Final Thoughts on the Preorder Lottery

Hello and welcome to NPC. That stands for an next portable console. It's a show by the games we take with us I'm one of your hosts returning from an extended break Bnda Bigley I'm here with John Vortes Hello, Brad. It's good to have you back And Thankks to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thank you for hold down the fort last week. I'm also here at Federico Vetici, who also held down the fort last week Hello hello, Brandon. It's good to have you back How How was the fort? The fort was surprisingly empty with just me and John in it. Yeah it was It's weird for three people to just have a big fort to live in Yeah It's especially weird when you have two people in the fort. Yeah Yeah, Yeah. It was it was lonely in the fort You ever see that episode of Over the Garden Wall where there's two people who live in a mansion so big they don't realize they live in the same mansion. They think they live in two different mansions? I've never seen that. I've not seen. Is it a TV show? I've never seen it. You never seen it It's a wonderful, wonderful TV show. It's two hours long. you should watch it. Anyway, the whole thing is two hours long. Let's talk about the steam machine and not over the garden wall. boy, is there a lot of steam machine news and we have to get through all of it. and today we're recording this on the day that preorders go li Yeah, so right there, let me stop you right there.. firstirst question. Did you put your email Let see, if you get some of it. Yes, I did. I put my email in the bucket. Will I follow through is a second question. That is also. That is also what I need to answer on the show today. What about you, John? I did not because I decided there was no way I was gonna to buy the st machine. Okay, okay. All right. All right, please continue, Brandon. Yeah. I okay. so I think we have to start from the beginning here, right? Yeah. So First of all The funniest thing that happens if you're a person who makes a podcast, it happens to everybody inevitably, theres no there's no avoiding this ever. but I loved listening to your guys's episode last week where you talked a lot about Steam machine rumors. He maybe the embargos will be out. Yeah. There you go Yes. Anyway So Stam machine was Fully fully announced with pre order information and pricing full specs, which we already had access to most of, notothing's really changed there, but also you know what the bundles will be in a new pre order process Alongside all that information from Valve, we also got reviews. A bunch of reviewers have had the steam machine for It seems like not that long. seems like less than a week. I would say like four or five days, maybe. Yeah, it was pretty strictly embargoed, which is interesting. Enough for people to obviously do like geek bench scoring and benchmarking and things like that And honestly, there are some really interesting reviews. I do want to talk about those a little bit later, but U the headline of all of this is that the base model steam machine. five hundred and twelve gigabytes of storage C clocks in at one thousand and forty nine dollars US. Yeah. If you get it with a controller, they bump that up to eleven twenty eight That's seventy nine dollars more. Yes which is cheaper than if you bought the steam control their separate. I think so. It is because it's like ninety nine. Yeah, I think it's one hundred if you get it by itself I think the bigger surprise to me at least was that the step up from the five twelve gigabyte version is just a storage increase. There's nothing else going on there. So it really just is how much storage do you want preloaded on the device? Yeah. The one step up there is the two terabyte version for thirteen forty nine And then the maxed out version, I guess, would be that with a controller, which is one thousand four hundred and twenty eight dollars, which is a lot of money, folks. Wha more expensive than a PS five Yes, I will say on the high level, just immediate blanket statement, I want to say at the beginning because I think this is important to denote before we talk about how expensive this is This is not so far off from actual market price if you wanted to build something like this yourself. It's like This is a situation where like the parts that are in this thing, the reality of the market as it exists right now This is a surprisingly like fair price, I would say, especially in that case size. With all of the special sauce that Valve has added, HDMI with CEC, which allows you to turn your TV on and off with the rush of a button, stuff like that. L all of that stuff being bundled together in this small of a form factor that runs silently et cetera, et cetera. and is about as powerful as it is ten forty nine is not the wildest price for that It's not yet. At the exact same time, we're talking about a machine that's roughly the equivalent of a PS five, a six year old technology at roughly twice the price. So it's like You put those It's both fair But it's also a lot of money for What you're getting? Yes. I think that's that's the one thing I want to highlight because what I'm seeing in terms of people's reactions to this is mostly people being mad Valve Yeah. And the two forks off of that are like, well, first of all If you want to be mad at anybody, maybe be mad at Sam Altman. And then secondarily This is going to happen to PlayStation. This is going to happen to Xbox. this is going to happen to Nintendo. It's already happening to all of them in terms of the prices of all of these consoles being more expensive than they were when they came out. We are on the precipice of the PlayStation six. We are on the precipice of some kind of new Xbox, which they've already said is just going to be a BPPC. like This is this is unfortunately reality It's the new reality of this stuff. I mean, I went through this just recently looking at SSD prices on Amazon that are discounted for Prime day. They're like thirty five, forty percent off But they' thirty five to forty percent off.'s four X what they were a year ago. But that's just where it is today. And I think with the steam machine, one thing you can see in these numbers, when you bump up from the five twelve gigabytes to the two terabytes, that's a three hundred dollars difference. And if you look at SSD, prices on the market, That's not like a price gouging bump up from twelve to two terabytes. That's a reasonable amount of money for that amount of storage in today's prices. Yeah. A couple of things that I will mention The other important difference is that Valve doesn't want to sell this machine at a loss. They don't want to subsidize the steam machine like say, Sony or Microsoft can do with the Xbox and PS five because they also sell you subscriptions. and they can afford to also make money on the games. I mean, obviously Valve is also making money on the games sold via Steam But they also want to sell the product with a profit with a small profit on it So that also is a factor and and a bunch of interviews that that they've done They also shed some light on the process that led to this delay in the price that we have today. And basically Valve said like we went to a bunch of memory suppliers like Samsung and Micron, for example. And those suppliers that were like, yeah, we don't care. Like takeular leave it, this is the monthly pricing, We don't want to do a contract with you Either you buy this RAM and we're just going to sell you like a single sixteen gigabyte of RAM stick or you don't buy it and we couldn't possibly care less. And reading between the lines, it seems very clear to me that Valve wanted to sell the steam machine the base model at seven do ninety nine c and two terabyte at nine doll ninety nineents which would have made a lot more sense, I think And so I saw a post fly by that I think nicely encapsulates this whole saga which is product bad market and that's To an extent, I think that is very true right now. And then we can argue about the performance and the comparisons to the PS five I mean, let's face it, if this market wasn't so badly screwed up right now for memory and storage This whole drama wouldn't happen Yeah And and the problem is that people Try and, you know, put the blame on Valve And I guess who's really to blame here? Like Brandon said, probably Sam Alman and Andthropic and all these kind you know all these companies. Valve is a company with like three or four hundred employees. They don't have the bargaining power with the They don't have Valve doesn't have investors, right? They're totally like no, I don't think so. Yeah. I don't think so either Yeah, I think the thing about the subsidizing that I think is also worth noting, there are two avenues here. Number one is what happened with the PlayStation three. If I think a lot of people maybe don't remember what happened with the PlayStation three. The PlayStation three launched was immediately hacked into becoming a Linux server And then the United States military bought like ten thousand of them. Y and then turn them into a server farm and That's basically the nightmare scenario for a console manufacturer because they subsidiz the PS three was already very expensive, but they subsidized that price, took a loss on all of those consoles and didn't make a dime on them ever again. and I think the thing about the steam machine, that I've needed to remind myself becausecause I find the idea of the C machine so exciting is that Valve doesn't think of it as a new entrant in the console market. They think of it as a PC first and a gaming console second. And when you think of it through that lens, it makes sense why they wouldn't be subsidizing. Like I understand the logic Yes, they will make a lot of money off of people for every steam game they buy But the reality again is like They want people to be using it as a Linux box That also plays games very well U I think personally That's misguided. Yep. Yeah, I think that that's like the wrong approach. I think most their customers want this as a console. I mean, and that's really why I decided not to even put my email on the hat because Yes, there is a value to this machine besides being a console, which is being a Linux computer But I don't need a Linux computer I dont want ainux computer. I've got enough computer in my life. I wanted a small box to play games under my W women and computers. Maybe enough computer. I agree with though. I mean and this is a case kindind of of the three of us having this podcast also, which is worth considering, but like All of us recently in the past year, have purchased devices that are steam machine adjacent that we can run steMOS on in some way, shape, or form because when the steam machine was announced, we were excited enough that we wanted to try that. and that's the entire point of this podcast That also puts us in the exact position where like I paid five hundred dollars hundred for a steam machine equivalent PC in October And that thing, I think is now four thousandteen four hundred dollars I would If I wanted to go buy it again right now And I'm good with that like I'm good with that PC sitting under my desk. likeike do I really need the steam machine now I think it's a It's It's tough. It's tough to justify. It's really tough to justify. Like I literally I had to like talk to my wife and be like, is this even a possibility? What kind of stuff can I sell that I already own to like make up for it? And then once you start getting into that like bargaining side of things with the purchase, it's like, ye it's probably not worth it then Yes So I mean, let's talk about this, right? So we've seen a bunch of the reviews. we've seen some of the performance videos I think it's I think it's fair to say We're looking at a base PS five level performance Some games does slightly better some other games that' slightly worse than a PS five. Let's assume it's a PS five level performance maybe maybe less powerful than we were expecting this to be when we first heard of it last year. What Now that it's official Now that we know the price, now that we know the performance Doon't we think it's a And and if we and if we can set aside If possible, the price consideration for a minute Now'll just take a look at the product Do we think it's a good product? Yeah And we think it's a good device to put in your living room to play games And I think for me, the answer is yes I think It's nice to have Especially and I think most people are not paying attention to the form factor. somethingomething so small I mean, let's say so if we're saying, well, it's a PS five from six years ago, yes, but have you seen a PS five? Its in real life? I just pulled one from behind my TV yesterday, reorganiz reorganiz in my living room. And the thing is heavy and big.ight Yeah The seine is a quarter of the size. Yes the PS five. Yes. with much better support for HDMICEC with a giant heat sink that makes it, in theory, very, very, very quiet and cool Better industrial design also. Much better it's a cube, which you all love a good. It doesn't look like an experimental skyscraper you'd see in a Pixar movie. I still don't know what they were going for with the BS five. like some kind of like I don't know, futuristic monument was the? I don't futuristic vampire rising from I don't know I don't know what's a weird vibe. I don't know. Not as boring as an X boox also. Like I guess I don't know, the series x maybe If you are a type of person, you can think the series X is cool I don't know, I just feel like a cube that is slightly taller than a gain cube is good design Yes, and it obviously plays all kinds of games from Steam. Huge catalog I would say that the And I'm going to put the price back into the mix just for a second. J for a second. Yeah know what? I mean, this is why we need to have this conversation? Because why I really think that this is a good device We are talking about the equivalent of something that's roughly six years old, the PS five Yeah. And so what's the shelf life of a steam machine going forward And you have to consider that given especially the amount of money you're going to pay to get one of these things. That's where I think the price comes in is like what's the longevity of the steam machine You know, if if for instance, you want to play games coming out in twenty twenty seven, games coming out in twenty twenty eight. you know, yes, you have a huge back catalog But You might be a little limited to just the back catalog to a degree here, I think I think one of the bigger problems that is now swimming around in my head the more I think about it. is that it is simultaneously a niche device Right? Like to know about the steam machine And to want to purchase it means you probably know enough about computers or games to want these games to run high resolutions and high frame rates and that's the expectation of a new console, quote unquote, coming out in twenty twenty six The weird flip side of it is I actually think it's probably more compelling to people who would not be in that niche. I was gonna to say that. I think I consider like Yeah, I was just talking to my into the aher co host, Stehven yesterday about how he uses the steam deeck these days and he's like I'm still pushing it beyond the bounds of what I thought was possible, right? He's playing games like Pragmata and Residentvil Requiem on the Steam deeck. On the steam deck And they still work, you know, which is amazing. And you know, a lot of that has to do with Capcom and the RE engine and that kind of stuff. But like For most people, They don't they're not online enough to be mad about frame rates and resolutions. You know, they just want to know does the game run yes or no? And for that, the steam machine as it stands now We'll be able to do that with current AAA games and we'll probably be able to do that for the next three to five years realistically. Does that mean that they will run at full resolution, full frame rate? No But will they run at like low resolutions and low frame rates with FSR and all this other stuff? Like yeah, it would. like the same machine if you bought it right now, again, price removed. wouldould last you probably the next three to five years, no problem. Yeah Yeah, especially if you are okay with playing games and low to medium settings, bump down the resolution and then rely on FSR, you know, we've seen that AMD wants to port FSR four to a bunch of platforms and including SteamOS So My problem is exactly what were you saying, Brandon. Like it it's a niche. device with And pererformance that is not for the type of person who's into that niche. Right. Because the type of person who's really into video games and knows what FSR three or FSR four are and knows what resolution scaling is. potentially not okay with with playing a video game in front of their beautiful four K allE TV ten eightyP scaled. And that and I think the issue lies in the fact that that same person the enthusiast so to speak was okay with the steam deck because the Sam deck felt like a portable miracle right up And it was a great deal when it launched. And and it was a great deal when it launched. And four years later, it's still going And the steam machine I think it's harder to make as compelling a case for it. becausecause yes, it is a technical marvel I wouldn't say it's a miracle But it doesn't maybe have that wow effect of the steam deck In terms of like, oh, I can't believe I can get to run this gamees on this thing And the price then comes back into consideration. It's like, yes, and for a thousand dollars. So I think that's the big like if the price could be removed completely from this conversation. then Valve could have a really solid argument, but I think when you factor in the price again, and when you consider how, as John points out, like it's got the same specs of a six year old device maybe saying no, but it's a really beautiful piece of hardware engineering, which I think it is I think it doesn't have the it doesn't hold the same ground as The same argument for the Steam Dck did four years ago. Yeah. Yeah. One thing too, I wonder if, given what has happened in the market in general, whether valve would have been better off pivoting to just go in really high end with this thing, putting more VRAM in it and making it more performant in a way that It's gonna to narrow the niche even more. Yeah if it's gonna be niche, then mayabbe make it niche. Yeah E exactly. all the way up to Sict sailo baby do it. then charge like twenty thousand five hundred dollars for it, right I mean, that is not That is a really astute point obly. L if this is the situation, make the best out of it. say what It is starb for VRAM and some other things. Yeah. Even Valve themselves have said that they don't think that this is a thing that's going sell significantly will. likeike they don't again, they don't consider this to be like a new entrant in the console space. becausecause of that, they think of it more as a showcase for and this is what I really think it is and I've said this many times like it's a showcase for SteMoos. You know, the Trojan horse of this is that SteamOS is inside the horse, right? Like that's actually the most exciting part of this. And when the steam machine launches, they're also launching SteamOS for Basically all yeah, for everything. Like you can just download it and run the desktop version of it and you don't have to do the weird hacky thing that the three of us have done and download the Steam Dk version and try to install that on a PC anymore, thankfully. But they're also expanding support outside of AMD into more Intel parts as well, which is great U So I think that's the kind of the more exciting part. Like if you look at You know, talking about the people who are in this niche and would care the most about it You know, you look at somebody like Linus Tech Tips, right? Like Linus' review of this prettyty scathing, mainly because of the price. And literally the day after his review came out, he had another video that was like What can I build for the same price and install Steam OS on? Like the official version of Steam OS on And he built a thing that blew this thing out of the water which I think is, you know, If're if you're watching this podcast or listening to this podcast, you are probably one of those people who would probably know how to do something like that The flip side of this, I think, is actually the giant bomb review. I don't know if either of you watched that from Dan Reicher Giant bomb. It's a great review because he basically is like, I am a person who has the income to buy this, the need to buy something like this because you know of what his job is And he already had a PC set up his in his basement that he was using for streaming and recording and all this kind of stuff and wanted one that he could press a button to just turn the TV on etcetera, et ceter. L like the HMICEC stuff But then also at the end of his review, which I think was brilliant, he just played a bunch of footage from a bunch of different platforms side by side was like, here's, you know, the PS five, hereere's the PS five proro. hereere's the steam deck, hereere's the Xbox or one of the Xboxes Here's the C machine. It was all jumbled up and he was just like, guess which one is which. I imagine you probably can't it was death Stranding two in the same spot and all of these in all these platforms. He wass like, I bet you can't guess which one is the C machine So what does that really mean at the end of the day? right? Like if you're just trying to play Dath Stranding two, for example, and the PS five looks as good as the steam machine, do you need to be spending two and a half times as much to get the steam machine You need to come to that conclusion for different reasons than can it play death traraining too and make it look good. No. And another the point I think You know, and I am that type of person Um If you put a if you really put a value on design and size I think that comes into consideration because with my limited space in the living room, I have this cabinet under the TV. and that's where I keep my modem from my ISP, my WiFi router, and all of my home automation like hubs and the ethernet switch and the Apple TV and the Phillips U Bridge and my NAS. like it's a mess in there Space is at a premium And right now, with the things that I have bought over the past six months, like a new NAS for time machine backups from me and Sylvia I physically don't have the space for a PS five anymore H Since I sold my PS five Pro, I no longer have the space because I use the space for other things Yeah There there would be space for a small cube. Yeah. I'm in a similar position now too, yeah. And I think if you are that type of person where like you think, well, I would like to play team games in my living room, but I don't really wantna Like a PC in the living room out in the open You know, especially if you have a modicum of taste, you're not going to put a PC tower in the living room. And if you are, I mean, more power to you if you are. I am not allowed to put electronics of that kind out in the open in my own house Which I understand, Sylvia actually has a really good point. There are Yeah. I used to have the HP in the living room and then I moved it out because I was like, this looks horrible. Yeah. I mean ye. So if you are that type of person and you think, well, you know what? actually Paying two hundred dollars more is actually worth it for me because it's the only object that would physically fit in the space that I have And that is You know, this is maybe the sort of the Apple mindset speaking for me. Like I do appreciate something that is a tiny little miracle of hardware engineering. You know, a cube built around a giant heatsink withith all components. a big fan. and a big fan. Big slow quiet fan Wh still being able to replace the SSD if you want, That is something that I can appreciate, but not everybody cares about that and it's fine. Yeah. I think it's worth mentioning just on that point. You can expand the storage with a microSD card, which is great. You can expand the internal storage if you want to with a new hard drive. you also could expand the RM Oh, you can exand the rAM? Yeah Or he can swap the rim and not expand. I don't think there are extra twowo slots, right? I think which Is I, you know, in in There's a world in which like You get this thing and you hold on to it. I think my kind of final thought on thisust give me an idea. Just give You can see my brain there. Yeah. I'm looking down at my desk and my PC with ninety six gigs of RAM. Yeah. This is from a couple of years ago. Yeah. And I'm thinking, may If I take out one of them. I'm sorry, keep going I think one of my considerations about, you know, before the preorders open today, do I buy one? yes or no? Yeah is the feeling that I have had time and time again this year, which is, thank God, I bought this when I did I keep having that Revelation over and over again. have it about the Switch two, about the four Yeah, about this this steam machine, adjacent PC that I have, about the be link that I have sitting under my television right now, which is what I was planning on replacing with the steam machine Basically everything that I own has dramatically increased in price. We're recording this on a day where Apple has even announced increased pricing on all of their devices, basically and I guess one of the questions I'm considering is like, what if this doesn't get better anytime soon? And it's worse. What if it gets worse? And what if this is the lowest price the steam machine will ever be Like will I be kicking myself six to eight to twelve months from now because I didn't buy the steam machine right now You know I hate I hate that I have to do that calculus in my head. Like that sucks Yeah, But but you can't not really, you know, John Jo John go to the website I'm putting your email Oh I don't know. I don't know. mayaybe we are I don't know. Hey, I find here pressuring you guys. I'm not never the audience. donon't. This is just just for John and Federico. Yeah We're just doing this to ourselves. Hey, look, maybe this whole conversation is useless because maybe we will not get the email that we've been selected to give Val. Yeah, what's the deal? It's a random drawing right? it in your email and then they Although select randomly, how many people are gonna to sign up this I mean, is this going to be a I think it'll be a lot of people. I think it' still be a lot of people because I think that they don't have that many of them. I think that there's going to be Yeah, look at the controller, right? Like Yeah, contontrollers is backed up until next year Yeah, control is packed up unt is back for six months plus Yeah I do think the Steam OS of it all is really very interesting here and maybe worth talking about just a little bit more because I know Valve also said they're going to working with Nvidia now. so You know but between AMD and NVvidia and we've got SteamOS three point eight out officially out of beta. And I have not installed it on my mini PC yet, but I'm thinking about it. I mean, I it I've had it as beta for a while on my Legion go to. it's great. love Yeah, I've had Bazite on my on my mini PC, but I'm thinking of switching that over this weekend or maybe the following week So ye the moment emOS on my ROG Ally X and my B link. and it's great on both and I bazlight on the other PC. The moment that Valve figures out MVIA GPU support. for SteamOS I'm gonna flash it on my gaming PC so fast. I hate windows so much at this point and Yesterday, I spent like an hour trying to understand why It was stuck in a loop and it was and it's always some kind of Windows eleven update if they do steam less F with Nvidia support is going to be glorious I really hope that That is not like a multiple years away type of thing Obviously SamMOS so far only supports AMDGPUs, although there is There is early support for and that actually surprised me. they already rolled out support for the new Intel chips that we talked about a while back, which we will have to follow up on that because that MSI claw with the G three extxtreme got surprisingly positive reviews and the performance looks insane. but's we're saving that topic for another episode. So maybe it's not I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's not difficult for Valve to add NVidia support maybe they' been working on this for a few years now. We have no idea. But they said they're working on it. So at some point it will happen And at some point that will be interesting to follow. At some point, people like me, you know with the gaming PC and an NBidA DpU inside, you will be able to totally get rid of Windows if you are okay with games that are on steam. Mark my words in T to fifteen years Okay. Somebody will put SteamOS on the Nintendo Switch two No, probably I will follow a more aggressive timeline than that. You think sooner? I think sooner, I think, especially now I think within five, especially now with people that have like AI agents Yeah. The moment that one of these like new AIs finds a security hole in any modern console. Like that is another topic that the We should keep an eye on, like The cybersecurity aspect of geobbreaking consoles This thing will be will be I predict it will become a problem I wouldn't be shocked to see an as switch two gel break within the next year, maybe I mean, given what these systems are capable of. Yeah, and just let them run at it. I mean, they don't get tired. They don't have to go to sleep at night. I mean, just keep they don't they don't get sued unli Ghart from So rememember that? like when Bations. Yeah That guy is also doing AI now, by the way. But in any case, so As we're recording this, the the pre order lottery will officially close in less than three hours from now And in theory, later today, we will receive our emails. while atast Brandon and I probably receive an email saying Congratulations. you've been approved to college O not. So we will get our mmission letter and It sounds like Brandon will go ahead Buy one I don't know. I really don't know. it's gonna be a I go go with the flow in the moment?. Would you go with the base model or would you go with Well, you have to put in your email for the model that you want. right. So now I'm stuck with the two terrified. Oh, did you do that? honestly, I think you have a better shot at getting one That was because of That was my thought. I initially put my name down for two terabyte with controller because it was just like that. How two terabyte without And I oh yeah, that's actually probably maybe the better move. So I did I think The one that everyone will do, which is five twelve with controller. Yeah, whichich will lower my chances of getting the email, but if I do, it will be a game time decision. I will need decide I wonder if they're gonna to do like, hey, you didn't get selected for this one, but we can upsell you to the twoerabyte. That would that would really mess up their lottery. I hope they don't do that. Yeah make it hard Well We'll see I mean,ll we'll we'll see what happens and we'll talk about it next week. Right O Excel, we're going to do something completely different. We're going to talk about a bunch of other news that we didn't get to cover on this steam machine only episode. and Brandon has something to show us Yeah. I made you I made you a promise in February. And I'm going to make it on it Do you remember this term? I do not remember what he's talking about. already I have no idea. Okay. All right. well you will see whatever that is on NPC Excel, which you can get for just five dollars a month on our Patreon. Just search for an next portable console on Patreon and you'll find us there. and That's it for this week's episode. John, Wking people find us on the all over the internet. over all over the internet. You've got Brendon Bigley at wavelengths. online and overworld.vg and his podcasts and everything. And then you've got me and Federico over at maxstories. net App Stories, which is another podcast we do about apps and a bunch of other places because we're all also on social media. just search for our names and you'll find us there Hi everybody. Bye