I just heard that Valve is putting in their own game console, with a weirdass controller and everything. I am sure you can switch out to usb controller of your choice or something but I think they may give Sony and Microsoft some competition after all. It will have all your games from your steam library and nearly all of them should play on the machine. This is big news. Finally offering something that smartphones and tablets have always done may make more people buy a Steam Machine.........or just you know, play their computers. I may get one if its not too pricey.

Hmm.. I can't see myself invest for one Steam Box, I have 500+ games already but how many for Linux I don't know.. To me it is a matter of price, as my machine is still holding relatively well (700€ prebuilt gaming pc, i3 2120 & GTX 560ti), and if / as it dies I'm already looking at another of these, either GeForce Experience or Alienware, costing around 1000€..

With a Steam Box around 500€ I would pass, 300 maybe consider..I don't see it make a real commercial success, Linux limited games and not sure of prices are the two downers yet, IMHO.

It's not "linux limited". You will be able to stream games from your PC to it.

Scenario: You have Mass Effect 2 on your PC but you want to be able to play it in front of your TV sitting on the couch. With an Xbone or PS4 you'd have to buy the game again, but not with a Steam Machine.

Also, keep in mind that this thing already has more games running on it natively than either the Xbone or the PS4

LE: Ofc I meant ME2 not 3 which is only on Origin

Are you sure about it? Does it means that they will use some emulator like Wine to play not-linux games?

The games will run on your PC but you'll interact with the Steam machine. No need for emulators or compat layers like Wine. An analogy to this is what OnLive used to do but without the latency and other problems since it will be done via your in-house LAN.

Ah, you mean streaming... Yes, I missed this in news, now I see. But buying a steam machine to play just on "remote desktop" - it's just waste of money... Any thin client can do the same (and costs less). I believe that main advantage of steam machine it's playing steam games without PC... but it's means, that game must have a linux version.

By the way - not going to buy Steam Machine anyway - I don't have neither living room nor TV...

Well if all you want is to stream games from your computer to your TV there are much cheaper alternative available like for example the Nvidia shield.

Really? I thought you said that you homeless...

Can you do that and have another buddy or two play with you games that support split-screen?

The Steam machine has no unique or exclusive features. Everything can be replicated on existing hardware for little or no extra cost (including the controller and Steam OS). The Linux game selection is still very limited (even worse than Mac OS X) so in-home streaming will be necessary to have any sort of proper gaming experience, and that means inherent latency; not as bad as OnLive, but still worse than playing directly on the host hardware.

Connecting your existing gaming PC to the TV would be the better, cheaper option in every regard unless it is inconvenient to do so.

I think that only advantage of steam machine - it's small and portable, and take less place in your living room. Moving your desktop PC to play on TV is inconvenient.

Apart for Wii party game I seriously doubt that nowadays split screen support is really that much of a selling argument.

Quickly, let's tell that to the people playing racing games and sports games.

That is a unique and exclusive feature. For console gamers, the option of buying a dedicated hardware platform for it makes it a viable alternative to the existing consoles. For PC gamers, the option of using their existing hardware (and game library), and possibly even dual-booting with SteamOS, means that they can get console features without having to invest in a full console.

The fact that it's a standard PC architecture means that it's upgradeable. The separation of OS and hardware means that it is inherently backwards compatible (at least as much as a PC is).

All in all, it offers players much more than the standard dedicated consoles do, and caters to PC players at the same time.

Yes and no. Those wanting a console (or equivalent) that runs the latest big-budget multi-platform games won't be seriously considering the Steam Box since it doesn't have any of those games (due to running Linux).

Consoles have weak catalogues at launch but that's offset by the promise of major publisher support in the following months. There is no such promise for the Steam Box and Linux.