It's funny to see people be surprised by this, steam is a lot more beloved and trusted by their fans then any other place cuz of how consistently good they are to they're customers. Even at this unfortunate price point people likely still see it as a good value.
This is the true value of not fucking over your consumers with short sighted nonsense.
Tbh, LTT's "Steam Machine killer" video ironically made the Steam Machine look better than every review depicted. Despite not being as powerful as a PS5 it was still getting 60fps most of the time
Personally, beyond HDMI CEC I'm heavily considering picking it up if I get a slot as Valve has a great track record of supporting their hardware, it is quiet and relatively low power consumption, and I will likely not have to tinker much to get a solid experience.
To me it's similar to 3D printers, you can either pay less and the hardware becomes part of the project/hobby itself. Or you can pay a bit more and just get to reliably use the hardware.
and I will likely not have to tinker much to get a solid experience.
I'm sure the Steam Machine will be fine, but I reject the notion that that differentiates it from any other AMD-based PC running Linux. My AMD-based Linux PC as built a year ago (which is faster than a Steam Machine, BTW) didn't require much tinkering, and neither did my previous AMD-based Linux PC built about eight years ago. Proton didn't exist back then, but as soon as it came out it basically had zero problems related to the hardware (as opposed to incompatibilities caused by the lack of maturity of the software itself). With AMD, Linux basically Just Works, and has done for many, many years.
(Also, you don't have to spend a lot to get a reliable 3D printer. You just have to pay attention to product reviews and such. I've got a Creality Ender 3 V3 SE, which was generally considered to be the "best" inexpensive printer as of a few years ago, and it's been fine. The tradeoff for the low price is lack of fancy features like an enclosure or multiple extruders, not reliability.)
What kind of prints do you think you'll do most often? (Single-material, multi colour (but same material), or multi-material?)
What's your budget roughly?
How important is open vs closed ecosystems to you?
I've had an Ender 5 Pro for many years that I've modified a fair bit (but likely wouldn't recommend nowadays), I don't have hands on experience with any newer printers but I've been doing a bunch of research for the last few months to see what I might replace it with so I might be able to point you in a few directions depending on your answers to those three criterias.
And the lack of a reservation queue is the only reason we haven’t seen this news for other markets yet. The randomization happens today for the other markets where Valve sells directly and I bet we’ll be hearing about the queue overflowing significantly into the waitlist.
PC component prices are a little higher in Japan on average than in North America, and the shortages are affecting Japan more acutely in the DIY computer space.
Even at a higher price, a compact, quiet offering of a decently capable machine does have a solid appeal to that market.
It's funny to see people be surprised by this, steam is a lot more beloved and trusted by their fans then any other place cuz of how consistently good they are to they're customers. Even at this unfortunate price point people likely still see it as a good value.
This is the true value of not fucking over your consumers with short sighted nonsense.
Tbh, LTT's "Steam Machine killer" video ironically made the Steam Machine look better than every review depicted. Despite not being as powerful as a PS5 it was still getting 60fps most of the time
Also, some people are willing to pay a premium for good looks and/or HDMI CEC.
Personally, beyond HDMI CEC I'm heavily considering picking it up if I get a slot as Valve has a great track record of supporting their hardware, it is quiet and relatively low power consumption, and I will likely not have to tinker much to get a solid experience.
To me it's similar to 3D printers, you can either pay less and the hardware becomes part of the project/hobby itself. Or you can pay a bit more and just get to reliably use the hardware.
I'm sure the Steam Machine will be fine, but I reject the notion that that differentiates it from any other AMD-based PC running Linux. My AMD-based Linux PC as built a year ago (which is faster than a Steam Machine, BTW) didn't require much tinkering, and neither did my previous AMD-based Linux PC built about eight years ago. Proton didn't exist back then, but as soon as it came out it basically had zero problems related to the hardware (as opposed to incompatibilities caused by the lack of maturity of the software itself). With AMD, Linux basically Just Works, and has done for many, many years.
(Also, you don't have to spend a lot to get a reliable 3D printer. You just have to pay attention to product reviews and such. I've got a Creality Ender 3 V3 SE, which was generally considered to be the "best" inexpensive printer as of a few years ago, and it's been fine. The tradeoff for the low price is lack of fancy features like an enclosure or multiple extruders, not reliability.)
Any recommendations on a 3d printer?
I've had an Ender 5 Pro for many years that I've modified a fair bit (but likely wouldn't recommend nowadays), I don't have hands on experience with any newer printers but I've been doing a bunch of research for the last few months to see what I might replace it with so I might be able to point you in a few directions depending on your answers to those three criterias.
Zero surprises beyond the lack of a reservation queue, but I guess that's what happens when you use distributors that dgaf beyond the sale.
And the lack of a reservation queue is the only reason we haven’t seen this news for other markets yet. The randomization happens today for the other markets where Valve sells directly and I bet we’ll be hearing about the queue overflowing significantly into the waitlist.
PC component prices are a little higher in Japan on average than in North America, and the shortages are affecting Japan more acutely in the DIY computer space.
Even at a higher price, a compact, quiet offering of a decently capable machine does have a solid appeal to that market.
How many they sold is the real question though.
All of them.
Not to mention how many were bought by scalpers.
My guess is... all of them. Looks like they got speculative money to waste, so heading in random foreign market shouldn't too complicated to them.