The Steam Machine's announcement was met by a wide variety of reactions from players who didn't necessarily expect hardware of this ilk to be Valve's next major move after the Steam Deck.
In all fairness to the player base, the reveal did leave a lot of unanswered questions about what exactly the company wants it to be when it does release, with much of that relating to the potential price.
Valve has since made it clear that they are intending to price it much more like a gaming PC than a standard console, which may cause some to baulk, meaning they will need to deliver elsewhere if they want to shift units.
As such, fans have started to make one demand in particular, which if Valve fail to meet it, could put pay to their chances of achieving significant success with the Steam Machine.
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Steam Machine Must Perform at Least as Well as Current Consoles
Over on Reddit, one user shared their requirements for the Steam Machine when it does eventually release, namely that it has to perform at least as well as current consoles.
The problem with that is that the information provided by Valve so far would suggest that it isn't going to be able to quite keep up with the PS5 or the Xbox Series X, leading to some pretty fierce debate in the responses.
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"Specs appear to be slightly worse than a PS5 so that's reassuring. And they said it's better than 70% of steam survey hardware. And 6X the Steam Deck. And Steam OS should be a noticeable uplift over Windows," one read.
"I’m sorry, but all information from Valve thus far indicates that it won’t be more powerful than a PS5. Consoles have games made only for them, but Steam Deck will not, it’s going to have a target range of games that it can run. If you own a Steam Deck, it’s going to be kind of like that, but more powerful with all kinds of Quality of Life upgrades," another added.
"It will be substantially less powerful than a base PS5, so you either need to make peace with that or wait for a better system. As for the games; they will probably run, but whether or not you’re happy with the settings and resolution needed will be up to you," a third contested.
Whatever does end up happening, it's clear that the Steam Machine probably isn't going to replace the console of choice for many, whether you're an Xbox or a PlayStation fan.
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Here's hoping it can find a different niche for itself and really deliver for players.
Topics: Steam Machine, Tech, Valve