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Comment by estel | Hacker News Reader

The streaming works if you have a beefy Windows machine in your house already, it's not a solution for people wanting a dedicated "Steam" console.

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Granted it's a stop gap measure until they have more developers developing directly on OpenGL rather than Dx. But most people that are excited about this do have a fairly good gaming machine in their house already.

It is a brilliant tactic to migrate the considerable Steam base to the Steambox. It is transitional, of course, but brilliant for it.

Okay I have 1 beefy PC. I want a second machine upstairs.

Old Way) I have to spend all the money for equally good hardware. I also need a copy of Windows.

New Way) Just get something that can render YouTube videos well. I now have a second Gaming PC. No copy of Windows!

This opens up all the platforms depending on how they play the streaming thing. If they make this work well and release client apps on the mobile side, suddenly Steam has a domination of the whole home on a level that Microsoft has been playing at for years.

If you don't have a beefy machine, then you're probably not using Steam much anyway, which means you're not in their target demographic. (And if you were playing old games or small indies, you won't need a beefy machine to stream them).

It doesn't seem crazy that their target demographic might be people who'd otherwise buy a PS4 or Xbox; and they don't necessarily have a beefy gaming machine.

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