Steam Hardware has gone live - are you buying or interested?

[AGTDenton]

And it seems the Steam Machines themselves maybe in trouble :-

http://www.pcworld.com/article/30061...s-windows.html

That certainly explains the lack of stock and fanfare launch...

Being as Steam was delayed for the controller, they could have got the OS tweaked in that time

[Razor Time]

Im just not sure about the controller, the xbox one works so well it would have to trump that for me to use it.

[iShadowLTu]

If the Titan One allows me to use the Steam Controller on the PS4 I might be interested in getting one. Not just for the PS4, would use it on PC as well, but getting it just for PC, too expensive when the PS4 controller works well enough for me on PC.

[ixer]

Personally I just don't see a need for a Steam Machine. Streaming really has come along way over the last year or so and I don't see myself playing at a level in which a few ms of latency will ruin my game play experience. I do fell that the controller might have some useful applications in every day tasks not just games, for me I think it boils down to if Steam Os gets some of the basic features it is lacking (a steam OS compatibility toggle etc.)

[dotdrew]

I recently received a Steam Link and Controller and have been using them on and off for a few weeks now. I would say they're both interesting products but they definitely have specific use cases.

The Link is really great, it's so great to be able to fire up a game on the TV downstairs without having to move my stupidly heavy PC. It also receives updates every time that I use it and has worked fairly flawlessly too, only having a few UI glitches browsing my game library and trying to view friends achievements etc.

The Controller however is more complicated. The controller is not going to be a replacement for your Xbox 360/One controller, not unless you prefer using a mouse trackpad. It has fantastic control over what each button does, you can create super finely detailed controller profiles for each game and they are by default shared with everyone (sorted by most used) so the best one is only ever a click away. Having tried to play Fallout 4 with it though using the trackball mode, it is so much harder than either a mouse or analogue stick. That's not to say the controller doesn't have its place though, it's absolutely great for mouse-only games like 4X games or City-Builders, playing Endless Legend or Cities Skylines on the couch is a breeze and probably the best use case for both products.

[Lubo]

Nope, not intrested in steam link or the controller, however steam VR yes.

[meynardhill10]

I was expecting to see a display in my local game shop but couldn't see anything more than there standard PC hardware selection (could of keyboards, mice and headsets). Do they hide them at the back or are they only carrying stock online? (Was running late so didn't have a chance to ask anyone in the shop.)

[meynardhill10]

Personally I just don't see a need for a Steam Machine. Streaming really has come along way over the last year or so and I don't see myself playing at a level in which a few ms of latency will ruin my game play experience.

[directhex]

That certainly explains the lack of stock and fanfare launch...

Being as Steam was delayed for the controller, they could have got the OS tweaked in that time

Here's the problem:

You don't have one AMD or NVIDIA driver on Windows. The drivers you download on Windows have literally thousands of alternate code paths - special cases to handle individual games. "detect game X is running, radically alter the driver to do Y". Assume every single game supported by GeForce Experience has some special-case driver code helping performance. There's a reason for "Game Ready" drivers, i.e. the ones that contain all the special-cases for new games.

On the Linux (SteamOS) front, that doesn't exist right now. Hell, SLI acceleration is only in place for 2 or 3 games total which all came out a decade ago.

When NVIDIA or AMD decide to bother, they can do the same thing.