I've noticed that no one on the internet has talked about this, so I wanted to share my opinion and my take on things. Right now, there's a lot of speculation about the price of the Steam Machine, and quite a few people have expressed negative views about the fact that the pricing won't follow the classic console model; where hardware is sold at a loss upfront, and that "loss" is recouped later through games and monthly subscriptions. My opinion is that it had to be this way. The reason is that many people forget: this isn't a console, it's just a pre-built PC, which means it can do anything a regular computer can. You could install Windows 11 on it, play video games, stream video content, browse the internet, do video and photo editing... But it could also mine cryptocurrencies and train AI models.

If the Steam Machine were cheaper than a PC with the same performance that you'd build yourself, the main customers wouldn't be gamers, but miners and AI "enthusiasts," which would eventually lead to the same mess we saw with graphics cards: stocks running dry and prices skyrocketing (if Valve doesn want to go bankrupt ofc). I think Valve's decision to go with 8 GB VRAM instead of 16 factored this in because you can definitely play games on 8 GB VRAM, but mining or training AI with it is just not cost-effective. If the price were lower than average PCs, everyone except gamers would abuse it, and we'd be the ones feeling the fallout again, us gamers.

Something like this has happened before. You can find info online about how various organizations used video game consoles to build supercomputers because it was more cost effective and powerful hardware at a lower price. It mostly happened with the PS2 and PS3, back when Sony's hardware was more open and even allowed Linux installation. In 2010, the US Air Force built a supercomputer out of 1,760 PS3s for analyzing high-resolution satellite images; it was the fastest interactive supercomputer in the U.S. Department of Defense at the time and ranked 33rd on the global list. That was over 15 years ago, when needs and perceptions around computers were totally different from today, way before the big hype around AI and crypto. Just imagine what people would do now if you could buy a whole computer that's capable for training or mining, for $200–400 less than building it yourself, with Linux pre-installed.

The only way to prevent this and keep that "affordable console price" would be to lock down the entire system, hardware and BIOS so that no modifications are possible. In other words, ban any software not approved by Valve, which is completely the opposite of what they want and clashes with their vision for Steam Hardware and their ideology. That way, the platform wouldn't be open-source, you couldn't install Windows on it, or any other software outside the Steam store. Then it wouldn't be a PC anymore, it'd be a real, classic gaming console like the ones we all know and don't love.

My take is that Valve doesn't want that, and one way to avoid it is by pricing it like a normal PC. Not because of corporate greed or wanting more money (Valve, no matter what, will seriously profit from Steam in the end), but for the sake of gamers. That's at least my opinion, feel free to share yours. I'd genuinely love to hear what others have to say about this :)

submitted by /u/GuaranteeDull
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https://preview.redd.it/wfqzf2y0km2g1.png?width=880&format=png&auto=webp&s=3d7b8b513c307b8b539c456062ebef347c2ef6ce

https://preview.redd.it/c5ywhvdrjm2g1.png?width=889&format=png&auto=webp&s=e3cc90f4ace84b8de599dffc7c297c7c58283f27

But Now Im very happy with these rusults (top is linux, bot is win11)
Asus zenbook 14 oled with Ultra 7 155H (meteor lake)
Im also getting better battery life

setup:

Linux:
arch with kde via archinstall
installed power-profile-daemons and set to performance
installed and enabled thermald
some ricing unrelated to performance

windows:
installed windows with asus image via cloud recovery wich took about two hours (asus problem)(for some reason installing it with normal windows usb doesnt work well as i had some problems that are too many to list here)
removed some Asus related bloat and services(the uneeded ones since a lot of them are needed for performance), disabled some startup services, used ctt windows utility to tweak and remove more bloat and disable services and telemetry things.
set fan profile to performance on myasus app
set windows power profile to performance.

submitted by /u/blvrf
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With the latest minor update, the newer Quake II re-release that saw Nightdive Studios jump in to improve it is now Steam Deck Verified.

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I do love how many more casual co-op games we're seeing lately, and it looks like S.K.R.U.B. Squad may be one to add to your list.

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Dice of Kalma challenges players to descend into the Underworld and face the Finnish god of death, Kalma, in a high-stakes game of luck and skill.

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Maybe not directly related to games but I use a Logitech Hyperion (g405 I think it is), but I haven’t been able to map my buttons according to my use case (game shortcuts when playing, or have the alt + left/right rest of the time), is there any decent work around/alternatives for that?

I do suppose there would be tools that just set the onboard stuff to a default, but it was hoping something with profiles even if it doesn’t automatically detect apps and switch.

submitted by /u/RBLakshya
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Taking inspiration from incremental games with a long progress tree to unlock, NodalBastion is a tower defense game that just keeps on going.

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