Steam machines were dead in the water 6 months before they came out. Valve dabbled in the notion of them but never intended to do more than try and push a movement forward with as little support as possible. All Valve cared about was getting other PC makers to build boxes on their own dime and put the Steam OS into the system ensuring it basically would push their storefront. This was 100% a Trojan horse move by Valve to trick the industry into putting Steam Store as the primary store and push more software sales.

Should have just done a console and struck when Microsoft had that awful Xbox One reveal to see if they could take their place. Missed opportunity

They could have have cross play with PC Steam users and offered mod support first like for example have an option for games like Skyrim on their console to visit the Nexus on their console browser to choose which ones to download.

Lol Shocker

i remember my neckbeard friend stating that steam machines would be a huge success... who's laughing now?!

PC's that were more expensive than PC's.

Anybody with half a brain cell knew these would flop.

Heck, even the marketing of them were awful...i didnt even know they had been released.

Never understood who these things were being made for

Store.steampowered. com

The selling of Steam Machines was not the main Goal, The steam store Adoption rate increasing with the 100% Free GamingOS was the real point.

are gamers really overlooking that big point?

You can make your very own Steam Game Console, as long as you have the main hardware requirements

Again, if you already have a PC that meets the min system Requirements of a steamOS machine you would not have to buy one of these!

You already can use the same PC hardware you already have , Download the SteamOS for free and load it on to your Existing PC hardware.

http://store.steampowered.c...

The purpose is to be able to use PC hardware itself and through loading SteamOS to make a Gamers OS for PC's for the living Room environment.

Valve is doing this mainly because Microsoft through windows 10 online market store is most likely going to take some publishers and developers works from being distribution from Steams online store over to Microsoft's online store for PC software distribution. Due to Windows 10 UWP store & App online distribution model.

Valve wants to make sure they will have a set in place OS for gamers PC's that the Steam store can still support if Microsoft's own store takes away more and more new released PC software going to Microsoft's store instead of Steam.

Thus the SteamOS!

Stick with making games Valve.

Most of them weren't cheap either.

Who does not know that? The worst idea I've ever seen. But it's a option.

Well anyone with a decent enough PC wouldn't bother with one of these anyway, you can build powerful mini PC's that are small enough, no not quite console sized but more aesthetically pleasing than a mid/full tower at least near your TV. But you are kinda limited with a smaller case, less cooling, more heat etc.. But still moderately powerful.

I like to add/change stuff whenever i like in my PC, so I'm pretty comfortable with a full size case even though i don't quite need all the space in there, yet at least. Saying that my Noctua NHD15 takes up a ton of space, but it's worth it for the cooling it provides.

I love my alienware alpha which is about the same thing with Windows instead of Steam

As expected.

Build your own Steam Machine
SteamOS is our Linux-based operating system. The base system draws from Debian 8, code named Debian Jessie. Our work builds on top of the solid Debian core and optimizes it for a li ving room experience. Most of all, it is an open Linux platform that leave s you in full control. You can take cha rge of your system and install new softwar e or content that you want.

Installing and Customizing SteamOS
What are the SteamOS Hardware Requirements?
Processor: Intel or AMD 64-bit capable processor
Memory: 4GB or more RAM
Hard Drive: 200GB or larger disk
Video Card: NVIDIA graphics card
AMD graphics card (RADEON 8500 and later)
Intel graphics
Additional: USB port for installation
UEFI Firmware (recommended)

We can see, many thinking oh' steam console's are flop's.. Well keep thinking its a flop.

But its not like Valve is just going to stop producing and stop production support for the SteamOS.

Because its all about the steam online store. So as of now not only does Valve now have Windows 10 and other Windows OS legacy support on the steam store. And now Valve has made a viable Linux gaming PC platform instead of really no other main publisher supporting a Linux alternative to just mainly gaming only on the Windows OS.

Now a Linux OS based gaming PC is more Viable now because of many companies that now support the Vulkan Graphics Api and Valve among other companies investing into such.

What an absolute shocker, said no one ever.

This along with Ouya - smh.

lol

Just get a steam link, don't need to buy a dedicated steam machine.

People dont want dl only games devs eg sony and ms take note dont care about nintendo

Wow I forget all about it. I never really understood the need for a steam machine when a pc could play all the same games and just do more.

How many different versions and variations were there, worse than the assassins creed plethora of special editions each year. Agreed tho if majority of PC's can run steam why need a decimated steam machine. They seemed a bit pointless from the start.

The main thing was to stream your PC games anywhere in the house via Linux or Windows which anyone can do now. My tablet is now a Steam Machine and otherwise would not have had that functionality.
Installing games in Linux itself was never expected to capture the market.

lmao damage control in here. steam tried competing with consoles then gave up when they saw ps4

They should have marketed these things as consoles.

I had a feeling Steam machines would fail. Almost everybody on Steam uses a Windows OS. There are only around 3% of Steam users who have a Linux OS. When it comes to drivers and compatibility, Windows will always take the lead. I laugh when I see comments asking developers for Linux and OS versions of their games. Linux has it's uses but it's really not for the average person. SteamOS is a joke it performs worse than Windows and Valve can't even go a few days without updating their launcher, I can't imagine the headaches of an entire OS.

http://arstechnica.com/gami...

lol obvious death is obvious, seen this results the very first time that were announced, even Gabe dare to say this would be the consoles killer!, when I heard that I LOL to the MAX!!! XD

* It released already ?

Not really surprising. The system is bound to fail. A lot of gamers doesn't even know what this system for and why it's made. Pc gamers are happy buildling their rigs or having their laptops and consoles has the exclusives and ease of use to make it worth the purchase. Steam machines doesn't know what it wants to be and for whom the intended audience for the system.

The problem with Steam machine has been and always will be Linux. Now don't get me wrong I'm a linux user at home but the majority of gamers aren't and the majority of games aren't coded for Linux. So you're significantly stifling your consumer market.

Wait it came out? Yeah, I didnt even know it was released.

Too many high priced Steam machines scared away console gamers from buying them.

They should just stick to finishing Half Life 3

Absolutely one of the biggest blunders in gaming history. They had the potential to change living room gaming as we know it. The whole concept was mismanaged from day one. Run by a team of absolute idiots. I don't even have to mention how much I hate that awful Steam Controller. They literally did everything wrong with this concept and the end product. It could have been so big, and now it's just another failure.

Windows 10 and direct 12 murdered the need for a Steam machine. In fact Steam itself have this console like capability build in by switching to Big Picture Mode, making Steam machines even more useless.

When will people learn, stop pushing mass market Linux. It won't work.

well who would have thought that? steam users = PC Gamers. PC Gamers want their freedom when they choose to build or buy a pc or even upgrade it. besides, we don't Need a third Kind of fanboy. (sorry nintendrones you don't Count anymore)

Fail

I just got a Steam Link
Incredibly small and easy to use and cheap as hell
Not to mention, this was for the console users but then have like what? 8 different models?
Way to make it easy for people.

I didn't even know it had been released.

What were they expecting?!

I wouldn't be surprised if MS made a deal with Valve for the Scorpio to work with Steam.

Id be more interested in the sales of the steam controller and link.

i blame that stupid touch controller

Are they even VR ready?

Most pc run steam easily and people already have a pc.The steam machine was not the most brillant idea even if it is a solid machine in term of power.Why would a pc gamer buy a steam machine if they can just updgrade their current rig???

Should anyone be surprised?! Valve have wasted so much time and resources at their company in the last 5 years it's ridiculous. Instead of making Games that people want like Half-Life 3 or Left 4 Dead 3 they've been creaming off the cash grab microtransactions market in free2play games (close to freemium models), terribly sad.

Steam Machines... Failed. Steam Controller... Failed. Steam OS... Failed. Steam Link... Failed. Retail Stores used to carry Steam hardware products, not even a year in and my locals don't already. Utter waste from top to bottom, Valve ain't what they used to be, money got to their heads.

I struggled to see the point of them myself. It's a PC, that plays games - with a weird controller...........So get a PC? Customize it yourself?

Obviously. Same for vive and oculus and hololens ...

Kinect teach..

Steambox was a perfect example of a product that virtually everyone knew was a bad idea going in, except for the manufacturer. Kind of like the Wii U.

Valve should partner with MS. Xbox could be the Steambox

not surprised, Valve doesn't support either of their products, neither steam link nor steam machine

Not good enough for pc gamers, and stripped of console exclusives. It was doomed from start

With Microsoft lowering prices for Windows 10 and giving out free upgrading like its candy, I can see why Steam OS is struggling.

Is this actually a surprise to anyone? Who would buy one of these isntead of an unrestricted PC? Why drop a grand on a device just to play forever alpha games.

Thats funny, steam machines were supposed to wipe consoles out.

Steam machines were built to fail

I don't know .... I think Valve was not looking at mass produce right now..... Valve does have the ability to see the market from a developer point of view not just from a marketing view point.... Often times developers working with new technology can see a potential in an area of technology and plan a strategy around it..... It may seem like a crazy or stupid to the consumer... Even a business person looking for mass market $$$ would question a decision of a company betting on new unproven technology. Linux still has the ability to take a piece of the gaming pie..... Linux is on the verge of new display servers (Wayland and Mir) that should make using display drivers for graphic hardware much easier to use and interact with the software which should also benefit non open source hardware makers... AMD is already way ahead of Nvidia in support of open source driver support and the more AMD works with the Linux/Unix community the more it looks like Linux and other Unix like operating systems (such as BSD and Apple's own OS) can actually be a viable gaming machine..... However all that is the Near future and not now...... Lets talk about now.... Vulkan API.... Guess what it's actually very well done API that gives developers the same benefits as DirectX 12 but is or will be available to a ton of different operating systems and hardware architectures.... For instance Vulkan will be supported on Android N which is currently an ARM based architecture.... Thus giving Android N "DirectX 12 like" API that will allow games to shine on Android. Linux supports Vulkan..... Vulkan API just turned 1.0 this year and is still brand new but is growing in support very quickly in the Developer community...... ID developers seemed very excited when talking about working on a graphic engine for Vulkan and creating a Vulkan version of Doom (And why wouldn't they.... that gives ID the potential to easily run Doom on multiple OS platforms and hardware thus more potential sales).......

Okay part of the message above may seem off topic slightly but it's still relate.... Linux gaming isn't dead it's just being born... I believe Steam knows this and found a way too prepare for this "just in case scenario" that didn't require huge financial investment.... It's a great way to work out the kinks of creating a console version of PC gaming so when all this new technology does go mainstream.... Steam and its partners will be ready for it..... The new $200 card by AMD is very promising for Low Budget builds and Steam machine consoles as it will bring high level gaming for the price point Steam machines can take advantage of....

I believe Steam did the right thing and if it doesn't work out it wasn't a huge financial loss for them...... If it does work out and new technologies in hardware and software really do work out for the open source community and create a viable gaming option..... That is good for the consumers because options and choice is the better way to go..... Valve just needs to tighten up the hardware side of things with it's partners especially the Steam controller..... the controller is ok but feels cheap in hand and doesn't do to well in fast pace gaming compared to a traditional PC or Console controller but the Steam controller has its good points.... Here's waiting for Steam Controller 2.0..

Don't count Steam Machines out yet....

Wasn't this the same exact business tactic 3do used that lead to its downfall? Granted this is all PC based and probably the loss of revenue won't bankrupt valve but marketing hardware to different sellers never ends well.

They need to be dirt cheap, and honestly a portable would be more appealing because most people would rather play these on PC. At least handheld has the portability factor.