Steam Machines Might Run Linux, but They Are Not Aimed at Linux Users

Valve has revealed the Steam Machines and the companies that are going to build them, alongside some of the hardware configurations, so the real question now is this: will you buy a slightly overpriced PC with non-descriptive hardware that runs Linux?

The Steam Machines are expected to land this November and they are detailed on the official website, with a few exceptions. Some of these hardware makers chose to provide some vague descriptions about their systems. For example, for the Alienware Steam Machine, the description only mentions NVIDIA GeForce GTX with 2GB GDDR5 as the GPU solution, which could be a number of video cards. And it's not the only company being so skimpy when it comes to detailing their devices.

Some of these setups are pretty sweet, like the ORIGIN OMEGA Steam Machine. The most expensive variant of this console can cost $5000 (€4557) and will feature a top of the line Intel Core i7 4770k processor and 3-WAY NVIDIA Geforce GTX 980. That's a lot of money, which begs the obvious question: Who will buy these beasts?

They are all powered by SteamOS, but Linux users are not the audience

As it stands right now, there are almost 1000 games available for the Linux platform, and pretty much everything else could be streamed from a Windows-powered station. The number of native Linux games will definitely increase by the time of the launch, but the target audience are not the Linux gamers.

This is more about Valve asserting control over the platform, which in this case is SteamOS. By cutting out the middle man, which until now was Windows, Valve hopes to get even more gaming market share and win some of the hardcore console users.

The truth is that you can probably buy a similar computer with less money and get SteamOS to run on it. No one is stopping Linux users from doing this, but they mustn't kid themselves that the Steam Machines are aimed at the Linux gaming community. They are not.

Steam Link is great for Linux gaming

If you already have a powerful computer at home and you are already using it for gaming, you might want to take a look at Steam Link. This is a device that will allow you to stream gameplay from your PC, in a local Wi-Fi network, to a big screen TV. You don't actually need a console, just plug Steam Link into the TV, get the controller, and you just turned your PC into a console.

The bottom line is that even if Steam Machines do have a SteamOS operating system, which is based on the Debian Linux distribution, it doesn't mean that Linux users are also the people who are supposed to buy these monsters. The good news is that the entire Linux community will benefit from the efforts made by Valve, so it's a win-win situation.