Forum Overview :: Steam :: Steam Machines: Who is this for?

[quote name="Rafiki"]For the life of me I'm trying to figure out what the benefit is or what problem it solves. Near as I can tell, it's just a PC. And there's like 50 different configurations from different vendors, so it doesn't much change the PC buying experience. It doesn't even support the full Steam catalog because it runs on a Linux OS, so you're shut off from damn near everything you'd probably want to play. You can install Windows on it and use it that way, but you've got to buy a copy of Windows and any notion of potentially reducing the overhead of a full-blown OS is gone. I've seen pitches about how it brings PC gaming to the living room, but you can already do that by moving your PC into the living room. Most (all?) new computers (and laptops) have at least 1 HDMI port. From what I've seen, having a mouse and keyboard is still preferred, so it doesn't have the simplicity of consoles. Apparently some models allow you to individually update components, exactly like a regular PC. To top it off, the prices appear to be the same as buying a PC. So what is the purpose? Is it just buying a Valve brand PC?[/quote]