I've tried these couch keyboard mouse setups and they always suck.

I'm using the k400 to navigate desktop. I'm using my controller to play games.

Not an experience I would want personally. But that's one of the differences between me and a PC gamer, PC gamers are happy to put up with a lot more crap with their gaming than I am.

No more crap than just playing on a monitor.

Well at a desk you don't have to pull out the keyboard from wherever you stash it and put it on your lap every time you want to change games. It's already there. But of course I am comparing to console gaming where this option is a lot more crap in comparison.

They could sell me a wrapped up bc250 and I'd still buy it before any other brand just because.

Steam picture mode you don't even need to bother with that. It can all be done through controller. If you are familiar with Steam Deck that's basically big picture mode.

It's likely in everybody's best interest that this succeeds. Not only will game developers be incentivized to actually optimize their games for reasonable setups, this will unseat NVIDIA's monopoly over gamers with their overpriced graphics cards and also Microsoft's monopoly on a gamer's operating system. NVIDIA's partnership with Palantir is a great reason to boycott them and encourage these developments and hype this all up.

Yeah I haven't tried big picture mode lately but as I remember you still had to sometimes deal with keyboard and mouse to fix options or sometime edit files on the computer to make things work well on a given hardware. But maybe it's improved since then.

Well yeah that's just comes with being a PC. But, if you already got your games set up not really much need to do troubleshooting when TV gaming. Like you can go on and on and on trying to find issues, but main point is for PC gamers who already have a gaming PC hdmi cable and controller is generally all that is needed to game on the TV. So they can save on needing another system just for the purpose of playing on a TV.

Yeah I'm sure for a lot of PC gamers this will be fine. It remains to be seen if the Steam Machine is really the couch experience I would accept or not. If it involves a keyboard and mouse it's not. Been there, done that, not going back. I think it will probably be priced outside of what I'd be willing to pay for something of this spec anyway. At the end of the day, consoles do a lot of things very well for the price and are a good value if you don't have a very large game library. On the Sony store you can still pick most stuff up on pretty steep discounts if you wait a bit and put it on a watchlist.

Pretty much why in my first comment it was addressing PC gamers to try using a HDMI if they want to play on the TV. Wasn't directed towards console gamers to get a PC. Steam machine will require same troubleshooting, since it is in the end a PC that lets you install any games even if it isn't compatible. And will require sometimes to go to a site like protondb to see which proton version is compatible to get the game running. Steam machine is more an entry for those interested in getting into PCs that isnt super expensive.

You have yet to add a single bit of value to this exchange. Hope you have a good weekend.

Yeah, but the hardware in these machines is part custom and Valve buys in bulk to be able to sell at an affordable price. Remember: their main business is in selling games, but you need hardware to play those games

But the existence of a steam machine would incentivize releasing games in this kind of optimized state. You can’t optimize “for pc” because “pc” could mean any configuration of components. You can “optimize” for a pre defined steam machine.

It very well begs the question though, if it's not for console gamers due to mentioned issues and likely price, is it really for PC gamers who likely already have a PC and could easily enough stream to their tv or just get a long cable and a few other peripherals as you mention?

Heroic doesn't have controller support. It also doesn't have all the menus.

I don't think most people shoot for higher than console specs or even upgrade as often as people think. Like I'm on AM4 which is a last gen chipset and on a 3000 series gpu which is 2 gpu generations ago. And with stuff like dlss it's extended how often people need to upgrade to hit fps targets. Like I'm still able to play at over 100 fps. All the ones talking up the latest video cards and cpus are pretty seeking next gen performance, and they are outliers based on steam hardware surveys. Me. I don't see myself upgrading until the next console gen when hardware requirements will go up again. And not everyone wants to build a pc, and there's people who've been happy with the performance of the Deck. So not all pc gamers are the stereotypical must max everything out crowd. So for them getting something more powerful than the Deck would would be for them. As for me if the Steam Machine is cheap enough or goes on sale for around the base price of the Deck in the future I might just pick it up to use as a secondary PC on my other monitor.

Wasn't the OG steam controller $50 ?

So the problem was the game, not the device...? The hardware was fine?