The Steam Machine has been out for a little over a month, and while I spent the first couple of weeks testing it against the PS5 and different graphics cards, I wasn’t sure how or even if it’d fit into my daily rotation. But then this last weekend I came down with a cold, and I fell back in love with this little computer. Plugging it into my TV while laying on the couch, turning off the meters and just playing my Steam library? Let’s just say I see the vision.
I still don’t think it’s necessarily worth the high price for everyone, especially if you don’t already have a robust PC gaming library, but now, all I ever want out of this thing is to pick up whatever PC game I’m playing at my desk, and run it on the TV without tying up my network. And at that, I can’t really think of anything that does it as well as the Steam Machine, especially without taking up way too much space on my entertainment center.
Steam Machine – Hands On Photos
I’ve never really been much of a console gamer. I still bought the consoles every generation, because I just think gaming hardware is neat. But whenever I buy a game, I usually just buy it on Steam, and it’s been that way for almost 20 years. The consoles, then, just kind of filled in the gaps. Most of my library on either the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series X is made up of a few exclusives and a bunch of games that came with various subscriptions.
But even when I do buy exclusives for the PS5 or Xbox I don’t really even play them. Just looking back to last year with Death Stranding 2, I only got an hour or so in because the only way to play it was in my living room. So, I eventually forgot about it and moved on to the new thing.
PC is an entirely different story. Because I can pick up whatever I’m playing on whichever device I’m using, it’s way more likely that I’m going to finish any game I buy on PC. I spend most of my time playing at my desk, but it just so happens that I primarily play RPGs that have a lot of side quests or grinding involved. I love shutting the game down at my desk, then lying in bed playing through some of the content on a handheld while watching a TV show or listening to a podcast. Even before I started reviewing hardware professionally I always had multiple PCs. I’m just built different I guess. One of the magical things about buying games on any of the PC platforms is that I can progress through them on whichever device I’m using at the time. A handheld, a laptop, my tower? All of which are great in different situations and they all play the same games with the same save data.But the living room has always been an outlier for me.I’ve had living room PCs in the past, but I’ve always been frustrated with the need to have a keyboard and mouse stashed away just in case I had to fiddle with something. That’s not to mention how much a full tower PC stands out among the much more sleek consoles. Before the Steam Machine came out, I just kind of stopped playing games on the TV at all. It just so happens that SteamOS almost entirely negates this problem. Pretty much all of the daily maintenance for the Steam Machine can be done in ‘Gaming Mode,’ without ever needing to go to the desktop. And, even when I do need to use the desktop, like when I’m getting third party launchers or games, the Steam Controller’s trackpads make it so that I don’t have to break out a keyboard and mouse. Over this last weekend, the Steam Machine just kind of fell into its natural place. I set the outgoing resolution to 1440p, rather than 4K, and at the distance that the couch is from the TV, it looks just fine. Would it stand up if I zoomed in and started pixel peeping? Probably not, but the whole point of living room gaming is not doing that. And, so I spent the weekend playing Resident Evil 4 Remake and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth in a Nyquil-induced haze, and it was incredible. I honestly couldn’t tell you whether or not I was getting a steady 60 fps or not, or whether it looked better than the PS5. But it didn’t really matter. I got to carry on my saves from my PC and didn’t have to buy another copy of either of the games just to play them on the PS5 Pro that’s now collecting dust next to the Steam Machine.At $1049, the price-to-performance ratio is still bad enough to stop me from recommending the Steam Machine to anyone that just wants to play console games. But I own thousands of games on Steam, many of which don’t even exist on the PS5 or Xbox Series X. If you’re anything like me, just having a living room box that can play your entire Steam library locally, especially when it takes up half the space of other consoles, is a dream come true. Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
