Steam machines...

Steam machines are just an option in PC gaming, SteamOS is trash though. I'm sorry linux zealots your OS is rubbish unless its a server or running a router.

It was both Valve didn't promote SteamOS enough and work with enough AAA devs to get them to support Linux, they also screwed up by letting almost anyone be a steam machine brand, and the manufacturers made it worse by having too many variations and PCs not worth the price or PCs not cheap enough.

@NoodleFighter: Having too many variants certainly caused brand/consumer confusion.

They were quite overpriced for what you were getting compared to just building a PC or even going to one of those gaming PC prebuilt places/websites. So its no wonder they completely bombed.

Well, I for one hope they are dying out... I have wanted one for awhile, but don't want to pay the prices they want... lol

Xbox = small CPU:big GPU ratio at game console price target, platform vendor maintenance for end user's machines (for end users) and enhanced DRM (for developers).

Steam machine would be cool at lower price point now. got my Xbox one s with game and controller for 239€ brand new + 19€ 2 year all risk insurance.

The worst steam machine for 499 is too much

linux boxes where never alive to start with.

I have the Alienware Alpha (Not really a steam machine, but man do I love how good it is.) Steam machines that are closed off platforms never made any sense at all when you can get the exact same console from Alienware Alpha.

Yeah....

They did have some meaningful impact tho. Linux gaming is a bit more user-friendly since then. It lost momentum too quickly and we're still pretty much stuck with Windows for gaming. Womp womp.

Calling them 'Steam Machines' might not have been the best idea. It was really just an effort to diversify gaming and get consumers out from under the thumb of the mega-corps.... I was and still am totally for this effort.

I think people focused too much on the actual machines....

Never seen the point of the Steam Machine

yup!

Steam Link is simply incredibly, so happy I don't need to drag a computer out to my TV :D

As for Steam Machines, it was a neat concept but it addresses a market that was already filled, and I'd like to think that the type of consumer that wants to actually have a computer at their PC is tech-savvy enough to do it on their own without having to actually buy a separate PC to do so. Doomed from the start, I'd wager, but that's a moot point; it's just another line of PC's from various manufacturers, and most are built to order. It's not like Valve built 10 million of these things and they're sitting in a warehouse :D

I'm just sad a "third party" OS, much like politics, didn't take off and gain more support :(

seriously. They never intended to tackle the console market, or make inroads on it, or steal sales from consoles. At the risk of coming off as a fanboy, Valve does their own thing, and generally for the sake of innovation, for better or worse.

The original creation was because of Gabe fearing Windows 8 and 10 being walled gardens which did not happen so it SteamOS needed another purpose to exist and I guess is to serve as living room gaming friendly OS. SteamOS and Steam machines definitely weren't going to overnight take away a significant number of gamers from Windows and consoles but the metagame should be in the long run be a viable option as linux slowly gets more support.

Well with linux being free a steam machine would cost $100 less than its Windows counterpart which helps make it cheaper and more price competitive with consoles without actually have to take a loss in sales on hardware. Heck your Alienware Alpha is exactly $100 more than it's SteamOS counterpart. SteamOS isn't closed off at any point you go into desktop mode and use it like any other linux OS. But I think the point is to make it more like a console so people don't go through the stuff they normally would with windows, basically Steam Big Picture mode but Windows not in the background.

Dang is this all I'm ever remembered for? lol. If Valve pushed more marketing and kept getting AAA support they certainly could of made some noticeable difference.

It's going to require a hardware vendor to actually market it along side consoles, however that won't happen because in order to compete, their isn't enough profits in hardware alone and they won't get any cut for any games released for it. They would be completely reliant on hardware sales.

The Vive isn't even supported for Steam OS which is the stupidest thing in the world. Everyone still uses Windows and it performs better on the same games than SteamOS

Except VR didn't even flop. HTC claimed great profits. Games are constantly releasing every month.

Steam machine. Yup lets bring out 4 different versions of the same machine just for gaming. Totally won't confuse non gaming/ electronic people when buying a gaming machine.

I didn't entirely fail, there are a crap load more Linux ports than there were.

Xbox One X pretty much makes having a steam machine pointless, unless you plan on building your own home theater PC.