The correct lesson to take away from it, that they won’t ever do, is to release multiplayer games in a way where they can live on without constant updates or a central server.

Going from YouTube comments on gaming channels that don’t focus on PC gaming or Linux, I don’t think many people remember the first Steam Machines from 10 years ago.

That was a conscious decision they made at the time so that you could browse the web and such with no driver downloads. The full functionality of it is kind of locked behind Steam itself (without community made software), which is its worst quality, for sure.

So, funny story, I bought it as the Windows variant, because it was $50 cheaper for some reason. Bloatware subsidies, maybe? My roommate and I tried it for a little while, but using Windows from the couch sucked so much that I put SteamOS on it. My roommate only booted back to Windows to play Hearthstone. I just rocked whatever SteamOS would let me play local, since streaming games from my desktop in the other room wasn’t cutting it for me. I played through KOTOR2 on that machine, on SteamOS, and had a great time.

Why would you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a PC that used a brand-new operating system and had a gaming library a fraction of the size of that of Windows machines?

I had one of the old Alienware Steam Machines. I know it wasn’t a popular answer, but my answer to this was that Windows was atrocious for the living room just like it’s atrocious for handhelds today, and I had easily and cheaply amassed a large library of Linux-compatible games even back then by way of Steam sales. But this wasn’t even the only problem. We only had OpenGL ports rather than lower level and more performant APIs like Vulkan. Running a marquis Linux title like Shadow of Mordor would come with a sizable performance hit compared to the Windows version, even when run on exactly the same hardware, and that would also require a machine that cost $200 more than a PS4 that could run the same game just as well.

Console gamers who don’t know what Steam is

How common do you believe this is in 2025? It’s on every big game’s launch trailer, and Steam dwarfs any console player base. Network effects alone should make just about every console player (who’s old enough to read) aware of what Steam is.

I’ve got a bit of a VR library, but the new ease of setup with this one does have me considering how I’d use the virtual display features. Even with trackpads, a lot of mouse-driven games aren’t great on Steam Deck, but I’m replaying Baldur’s Gate 2 right now and wondering how the mouse controls might work out in VR.

Thank you. Didn’t notice I screwed that up.

friends/chat was offline for literally months

Friends lists didn’t work reliably for years.

I’m sure there are vast swaths of older games that will hit 4k60 though. Me, personally, my TV is still 1080p, so I’m confident I’ll hit my full resolution without breaking a sweat, haha.

Digital Foundry’s guess is somewhere between $400 and $500, and they think it will be a harder sell at $500 for the power it’s offering.

Digital Foundry’s analysis of it is that it could retail for somewhere between $400 and $500, but it will be slightly less powerful than a PS5, and therefore, it wouldn’t be as attractive at $500 retail. Valve probably knows that, too.

The part where they have to install the OS itself is going to be a major deal breaker for mass market.

I don’t know if consumers would go out of their way to buy a steam PC box

There could never be a better test for the hypothesis than this critical moment where people are fucking pissed at Microsoft.

To be fair, they say they made a lot of tradeoffs in the name of being price conscious, but they haven’t put a price on it yet.

Right, there is little difference between them because they had the prior game in the series to build off of, but don’t just gloss over “and graphics”. The fidelity that we expect today is why you can’t just make the next Morrowind with 50 people, because people expect it to be better than Morrowind now that we’re 20 years removed from it. A smaller team than that made Dread Delusion; a larger one made Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. From those, if they’re fortunate enough to have financial success, they can build on it just like Bethesda built on Morrowind’s bones. What Obsidian made with a similar team was The Outer Worlds, which kept the fidelity up but the scope small, and I think it was the right decision, because otherwise, you end up taking 7 years per game like Kingdom Come. Those are great games, but it took 15 years to get two of them, and the first one was rough.

There is, because we expect more fidelity now than we did in 2011, and Skyrim was built on some existing bones. When you’re trying to make a game like that in Unreal that you haven’t done in that engine before, it’s going to be smaller (if you’re smart). Baldur’s Gate 3 didn’t get to be that big without building on Original Sin 2, and the same can be said for Elden Ring; perhaps without a pandemic in the middle, those games might have even been made in more reasonable time frames than 5 or 6 years.

Not me, sorry. On desktop Linux, I’m always wired, and the bluetooth always just worked when I needed it on Bazzite or Steam Deck, connecting via the controller setup in the Steam menu, but maybe someone else here will know.

Yeah, Xbox controllers are pretty much standard. Comfortable, not overpriced, great compatibility with everything, no fuss. Newer ones, from the past several years now, will have Nintendo-style d pads, now that the patent has expired, and connect via bluetooth for wireless play or with a USB C cable to save on batteries. Speaking of batteries, it uses AAs, which means that you can actually swap them when they get low, as opposed to PlayStation controllers where batteries don’t last long and they aren’t really exposed for you to access them. I’m not going to tell you Xbox controllers are the be-all, end-all, but there’s a high chance it’s all you need.

EDIT: Even though I use Xbox controllers all the time, I forgot that the newest Xbox pads actually have d pads that are even better than Nintendo’s design. They look funky, but for my money, it’s the best d pad out there.

Well, I’d argue if there was no money to be made, then CNET wouldn’t have purchased GameFAQs.

I’ve heard lots about acquisitions of games media as they’ve nearly all gone independent lately, especially Giant Bomb, who was part of this family. CNET certainly believed it could make them money, but hardly any of this stuff made anyone any money as they changed hands multiple times. At the very least, it could benefit from economies of scale around securing ads in one deal and displaying them in multiple places, but advertisers paid out less for traditional ads on static web pages at the same time that video ad spending was increasing.

But the clean break idea that print guides existed and then GameFAQs came along and killed guides just doesn’t fit the timeline at all. It’s off by 5-10 years, at least.

It didn’t happen overnight, much like GameStop.