![]() “And then you can just play your games through your television instead of buying a whole new unit, which is what they originally pitched for SteamOS and for all the OEMs. “While everyone’s ramping up in the middle, Valve announces that they’re going to have their Steam Link, which is essentially what we’re building but now at this very low cost, very small unit that just connects to your PC,” says iBuyPower marketing manager Michael Hoang. Valve’s own Steam Link (opens in new tab) may have also worked against the Steam Machines initiative, according to PC builder iBuyPower (opens in new tab). But it’s not a major initiative for us like it was two years ago because it’s not necessary right now. In November of 2016, Alienware co-founder Frank Azer told PC Gamer (opens in new tab): “We still offer SteamOS and the Steam Machine platform with the new version of the Alpha-the new Steam Machine R2-and we still sell hundreds of units, thousands of units every month. It also didn’t help that tension around Windows 8 was somewhat alleviated by free upgrades to Windows 10, despite criticism of the Universal Windows Platform and the state of the Windows Store. SteamOS didn’t have a growing library of games.” SteamOS didn’t have a performance increase on any or many games. SteamOS didn’t have the hardware support to be a fully customizable high end PC. “I don’t recall when it happened, but at some point we decided to offer a living room PC with Windows only. The company had previously announced a system that dual-booted Windows 10 and SteamOS. “We didn’t want to offer customers an experience of only the SteamOS and therefore only a small percentage of games that they can play,” Origin (opens in new tab) CEO Kevin Wasielewski tells me in an email. More than one partner abandoned the project before ever releasing a Steam Machine. Alienware went ahead with a Windows 10 build of what would later be its Steam Machine, and by the time SteamOS shipped in late 2015, the hype had subsided. Then, after lukewarm reception (opens in new tab) of the first Steam Controller-billed as a major part of the ‘Steam Universe’ that would make mouse and keyboard-optimized games easy to play from the couch-Valve pushed the release to 2015. The first fumble is clear: SteamOS wasn’t nearly ready when it was announced, and installing early preview builds inspired little confidence. SteamOS didn’t have a growing library of games. June 2016: Fewer than 500,000 Steam Machines have been sold. Tom’s Guide writes: “Steam Machines were an interesting idea. Ars Technica reports that games suffer a framerate loss on SteamOS vs Windows 10. November 2015: The first Steam Machines from Alienware, Zotac, and Cyberpower are shipped. June 2015: A preview of SteamOS ‘brewmaster’ is released. March 2015: Valve announces the HTC Vive and Steam Link. Dell decides to ship it as the Alienware Alpha with Windows. June 2014: The Alienware Steam Machine is ready to go, but SteamOS and the controller still aren’t. May 2014: The Steam Controller is delayed to 2015. January 2014: An update to SteamOS alchemist adds AMD graphics support. It also doesn’t support AMD graphics cards. It’s buggy and missing features, essentially offering a hard-to-install Steam Big Picture Mode over a generic Debian desktop, with some third-party drivers. September 2013: SteamOS, Steam Machines, and the Steam Controller are announced.ĭecember 2013: SteamOS 1.0 ‘alchemist’ releases. After speaking to three PC builders and collecting news stories from the past four years, I’ve put together a brief timeline to illuminate what happened to the project that was going to put Steam at the center of PC gaming. But the Steam Machine revolution never came to pass. Its most recent update came just last month (opens in new tab), and a few newer games such as XCOM 2, Stardew Valley, and Hollow Knight support it.
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