bitzu101 wrote on 2025-11-17, 12:44:

basically , valve told me to bugger off because i do not own a vr thing. and it s little bit annoying. I want to play alyx , would love to play it actually. but to force me to buy a vr?

Yes, that is the whole point of making a game exclusive to VR. To incentive people to buy a VR headset.

If you self select out of buying a VR headset, that's fine too. Nobody is forcing you to buy what you don't want.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-11-17, 12:33:

bitzu101 wrote on 2025-11-17, 12:15:

Why would you make a game just for vr and loose on millions?

Because they were trying to foster adoption of VR.

Plus Steam is a money printing machine for Valve at this point. They can afford to take risks and lose money on ventures like Half Life Alyx.

But how many times can these companies make the same mistakes......VR might be doing better than ever before, but it's far and away a complete failure as far as market adoption is concerned.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-11-17, 12:57:

bitzu101 wrote on 2025-11-17, 12:44:

basically , valve told me to bugger off because i do not own a vr thing. and it s little bit annoying. I want to play alyx , would love to play it actually. but to force me to buy a vr?

Yes, that is the whole point of making a game exclusive to VR. To incentive people to buy a VR headset.

If you self select out of buying a VR headset, that's fine too. Nobody is forcing you to buy what you don't want.

Nope , i am not forced. but i do want to play the game 😀 and not hte pc mod which i understand is not that good. Maybe if a vr thing was like 100 pounds , maybe at a push 200... but 600 700... that is just too much money for something that I would not use that often. I just don t see the value in it.

maybe in the future , when the prices will go down.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-11-17, 14:07:

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-11-17, 12:33:

bitzu101 wrote on 2025-11-17, 12:15:

Why would you make a game just for vr and loose on millions?

Because they were trying to foster adoption of VR.

Plus Steam is a money printing machine for Valve at this point. They can afford to take risks and lose money on ventures like Half Life Alyx.

But how many times can these companies make the same mistakes......VR might be doing better than ever before, but it's far and away a complete failure as far as market adoption is concerned.

I am sure that alyx is a good experience on the steam vr thing. I ve heared good things. However , the price is just ridiculous. Also , because these gimmicks are new technology , every year there will be a better one , etc... just like pc s in the early 2000s... one 2 years apart meant a big difference , but now , you can keep a good pc for 5 6 years...

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-11-17, 14:07:

But how many times can these companies make the same mistakes......VR might be doing better than ever before, but it's far and away a complete failure as far as market adoption is concerned.

No risk, no reward. While VR hasn't taken off yet, that doesn't mean it never will. Any company at the forefront of its development will be better positioned to reap the reward of its success.

And this isn't the first technology that's taken awhile to gain mainstream traction and practical usage. I always compare to tablets. That technology started in the 80s, but it wasn't until the iPad in 2010 that we saw the beginning of mainstream adoption. And even when the iPad launched it still had its share of naysayers.

VR of course has a lot more challenges to solve, between processing power needed, screen fidelity, tracking systems, comfort and ergonomics, and price. VR headsets have come a ways in the past decade, but still have a ways to go.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-11-17, 21:03:

No risk, no reward. While VR hasn't taken off yet, that doesn't mean it never will. Any company at the forefront of its developm […]
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Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-11-17, 14:07:

But how many times can these companies make the same mistakes......VR might be doing better than ever before, but it's far and away a complete failure as far as market adoption is concerned.

No risk, no reward. While VR hasn't taken off yet, that doesn't mean it never will. Any company at the forefront of its development will be better positioned to reap the reward of its success.

And this isn't the first technology that's taken awhile to gain mainstream traction and practical usage. I always compare to tablets. That technology started in the 80s, but it wasn't until the iPad in 2010 that we saw the beginning of mainstream adoption. And even when the iPad launched it still had its share of naysayers.

VR of course has a lot more challenges to solve, between processing power needed, screen fidelity, tracking systems, comfort and ergonomics, and price. VR headsets have come a ways in the past decade, but still have a ways to go.

Totally agree with you. Hence they should release ALYX for normal pc as well... it s the only game in the saga i have not played. and i m annoyed. specialle because ive see that the graphics are good and the story is not too bad.

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine

Price and such is out now...

First reviews are coming in:

• Gamers Nexus
• Digital Foundry

Personally, I don't find it very appealing at the advertised price point.

Based on the benchmarks in the Gamers Nexus review, it looks like its performance is roughly on par with the RTX 3060.

That happens to be the GPU in my MSI Trident console-style PC that I've had for four years. So.... not much reason to upgrade I guess?

It's too bad the price vs performance ratio is absolutely atrocious. It's just not powerful enough to make sense unless you really really want a system that size and shape.

Considering the performance, limited RAM, storage and VRAM AND the fact that it does not run Windows (this used to make systems cost less), I don't think the 512GB model would be even remotely appealing for anything more than $400.

At this point you could buy a used 5 year old gaming PC from some local marketplace for half the price of a Steam Machine and probably end up with much better performance if it had a 3060 Ti or something similar. If the small cube form factor and having SteamOS out of the box are worth $500-$600 to you then that's fine, but for me it isn't even remotely close.

If you wanted to go 100% new, you could easily build a little ITX system that is significantly faster than this for the same money. Or, get something comparable that is half the price. Just last week I picked up a brand new, sealed Arc A750 8GB for $139, and that is anywhere from slightly slower to significantly faster than the Steam Machine's GPU depending on the game. It's not hard to find a Ryzen 5 5500 and an ITX AM4 board in the sub-$150 range. Add in 16GB of DDR4, 512GB SSD, ITX case and PSU and you've got similar capabilities for a little over half the price. Even if you bump the GPU budget up to $200-$300 it would still be nowhere near the $1050 of the Steam Machine.

It's a system I want to like because I think Valve does a nice job overall (especially with repairability of their hardware) but the price is just so bad I don't see it being successful. The Steam Deck was appealing because of its price point in combination with the form factor. The relatively inept RX 460 to GTX 1050 level of GPU performance was tolerable for a sub-$400 handheld. This... just doesn't make any sense.

In fairness to Valve, they started designing this thing before the sudden spike in RAM and storage costs this past year. I imagine they intended the Steam Machine to have a much lower price point than where it ended up.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-06-22, 19:03:

In fairness to Valve, they started designing this thing before the sudden spike in RAM and storage costs this past year. I imagine they intended the Steam Machine to have a much lower price point than where it ended up.

Of course, but the price still seems exceptionally high. The base model's 16GB of DDR5 and a 512GB SSD have gone up roughly $200-$250 (total) at retail since last spring. If they'd intended to sell the base model at $800, or even $700 (trying to account for VRAM price increase as well) I still don't see the market for it. The competition for budget gaming PCs without the shortage would have made even a $500+ Steam Machine with these specs a tough sell in 2026.

I notice that Gamers Nexus says that it "isn't massively overpriced for what it is, versus the awful market conditions", but they are comparing it to a system with a Ryzen 5 7500F and 16GB of DDR5. Realistically, a machine of this performance level gets little or no benefit from its most expensive component: DDR5. Comparing it to an AM4\DDR4 system drops the build-new price by around $250 (25% of GN's DIY total) with little discernible difference in performance thanks to the GPU bottleneck.

It is very unfortunate that the shortages have messed up the prices so bad, but it just seems like the price point they were shooting for was way off the mark from the start.

bitzu101 wrote on 2025-11-13, 11:43:

Steam Machine will fail. There is no room inbetween xbox and playstation.

All the people want is Half Life 3 on a normal PC , no consoles , no VR , nothing of this new stuff.

Who are you speaking for ? I'd love HL 3 in VR.
Even better if it has co op VR.

At least the SteamOS is out there now for DIY folks (like us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Looking forward to their future arm adventures