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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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PC Master Race
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The thing to keep in mind, too, is that this isn't a console; it's a Linux computer with a focus upon gaming, so the comparison isn't exactly 1:1. You can only play games on a $1000 console. You can do much more with a $1000 computer that runs Linux and plays games.
This is true, but at that point, why not buy a computer, that's more customizable and upgradeable?
At this point in time specifically, a $1000 laptop (the comparable general purpose option) is going to be a mid-to-upper entry-level one. Because it's supposed to be general purpose, it won't have hardware chosen to maximize gaming potential. Likely all of these options would only allow a RAM or hard drive upgrade, as well. This puts them upon somewhat equal footing with the Steam Machine, except I would hazard a guess that the Steam Machine would still do better at gaming due to the hardware selection they had available at production time.
And if you mean building a $1000 gaming Linux box, good luck not going over that limit with current RAM, GPU, and SSD prices.
You said 1000$ could get you a laptop would be on equal footing with the Steam Machine, but a hand-built 1000$ desktop wouldn't? What world do you live in where laptops are cheaper than desktops?
Right now, you can't build a comparable desktop for $1000, unless you go for one of those BC250 builds. RAM, SSDs, and GPUs would push the starting price (from zero, mind you) to around $1500. Even just the 2x16 "budget RAM" I bought four years ago is close to $250-$300 for the set now.
On the other hand, you can pretty easily find a comparable entry level laptop that can do gaming for $1000. Will it beat a $1000 desktop machine from a few years ago? Will it beat a true gaming laptop? No, but that's not what we're comparing.
For me, form factor, tv compatibility, good remote play hardware, wake from sleep with controller. These are all technically possible with PCs, but a real fucking nuisance. Plus I'm curious.
The counterpoint is that PlayStation is a full feature media center whereas all the streaming services nerf bitrates on Linux. IDK if valve can work around that, but so far even the windows native apps for Netflix don't seem to get full bitrate 4K.
Kind of straying from the original point here, but you might consider Blu-Ray 4k/UHD versus streaming in general if you're specifically after the highest quality video that you can get. My understanding is that generally, commercial, streamed 4K stuff is heavily-compressed enough that quality suffers relative to the stuff on Blu-Ray 4k.
There are Linux challenges with the DRM stuff on Blu-Ray 4k too, but with an appropriate drive, most 4K stuff can be played in 2026.
I finally got around to getting a Linux Blu-Ray 4K setup, and I have to say that now, the limiting factor for a lot of film, especially the older stuff, is the film grain, frame rate, or the quality of special effects. Film grain you can often work around with temporal denoising, frame rate with frame interpolation, and special effects...well, no general solution for that.
True. And maybe there will emerge a new group of people who use a living room computer in a new way, and that might really mix things up.
But I still think that the principal market here is most-likely going to be people who are looking to use it in basically the same way that they have a console, and will probably have roughly the same price sensitivity.
EDIT: One factor in the Steam Machine's favor is going to be the vastly-larger existing launch library compared to the other consoles listed. The Steam store currently has 115,106 items in the "Game" category listed. Hard to quantify the impact of that, since we don't really have data points for anything on that scale (though maybe someone could still try to look for correlation between launch library size and sales
consoles have had varying level of backwards compatibility).
I know three console-only people who have signed up to the list/queue for the reason it’s both a PC and a console.