While the most recent rumour of a Steam Console was complete junk, it did get me thinking on what Valve would need to do to make a Steam Console / Steam Machine actually successful.
I agree Valve should do all of this, but realistically I think only the controller (and the price) really makes or breaks the Steam Machine. It needs to be just good enough, and it needs to be available.
I want four good controllers to play some couch co-op out of my SteamDeck Library, so I need to not hear that there’s a waiting list for controllers.
I don’t necessarily need a whole new era of advanced gaming, and I suspect putting crazy nice hardware inside would be a mistake (if it drives the price sky high). Valve can afford to let PlayStation continue to own the high end graphics market, and let Xbox continue to rule over the game of the month club.
Valve just needs to support my never quite getting around to playing all of my impulse-buy indie games, on my TV set and surround sound speakers.
And yeah, if they release a beefier model in about 3 years, I’ll probably upgrade.
I agree Valve should do all of this, but realistically I think only the controller (and the price) really makes or breaks the Steam Machine. It needs to be just good enough, and it needs to be available.
I want four good controllers to play some couch co-op out of my SteamDeck Library, so I need to not hear that there’s a waiting list for controllers.
I don’t necessarily need a whole new era of advanced gaming, and I suspect putting crazy nice hardware inside would be a mistake (if it drives the price sky high). Valve can afford to let PlayStation continue to own the high end graphics market, and let Xbox continue to rule over the game of the month club.
Valve just needs to support my never quite getting around to playing all of my impulse-buy indie games, on my TV set and surround sound speakers.
And yeah, if they release a beefier model in about 3 years, I’ll probably upgrade.