Seven months later, Valve’s Steam Machines look dead in the water

When the Steam Machine was first announced, Windows 8 was new and the Windows Store was shaping up to be a possibility. Windows could make their store a walled garden, such as others have done on mobile, and effectively lock Valve/Steam out. At the same time, Valve announced new initiatives for broader games support on Linux, which the Steam Machines run on.

In every way the Steam Machines were presented not as a platform for making money, but as a strong signal to consumers that Valve would not go down without a fight. In that regard, I see the initiative as a huge success.

See previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11824830

The Steam Link killed any reason for a Steam Machine. Perhaps they are going after separate markets (PC vs. Console), but they are trying to solve the same problem: put Steam in the living room. For this, the Link is a great solution, while the machine was a bit short sighted.

So what? This is Valve we're talking about. They're sitting on Steam, which has got to be a firehose of money just by generating platform fees via game sales.

I'm guessing they don't have to make money on this.

Console functionality with gamer PC prices (low end, AFAICT, is $500), that's why I haven't purchased one. And anyone that's read one of my Xbone rants here on HN can probably picture me willing to give an underdog a shot. Too much money for too much uncertainty.

Now were Valve to bundle HalfLife 3 with the purchase of a SteamBox...