I don’t think the target was the same people that would buy a link, the link is for someone that already has a pc. Meanwhile I think the steam machine was meant to compete with the consoles and gather new users into the steam ecosystem and then the price got hammered and took it out of that position.
Comment on Steam machine prices are live
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
It’s too expensive, it’s just not a good idea for them to have released this. Honestly, they probably should have delayed it for 1-2 years or likely even cancelled it outright.
What they should have done is made a new Steam Link with more capable hardware for cheap.
People don’t want to pay $1050 USD for 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
okseby@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Sure, I didn’t mean that it’s a standalone console.
However, at $1050 USD, there’s many people who won’t be buying this standalone console either.
It would have made more sense to release both at the same time, that way people who are turned off by the $1050 USD (or more) price tag would at least have something they could buy from Valve instead.
Hell, I’d buy a new Steam Link that supports H265 and isn’t capped to 1080p at 60 FPS.
okseby@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I agree fully.
Lemmchen@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I"m not sure where you are getting this from, but there’s absolutely no demand, and I mean none at all, for another Steam Link hardware.
You can run some form of Steam Link on basically anything you can hook up to a TV (or the TV itself).ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Sure, and how many of those devices that you hook up to a TV can handle Steam Link at 4K 120 FPS?
Your TV OS may or may not be able to, but if your TV can’t then the original Steam Link can’t, The NVIDIA Shield can’t, the Fire TV Stick/Fire TV Cube can’t, the Roku can’t, the Apple TV 4K can’t, none of them can do Steam Link at 4K 120 FPS.
I’m not out of touch for thinking 4K at high refresh rates would be nice to have.
grue@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The Steam Link was pretty much a dumb terminal for VNC. In what way does it need to have “more capable hardware?”
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
The Steam Link did not have HW acceleration IIRC, and did not support H265.
The Steam Link was capped to 1080p at 60 FPS.
Those are some serious hardware limitations.
grue@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not sure anybody really cares about the streaming codec as long as it works with good quality.
But fair enough: I agree it would be nice to have a “Steam Link 2” that could do 4K60 (or better) and (as pointed out in a Machine review video I just watched) support HDMI CEC.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 weeks ago
The streaming codec matters because it (265) is incredibly better and more efficient, which is what you want for streaming.