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0 pointsThrowawayR23mo ago0 comments

If Valve sold the Steam Machine for any significant cost less than the Dell / HP / Lenovo equivalent, HNers would snap them up by the truckload to repurpose as home or work machines with guaranteed Linux compatibility.

0 comments

bryanlarsen3mo ago

I'm sure Valve would be ecstatic if they were snapped up by the truckload for home use, because home use and gaming use overlap significantly even if not perfectly.

For business use, the Beelink equivalent is about $350, because the GPU in the Steam Machine is useless for business or AI use. The Steam Machine is going to be more than $350.

dpoloncsak3mo ago

The comment you're replying to is in a discussion about the possibility that the Steam Machine will be sold at a loss, as they would be able to re-coup the funds in sales on Steam.

In this example, no, Valve would not be ecstatic if they were snapped up for things other than Steam use. Sony tried this with the playstation, and the military bought them out as cheap linux compute, costing Sony thousands

> relevant article about Sony https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomput...

bryanlarsen3mo ago

The comment says "any significant cost less than the "

It's not talking about selling at a loss.

And that was a reply to my comment saying that nobody sells their consoles at a loss in 2025.

1 more reply

pjmlp3mo ago

This is why Sony killed the PS2Linux effort, and the PS3 Linux no longer offered graphics acceleration.

They had hoped for a second wave of Yaroze like indie developers, instead the large majority were repurposing their PS2 as MAME like emulators or Linux computers.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

bryanlarsen3mo ago

I'm sure Valve would be ecstatic if they were snapped up by the truckload for home use, because home use and gaming use overlap significantly even if not perfectly.

For business use, the Beelink equivalent is about $350, because the GPU in the Steam Machine is useless for business or AI use. The Steam Machine is going to be more than $350.

dpoloncsak3mo ago

The comment you're replying to is in a discussion about the possibility that the Steam Machine will be sold at a loss, as they would be able to re-coup the funds in sales on Steam.

> relevant article about Sony https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomput...

bryanlarsen3mo ago

The comment says "any significant cost less than the "

It's not talking about selling at a loss.

And that was a reply to my comment saying that nobody sells their consoles at a loss in 2025.

1 more reply

pjmlp3mo ago

This is why Sony killed the PS2Linux effort, and the PS3 Linux no longer offered graphics acceleration.

They had hoped for a second wave of Yaroze like indie developers, instead the large majority were repurposing their PS2 as MAME like emulators or Linux computers.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse