Valve Removes Steam Machines From Its Home Page (extremetech.com)

Steam Machines were supposed to take PC gaming mainstream by simplifying setup and moving the games in your living room, but they never took off. Today, ExtremeTech reports that Valve has removed Steam Machine listings from the Steam front page due to poor sales. From the report: You can still access what remains of the Steam Machine landing site via a direct link -- not that you'll see much when you get there. It lists only five devices, one of which is no longer available on the manufacturer's site. Several of the remaining systems are arguably not even Steam Machines as Valve envisioned -- they run Windows 10 instead of SteamOS. The final nail in the coffin for Steam Machines may have come from Valve itself. In late 2015, it released the Steam Link. It's a small box that you plug into a TV, allowing you to stream a game from your PC in real time. The original price was just $50, and Valve is basically giving them away right now. Valve is still developing SteamOS, but I don't expect that to go on much longer.

Comments

Success!

[mwvdlee]

I don't think it was ever intended to sell well. It was intended to stop the Windows Store in it's tracks.
In that it was quite succesful.

Re:Success!

[complete loony]

According to the stats page, 0.33% of steam users are running linux, mostly Ubuntu. Personally, I'm running steam on debian.

Buying a new machine to run steam might be a big ask, but support for running steam on linux is appreciated by those of us that want to play games on our favourite OS.

Re: Success!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That is why I'm more skeptical of the "Valve is still developing SteamOS, but I don't expect that to go on much longer." part of the claim.

Given that prebuilt console-size PCs are a bit of a niche; and ones running Linux are niche within a niche(especially now that various cheapo ARM-SoC-with-hardware-decode boxes have basically eliminated the need for a PC by the TV if you want either the streaming services of your choice or your giant NAS-o'-piracy); it probably doesn't make sense to keep them in stock; but abandoning the 'encourage game compatibility with Linux and Linux driver, especially GPU, support for what games need' effort is a somewhat different story: if PCs running SteamOS aren't selling the PC OEMs aren't going to be happy about making them(much less providing timely updates as new parts become available) without Valve outright paying them to do it; but reactivating production if circumstances change is trivially quick and cheap if a sutiable OS is still available.

What isn't quick or trivial is reviving the effort to improve GPU and other gaming-related Linux development and encourage game devs and engine/middleware vendors to support Linux. If you let that lapse you are likely to have a period where even more games than normal don't have Linux support and never get it; potentially engine releases that don't offer Linux support; and the need to rebuild cooperation with hardware vendors and the developers of kernel, Xorg, etc.
br. Maintaining that development effort certainly isn't free; but it is also something where it is difficult, if not impossible, to 'make up for' a period of no support by trying to rush later.

Re:Frist Post!

[dryriver]

You shouldn't try to game Linux in the first place. Its not good for the security of Linux servers, or the integrity of the Linux kernel. =)

Re:Steam's Real Problem Will Be Different

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

What happens if someone with lawyers requests to remove or unlink his or her owned library of Steam-dependent games from the Steam service? Does Steam have the legal right to keep games you paid money to own locked into their DRM garden and DRM client? Or could someone successfully argue "I own these games. I should have the right to leave Steam and keep my games running!" in court? That argument could well be the "design flaw" in Steam's Death Star. One change in the applicable laws, and Steam might be FORCED to let you take your Steam games out of Steam's service and allow them to run like normal, independently executable Windows or MacOS apps again.

http://store.steampowered.com/...

" The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services.".

Unless you can revive Johnnie Cochran, I'd say your're pretty much SOL.

Re:Eh

[thebullshitpatrol]

> Who's really going to invest the hundreds of millions of dollars that it's going to take to make Linux a competitive gaming platform?

A company which wants to stand their ground against the platform which monopolizes their existence. Valve's just brandishing at this point, though.

Re:Frist Post!

[bws111]

I think it was a JOKE. He didn't say "Don't game ON Linux" or "Don't game WITH Linux", he said "Don't game Linux". It is a play on gaming the system.

Re:Eh

[angel'o'sphere]

Linux is a competitive gaming platform.
You don't need more than a graphics card, a keyboard and a mouse to play a game.
And as far as I know, Linux supports Open GL just fine. E.g. Descent, one of my favourite games: https://www.dxx-rebirth.com/

The problem is that there are no mayour players targeting the market. I for my part would love to _write_ a game on/for linux, but I suck in marketing and doing it for free, I don't have the time.

Small wonder

[nospam007]

Who wants a steam machine in their living room, the noise, the coal and the risk of CO-poisoning alone.

Re:Eh

[F.Ultra]

Which is why you have https://moltengl.com/ that let's you create your game in Vulkan (which works on Windows, Linux and Android) while still having it work with Metal automatically.