I just really want a Steam controller tbh. :(
I thought I did, but I just couldn’t get on with it. Fucking around with the touchpad was a very poor substitute for a right analogue stick.
Agreed. If they’d just put a right analog stick in there somewhere it would have been awesome. The vibrators just don’t provide the right tactile feedback
I’d absolutely love a steam controller 2, one that takes after the steam deck controls.
I wouldn’t hate a non-portable steam deck, especially if they can make in-home streaming between the steam machine and the deck seamless
Steam link on steroids. now that i think about it, would the steam deck stream to a steam link?
Can’t imagine it’d be worth doing considering you could just dock your deck to the tv. I know the deck is a beast at streaming to it though.
The problem is they keep breaking in-home streaming to/from the Deck. My Mac has a significantly more GPU oomph so there are some games I’d like to play streamed, but streaming hasn’t worked in either direction since last year.
I would hope they’d be able to get that working much more reliably when both ends are known to be their hardware…
But also yeah, IHS is a huge coinflip depending on your home network too
I would not even hate this idea. To be honest, I would even think about buying one. I switched to Linux a year ago, while having Windows as dual boot option. I only used Windows for one game, which had a nasty Anti Cheat back then. Nowadays it is working on Linux. So I have no reason to use Windows anymore. And as I love Valve since the early days, I always try to get my hands on their products.
Two popups before I can read an article means you don’t get read. Bye.
Using an ad blocker is basically requirement of browsing the internet at the moment.
Gross.
I think people misunderstood what I meant entirely. I’m saying it’s gross to need an ad blocker just to browse the web, which should be in line with the values of the people here. I got down voted badly and I think it is because there was some possible alternative explanation that I still don’t understand.
No u
Ye u right.
Built in browsers in apps don’t have them.
Jerboa uses my Firefox app
I have no idea if this works iPhones because Apple pretty restrictive (Do they allow anyone to use anything other than Safari or are they still on that anti-consumer kick), but on Android you can set the browser engine the in-app browsers use. So you can set it to Firefox and then have plugins.
I’m using that now.
Or you can just turn in-app browsers off.
I have no idea if this works iPhones because Apple pretty restrictive (Do they allow anyone to use anything other than Safari or are they still on that anti-consumer kick)
In this instance it’s an oddly good thing that in app browser engines are restricted to Safari: because it gets the ad blocking you set up for Safari. I didn’t even know that site had ads!
That aside, while the in app engine is still locked, Apple has been allowing different browsers (not browser engines, mind you) for many years now and with the eu regulators curiously doing their job lately, they are going to allow different engines too. Although I’ve read that it’s a bit of a trick, because then developers would have to develop and support two different versions of their browsers, one with whatever engine, and one for the rest of the world…
This comes from a Vivaldi user btw.
Yes, safari on iOS has a zillion ad blocker apps too
Depends on which browser is the default, I think. Even if that doesn’t work you can set you private DNS and block most things though.
They don’t care, you already saw the ads
I’m sure there’s more ads further down the page and now I won’t be opening any more links to their site.
I’d like the Steam Machine to come back with the addition of being an HTPC. Why? Because Valve is big enough to arm wrestle streaming services into releasing an official app.
I basically want a user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.
Htpc?
Home theater PC
Way back when netflix was new, windows had a Home Theatre edition of windows.
Beautiful 10ft UI, worked with tuners, could record from them, had no issues dealing with auto-ripped DVDs and had a native netflix integration.
Then netflix pulled out, but windows HTPC was still pretty decent.
Nowadays, it’s basically “you have to pay for everything” with a smart TV or a set top android box, maybe lucky enough to have a tuner in it.
Or it’s high seas.
I don’t think there is really a middle ground.XBMC became Kodi, you can still get that 10ft UI and it integrates with local media files like ripped DVDs and Blu-ray, or it’ll interop with any streaming service, or it’ll interop with high seas URLs.
That gave way to Plex, which is a webapp to host your local media, which has grown very large and is out of favor. Jellyfin and others have taken up the mantel.
In-between the two are the *arr suites of software which automate file sharing.
It’s a rabbit hole if you’re interested. Feel free to google any of these names and you’ll find a glut of how to articles online.
Yeh, I’ve looked at a bunch over the years. None have that DVR ability that windows Media Center Edition had.
I feel like I should build up an arr stack, go down that rabbit hole, spend my streaming subscription money on a VPN and a private tracker (or whatever is required).
I just haven’t yet.That gave way to Plex, which is a webapp to host your local media, which has grown very large and is out of favor. Jellyfin and others have taken up the mantel.
I think you overestimate the prevalence of Jellyfin. Plex is still more widely used, for good reason
I’ll sit here and wait for the jellyfin fans to find this comment.
Or it’s high seas.
It’s always the high seas.
HTPC wasn’t a Windows thing though Microsoft did have Windows Media Center, which was a pretty slick interface for HTPCs
I used to use XBMC, which is now Kodi, for an interface. Before that I just used a PC running Mandrake Linux with a wireless mouse and keyboard. Haha.
Had a TV tuner, acted as a DVR, and also could play my library of SNES and NES games through it.
Windows MCE, that was it! Not HTPC.
I knew a guy that built a career using xbmc in a professional environment, scripted out the wazoo to make it not look like xbmc.
I think I even tried running it on an actual Xbox, and being impressed with it. But MCE on a spare laptop was better. I eventually built an HTPC to run MCE.
They are like 1-2 little steps away from a very good HTPC Steam Deck.
Like if they could just take a little time to make Firefox work 100% in game mode (right now it’s not quite there, like you can’t go full screen with videos) and make controllers just a little more comfortable for browsing and it’d already be there for me.
Why would Valve spend time and money doing Mozilla’s job for them?
Same reason they spend time and money making games work on Linux.
They don’t spend their own time. They pay CodeWeavers to do that work.
Point still stands.
If they added Coreboot support, I would buy it just because of that. (Not 100% FOSS, but it’s still nice to have more control over your hardware)
Or better yet, Libreboot.
Edit: why is this controversial?
Libreboot nowadays would most likely still contain blobs in the BIOS, but not as much as regular Coreboot. I don’t know why you’re being downvoted lol. If Coreboot is supported, they can port it to Libreboot.
I’m not sure what else they would need to do. You can just install Plex or Jellyfin on your Steamdeck right now, and you’ve got yourself an HTPC. It works great!
What are the missing pieces you’re still looking for?
What are the missing pieces you’re still looking for?
The addition of JF or Plex, even with a Steam Dock, doesn’t turn a Steam Deck into a user customizable, privacy respecting Xbox.
For starters it needs integrated streaming apps. I don’t WANT to have to use a web browser to access streaming content. Next up those streaming apps need Audio and Video support for 4K resolutions, Dolby Vision / HDR, and Dolby Atmos. My Wife doesn’t want to watch Outlander in 1080p with stereo sound on a 65" 4k television and I don’t want to do it when I’m watching shows on Disney Plus.
How about an HDMI 3.x port? (Steam Dock is only 2.x).
It needs support for a normal tv style remote control. Game controllers are great but I’ve yet to find a half decent one that has volume and mute buttons.
The last time I checked a Steam Deck wouldn’t automatically start in a 10’ interface.
Please understand that I’m not bagging on the Steam Deck with these comments. It’s a damn capable device for mobile gaming but it wasn’t mean to be an HTPC and because of that its never going to function quite right if you try and make it be one.
An Xbox Series X absolutely murders a Steam Deck as an HTPC when used with commercial services but its not user customizable nor privacy respecting. That’s why I want Valve to bring back Steam Machines.
I wouldn’t expect HDMI 3 given the HDMI group are openly hostile to open source implementations of HDMI 2.1.
I wouldn’t expect HDMI 3 given the HDMI group are openly hostile to open source implementations of HDMI 2.1.
It just takes a company with sufficient market power, like Valve, to get involved. For example Android had this same problem in the early days, then Google realized that their OS required it for market adoption and found a way to get it done.
I understand that it may not be possible but that doesn’t stop me from wanting it. :)
Steam machine? Nah. Just Steam OS would be enough.
Is your statement true? Probably
But if we set our standards to “enough”, there wouldn’t be any progress
Was the switch enough for couch gamers? Sure. Did valve want to progress further? They did.
That controller has some serious Atari Jaguar vibes.
Or, you know, just connect the Steam Deck to the television…
I’ve tried this, and I think it’s worth providing a more powerful console if playing on the tv is your primary use case.
It works fine but it doesn’t really hold up to the 4k 60fps HDR experience that most people are getting used to from the main console makers.
4k 60fps HDR experience that most people are getting used to from the main console makers
What games are you playing on console where you are actually getting 4k native resolution at 60fps?
Racing and Sports games for sure.
What game on what console?
Forza Motorsport will do 4k60 on Series X for example. Most Racing and Sports games will do 4k60 on modern consoles since they’re easy to render.
No, Forza Motorsport uses dynamic resolution upscaled to 4k in Performance mode, and in Quality mode it also uses dynamic resolution but targets 30fps.
On the ps5: FF14, borderlands 3, Monster Hunter: World, Destiny 2, Metro Exodus, Far Cry 6, Resident Evil: Village, etc…
Most of them run dynamic 4k so there is periodic upscaling which is seamless in my experience.
I was asking specifically about native 4K games, not dynamic resolution upscaled to 4k.
Well… you were responding to a post by me… which had no mention of “native” anything.
Rocket league on ps5 is 4k120 or 4k60 with HDR
A PS4 game? Nice.
It’s been rereleased and enhanced for modern consoles, if you wanted an answer why are you arguing? Lmfao.
I dont even have a 4k TV.
The community appreciates your input to the discussion.
A steam machine with a Radeon 7600 class GPU sold for under $500 would be a surefire hit and it would blow the deck out of the water in terms of performance.
I think the biggest thing would be getting a PC with decent specs for $500. Why would anybody buy a Dell desktop or the like ever again? Like even if you don’t game and need to do office work it’d probably be the best option.
You can almost build something like that for this price. Or you can do it if you buy some second hand stuff. But for an OEM building a few million units it would definitely be doable.
Yeah, but I was thinking more parents buying a console for their kids. Like oh little Jimmy can do his homework on this thing too, great I didn’t have to buy him another computer. Or imagine if Microsoft put windows on Xboxes, every office building would be full of them lol.
Problem is, any occasional performance issue with Proton on the Deck can be justified with “it’s an underpowered portable”, if it happens on a powerful PC, people aren’t going to be as forgiving.
It would perform as well or better than any equivalent Windows PC. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here.
What’s with the hostility?
They already exist. They’re called mini PCs or NUCs. Just buy one of those and you’re already there. Literally. This whole article and thread is garbage. They already exist. They just aren’t branded Steam.
For the average person, that is impossible. Also, you lose a lot of features compared to SteamOS. Also, the controls are (at least to me) a main selling point and there is no controller on the market that comes close to the capabilities of the Deck.
I recognize thr average person won’t do this, but you can get the same steam deck experience by installing Bazzite.
Now the controller issue I definitely agree with. They need a second gen Steam Controller pronto!
My TV is 4k. The Steam UI alone is still a laggy mess at 4K. Setting the Deck at 1080p makes the whole thing really blurry. While upscaling games from 720p or 1080p to 4k looks better. Until they changed something about the FSR settings and it now cripples the performance at 4k as soon as you turn it on.
A Steam Machine aiming for Xbox Series S type of performance would be sweet.
You could do that, but you could get significantly more performance per dollar by creating a new class of hardware that doesn’t have to be concerned with form factor, efficiency or battery, so it can be larger and more performant, and also does not need to include an OLED display or a controller or a battery…
They have. It’s called the Steam Deck.
what people want is the internals of a steam deck but beefed up and easier to open up
So a Linux computer that looks like a console? I can see how it’d sell, but it’s already available to anyone who isn’t oblivious. You can even install the SteamOS if you want that particular flavor of Arch.
the point is that you don’t have to fiddle with anything, you can trust the product sold by valve to be good, you have everything preinstalled and configured, and because thousands and thousands of people have the same device it’s easy for developers to target it.
And with the way Xbox has been going, a solid Steam Machine could theoretically replace it in the market. Sure, your old discs wouldn’t work, but it would have all the Microsoft exclusives anyway. Even Sony exclusives are making it to Steam now.
have old xbox discs really not been cracked? would feel very odd if people hadn’t figured out how to run them from regular old CD readers and emulators…
Original Xbox, probably. 360 emulation is still pretty rough. I doubt anyone has a functioning One emulator and definitely not a Series X emulator. Not much interest since almost all of it is on Windows anyway. The only reason I’ve been watching 360 emulation is for Fable 2.
Also, it’s fairly unlikely that Valve would include an optical drive unless they want to license blu ray stuff from Sony.
that looks like a console
Not just looks, but provides the UX of a console. So you buy it, plug it up, log in, and immediately start playing. Even consoles don’t provide that streamlined UX anymore, but ppl want all the benefits console used to provide with all the benefits PC gaming provides now. But the key part is the PC benefits don’t get in the way of the ease of it. You don’t have to install or administer a linux distro, you don’t have to twiddle settings for every game (unless you want to), etc
That’s the big thing. After my postive experience with the Steam Deck, I switched my gaming PC to Linux. There were settings I had to tinker with to get my games running as optimally as they would on the deck, that I assume are set by default on the SteamOS.
They released the new steam os?
Previously it was only the Debian one available
I have no idea. I assumed they did, but I’m not actually sure.
I don’t think they have yet, which is a bit of a sore point. Third party alternatives like Bazzite may do the job, though.
Bazzite is basically this with bring-your-own hardware. A first party Valve version doesn’t make as much sense compared to a handheld like the Steam Deck but it would be pretty cool.
A steamdeck, no screen, an evo212 cooler, and possibly just loaded with USB ports. Mmmmmm
an evo212 cooler
So I only bring this up because I had my world shattered like 3 months ago when I built a new PC - the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo cooler is really expensive these days, like, $80-$90 (there are some models that use the same name but have different heat pipe configurations that drop down into the $50-$60 range, but aren’t the ol tried and true 212 that we all bought in the 2010s), and a complete ripoff, and it’s really sad.
You can get some Noctua coolers for a few more bucks, or pay a third of that price for a Peerless Assassin, or pay about half again that price for something from ID-cooling, all for similar or better performance to the 212. It’s no longer the automatic choice it once was. The king has been dethroned.
Dude what!? I bought my 212 for like 35 bucks back in 2014. As far as I know my nephew is still rocking that setup every day since 2019. That’s wild they’re selling them for 80ish…smh my head.
An Xbox Series S (or even X) but not locked down and able to run Steam games would be great. But that’s the kind of price you’d be looking for. Price of a PS5 would be the absolute maximum. Any higher, and mainstream people won’t be interested because they can just buy a PS5 for that.
I think it’s achievable at scale (millions of units like the PS5), but it’d be a huge gamble.
So a PC in a cool case?
The problem with going proprietary is that then, well, it’s proprietary. So either they use off the shelf components in which case it’s basically a PC, or they use custom stuff which might improve performance depending on what they do, but will make it difficult to repair and upgrade. Then you rely on Valve producing hardware components, and they’re not really a hardware company, although in fairness they’re also not doing badly at it.
It’s more about the hardware/firmware/software uniformity and reliability for some people. My friend is in this camp, he doesn’t want to need to manage a PC, he just wants a box he can reliably turn on and use.
And to expand a little on your point, uniformity means devs can target specific optimizations/performance. I.e. this will run like this on a Steam medium system.
Bring it back as an HTPC like the peeps are saying, low-ball it on the price like 500 bucks or less, maybe even take a hit on it or just a hit on the profit margins, pre-install all the stuff people might need, and then blam, you’ve guaranteed that most people will be casual users who want a lower-end computer and a smart TV/console replacement, and not higher tier hobbyists who want a more powerful machine. Confining your audience to that specific market share basically guarantees they won’t take advantage of the lower or negative margins on the hardware itself, and will probably buy some amount of steam games. They’re also using a device in your ecosystem now but idk what you do as far as that goes to make a good profit while not being a scumbag
Steam is already the biggest fish by far in the digital games market for PC. Only reason for them to do this is if they’re worried about losing that dominance. Basically, is Epic keeping them up at night enough to warrant a major push into a new hardware loss leader?
I’ve seen these mockups for a steam controller that is essentially a steam deck without a screen multiple times now and it looks like absolute dogshit. This would be far from “the perfect controller”.
Yeah, I don’t know why they’d use that image. It’s so lazy and uncreative. That’s not what it’ll look like. They literally just cut the edges of the Deck and shoved them together. I’ve seen better concepts of how it’ll look.
As an owner of a Steam Controller, it’s actually pretty nice. It’s probably the most ergonomic controller out there, though for functionality it hits a different niche than the typical controllers you find everywhere. Its better for some games, particularly ones designed for mouse, but worse for others. I’d bet on the Steam Controller 2 being very ergonomic and adding sticks, as well as the track pads, to be quite possibly the best controller available for every game (excluding keyboard and mouse obviously).
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Like you said, these are Steam Deck prototypes, not the controller. They made a cheap controller with the same potential profile of the Deck without the screen because it’s cheaper. It was to iterate on the Deck quickly and cheaply. They’d never release a controller like that. They do the same thing for all their products.
They already tried a ton of designs for the Steam Controller to figure out the ergonomics of that. They’ll likely iterate some more with Version 2, but it’s likely to follow the controller design, not the deck design. It has very different considerations since it doesn’t need to contain a screen.
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I would bet on the same hand grip bits and a similar set of back buttons. The touch pads will be revamped and it’ll probably force the shape to change a lot.
I think the controllers sold relatively well though. Just not Steam Deck well. I know a good number of people who own at least one.
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The steam controller itself is pretty good, especially for like RTSs. But tbh the closest I’ve got to a KB/m is the DS5E. Just so damn expensive.
I’ve used my Steam Deck as a controller (via remote play) while sitting at my desktop PC. It is by far my favorite of the various controllers I’ve used.
When you say looks like shit, are you referring to the appearance of it or the functionality looks shit?
Because I don’t really care what it looks like, I care how useable it is.
When you say looks like shit, are you referring to the appearance of it or the functionality looks shit?
Probably both. The hand position to use that thing would be an ergonomics nightmare to your wrists
honestly at this point bundle the dock w rechargeable wireless controllers and let me convert the deck I already love into a pseudoconsole.
It’s called a Mini PC or a NUC. They already exist. Go buy one and slap Steam on it. Done.
The people who actually want this have already done it.
Valve’s big advantage here is the same as it was with the steam deck: they can sell at a loss and make it back on software sales.
A lot of the appeal of consoles is a polished experience and that they’re generally less expensive up front compared to a comparable power gaming PC. Many consoles are sold at a loss to hit that price point. Valve could actually make cheap gaming PCs that can compete in price and offer a smooth user experience.
Install steam. Run in big picture mode. Done. That’s a steam machine. I don’t get what you think a dedicated machine is going to do any differently. There is a reason Steam abandoned the idea themselves.
Install steam. Run in big picture mode. Done. That’s a steam machine. I don’t get what you think a dedicated machine is going to do any differently. There is a reason Steam abandoned the idea themselves.
Big picture mode on my windows PC and the gamescope-focused UI on the Deck look similar, but offer very different capabilities IME.
To name a handful: FSR support for all games - including those that don’t support it, per-game hardware performance profiles, excellent hardware integration - not just limited to the instant sleep and instant wake. With the third party Decky Store you can also configure the fan profile to your liking, control music apps running in the background on the Deck, and more. On the PC BPM these sadly do not exist
I 100% prefer playing on the deck any day of the week - the OS simply makes it so straightforward to jump into a game and forget about needing to also think about maintaining a desktop: no Windows updates, no telemetry service CPU spiking, and no Windows resetting my customized settings or forcing Edge browser defaults after an update.
That said, I don’t particularly have an interest in a full blown Steam Machine - for me the Deck works just fine when docked.
You can install Bazzite instead of Windows to solve the above problems.
Yah. Makes more sense for Valve to spend their time improving Proton or working on their reference handheld device. A reference desktop device is a solution looking for a problem.
I still have a Steam Link, does that count? Lol
