

Tech pricing makes no sense anymore.
There's 0 reason to have console pricing be hard capped at $500 especially today, I mean I live in poor country and the high end ~$2000 pocket netbooks are sold out every year but good luck getting any of these people to replace their decade old laptop thats falling apart with anything better than a $200 HP Stream 11.
I'm not arguing for higher prices obviously, but when it makes sense I don't see why higher end options shouldn't be available, people clearly are willing and able to blow money on garbage insanely overpriced hardware so where's the excuse for having to cap performance just because some outdated arbitrary expectations?

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by 🦜Cloud Boy🦜:

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

It would need to compete with the PS5 Pro that is coming later this year at least. But perhaps the best time to launch a Steam Console would be when Sony and Microsoft release their next gen consoles.🤔

PS5 pro will cost only $499.

That's what SONY does. They released the ps4 for $399, then 3 years later when hardware became relatively cheaper (price/performance), they released ps4 pro with more powerful Hardware but same price, and then they cut the vanilla ps4 price.

Steam Console can't be a PS5 Pro / or PS6 competitor unless the price is same or near. Which is not possible with RTX 4080 class GPU inside. A Console with a price tag of $1200+ is not practical.

Maybe the price can get closer though if Valve ask AMD to create a custom SoC.

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by Revelene:

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Valve has stated that they intend to release a version for PC in the future so gamers won’t have to run Windows bloatware anymore.🙂

Fun fact, you don't even need SteamOS for a desktop. Since SteamOS's only benefit on a desktop is the UI, any Linux distro and an install of Steam will do the exact same thing. Install games via Steam and enjoy Proton with any game, not just Steam games. If you really want a special overlay, use big picture.

I know I could do that, but I’m waiting for the official Valve release.

[Citizen Cook]

Originally posted by tyl0413:

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Valve has stated that they intend to release a version for PC in the future so gamers won’t have to run Windows bloatware anymore.🙂

I really hope the reason they're taking their time is to ensure it provides a good enough experience without too much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ even on nVidia.
I'm waiting.

I wonder if we’ll be able to suspend our games when we put our PC to sleep in the same way the Steam Deck does and cap our TV framerate at 40 fps like we can on Deck.🤔

[_I_]

Originally posted by Citizen Cook:

Maybe the price can get closer though if Valve ask AMD to create a custom SoC.

no way its cheaper to have amd design, test and mass produce a custom soc
than using other off the shelf ones