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Filed just yesterday, September 2nd 2025.
STEAM FRAME™ trademark registration is intended to cover the categories of computer hardware; computer networking hardware; computer peripherals; computer hardware and computer software for the reproduction, processing, and streaming of audio, video, data, text, and multimedia content.
https://uspto.report/TM/99370857
STEAM FRAME™ trademark registration is intended to cover the categories of computer game consoles for recreational game playing; video game consoles; video game accessories, namely, controllers for video games.
I am hoping this ends up being a PC hardware ecosystem, where each component is a cartridge or LEGO brick. Just pull out the power supply, RAM, GPU, or CPU, and slot in another, without worrying about breaking something or technical details. No need to dig your paws into the flesh of the machine and hope your rocket surgery skills are up to the task.
Serious question: Have you ever built a PC?
Because it really isn't rocket appliances. I would venture your average 12 year old could do it, and has done it given a YouTube tutorial.
All of the connectors only fit one way, and they are all uniquely shaped/sized.
More expensive, Proprietary hardware, sounds like a nightmare for all involved.
If you don't understand how the parts work, what they do, how delicate the connectors are... Without any experience you can't know what not to do. Trying to build a PC, a lot can go wrong if you don't know what you're doing. That a lot of expensive parts that can be destroyed in a blink of an eye if you make a mistake.
You say all the parts fit only one way. Well, that depends on how clumsy or ignorant the builder is. Or both
Yes, it's possible to screw it up, but most people seem to be really nervous about screwing it up and don't screw it up. There are plenty of tutorials and whatnot on PC building that you can follow, and they'll tell you when you need to be careful (mostly just the CPU and PCIe cards like GPUs).
The average person will be fine if they do some amount of basic research. A modern PC only has like 6 parts anyway (motherboard, RAM, CPU, GPU, storage, and PSU), so there are only so many ways to get the wrong parts or something (mostly just mobo/CPU/RAM combo, which you can usually buy in a bundle). You don't have to know what everything does, you just need to be able to follow detailed instructions, which the motherboard will provide.
The only way they could make a PC more modular without making more proprietary is to use laptop expansion ports or USB C expansion ports.
Rocket appliances.
I'll be honest, even though it's not hard, it's still intimidating to the average person. Having easier connecters with clear slot labels would be an absolute win for everyone. But then it introduces the problem of having another competing standard.
The connectors have to be very sturdy, making them easier will not be good for performance
That's definitely not a blanket statement you can make. I'm not saying everything needs to be USB-C. Even just a connection like VGA/DVI that you can screw in would be perfectly fine.
Oh boy, the amount of engineers I have seen who end up with computers dangling from cables is not zero. At the time of VGA as a standard almost no average user bothered to screw on connectors.
An HDMI cord will pull itself out
A screwed in connector will rip the pins off the board. There is no extra strength there.
The difference is you can just plug the HDMI back in. You aren't reattaching the pins to the mobo
I have built at least three machines, and I hate it. My hands tend to shake, and I worry when I drop a screw into the motherboard or trying to figure out how to wind a wire into position without causing damage. I am not a rich man, and fear losing money or my data if I mess up.
Honestly, I dislike your position, it sounds like a humble brag.
Huh, why are you getting downvoted? I don't see anything wrong, can't people understand that 'simple' tasks for them could be difficult for others?
I think they perceive it as a threat to their...skill? If everyone can casually swap out parts without any effort nor risk, it invalidates the experience of the people who had the will and ability to perform the work. Also, it might be a case of "it was always done like this." Many computer nerds from the 90's are now approaching or beyond their forties. Getting old sucks, since the things from childhood tend to fade away, replaced by something new and alien.
That is my guess. Short of obtaining the disturbing ability to read minds through the internet, I have to make assumptions.
Plus it would probably heavily limit your hardware choices unless all hardware vendors jump in. If not a lot do so, you might as well just stick to prefabs.
Personally I don't see the benefit. PC building really is already simple enough. It's just people's mentality that keeps them back. You really have to something dumb to break anything except maybe with some CPU socket designs So if they would fix that last pain point we are already there basically.
If PC customization was casualized, you might end up with more choices. If people are mentally blocked from putting together a custom system due to fear, that disincentives companies from being in the market. I know that I would consider the odd upgrade every couple of years, if FUD wasn't making that feel like a bad thing to try.
Maybe. I'm not against the idea. A new form factor could be good.. But if it's just to make it more 'casual', imho I find what we have already casual enough.
So.... a PC?
They really are close to plug and play. You need to know that parts are compatible, but that's true for anything.
No, a PC ecosystem where all the parts are shrouded and there are no wires to futz with.
It isn't unrealistic - the original Starfox and Yoshi's Island games were on cartridges, which included 3D acceleration (Super FX) hardware that increased the performance over the standard SNES. For the player to use it, all they had to do was just insert the cart into the SNES and start playing. The Nintendo 64 also had RAM expansion Paks that plugged into the machine, doubling the RAM to a massive 8 megabytes, in less than 10 seconds.
Sadly this isn’t going to happen, but is my dream too.