The Steambox thread.

I really want a SteamBox, but I just dropped a ton on Xbox One. If more of my friends were on SteamBox, I'd definitely get one as I really want to play BF4 maxed out, not the "moderately high" settings that it is on Xbox One/PS4. It already feels outdated to me & it just came out. lol.
 
devilsgrin_6 said:
I really want a SteamBox, but I just dropped a ton on Xbox One. If more of my friends were on SteamBox, I'd definitely get one as I really want to play BF4 maxed out, not the "moderately high" settings that it is on Xbox One/PS4. It already feels outdated to me & it just came out. lol.
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You know you can build your own steambox today if you wanted. They use off the shelf pc parts that you can buy right now. The only difference is the custom case they use and controller of course. Other than that, it's exactly the same as a pc unlike consoles which use proprietary parts.

The steam box is meant for casuals who don't want to build their own pc. Anyone who has experience building their own pc or picking out their own parts has no real use for a steam box as they can build their own.

It's really no different than just buying a premade dell, except it's just called a steam box now for additional branding. Ie, Ibuypower steambox, dell steambox, etc.
 
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Rover said:
You know you can build your own steambox today if you wanted. They use off the shelf pc parts that you can buy right now. The only difference is the custom case they use and controller of course. Other than that, it's exactly the same as a pc unlike consoles which use proprietary parts.

The steam box is meant for casuals who don't want to build their own pc. Anyone who has experience building their own pc or picking out their own parts has no real use for a steam box as they can build their own.

It's really no different than just buying a premade dell, except it's just called a steam box now for additional branding. Ie, Ibuypower steambox, dell steambox, etc.
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I wouldn't say steam box is for casuals! Lazy people like me who cba to build their own, or know how much hassle it can actually be when I can buy a ready made system that I know will work :)
 
badmonk said:
I wouldn't say steam box is for casuals! Lazy people like me who cba to build their own, or know how much hassle it can actually be when I can buy a ready made system that I know will work :)
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Yeah, the reason I gave up on PC gaming initially was the aggravation of drivers, upgrades, specs, blah blah. I work 50 to 60 hours a week fixing enterprise level middleware infrastructure. The last thing I want to do when I get home is spend time fixing up my pc so I can play a game. Steambox is definitely something that interests me.
 
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Rover said:
You know you can build your own steambox today if you wanted. They use off the shelf pc parts that you can buy right now. The only difference is the custom case they use and controller of course. Other than that, it's exactly the same as a pc unlike consoles which use proprietary parts.
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Oh yeah, I know. I've looked into making my own PC before, but I'd rather not go through the hassle of it. I'd rather just have a standardized platform that was slightly upgradeable in the future.
 
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D-V-ANT said:
Yeah, the reason I gave up on PC gaming initially was the aggravation of drivers, upgrades, specs, blah blah. I work 50 to 60 hours a week fixing enterprise level middleware infrastructure. The last thing I want to do when I get home is spend time fixing up my pc so I can play a game. Steambox is definitely something that interests me.
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I was in the same boat! I was a PC gamer back in the day, but it got too much of a hassle! I might get back into it via steam box especially if they are upgradable I.e swap out a gfx card for a better one down the road :)
 
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Pc gaming hassle? Hardly anymore then consoles, that seems to need an update for every new game you buy.
 
badmonk said:
I wouldn't say steam box is for casuals! Lazy people like me who cba to build their own, or know how much hassle it can actually be when I can buy a ready made system that I know will work :)
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I'm in the same boat. I've built gaming PCs in the past but just don't have the time or energy to now. I don't have the energy to research all the parts, etc. Give me a box that works for a reasonable price and I am interested.
 
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Kerosene31 said:
I'm in the same boat. I've built gaming PCs in the past but just don't have the time or energy to now. I don't have the energy to research all the parts, etc. Give me a box that works for a reasonable price and I am interested.
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Yep.
 
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D-V-ANT said:
That's about when I last was using a PC for gaming ;-)
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:laugh:


In all seriousness, pc hassle is next to none. I just recently built a new pc, and from point of building, installing OS to playing BF4....it took less time than getting my PS4 up and running and ready to play games on launch day.


PC systems are so easy to set up now.
 
Qbert said:
:laugh:


In all seriousness, pc hassle is next to none. I just recently built a new pc, and from point of building, installing OS to playing BF4....it took less time than getting my PS4 up and running and ready to play games on launch day.
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Each to their own, I guess. I want the least hassle free experience I can get. I don't even want to read a box to get minimum settings. I completely understand the appeal in building your own box and setting it all up and getting the best bang for your buck. That's not for me. Gaming is downtime for me. Put in the disk and play. I don't want to deal with anything else. If a steambox can bring me this (roughly speaking), then I'm interested in what they are bringing to the table.
 
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D-V-ANT said:
Each to their own, I guess. I want the least hassle free experience I can get. I don't even want to read a box to get minimum settings. I completely understand the appeal in building your own box and setting it all up and getting the best bang for your buck. That's not for me. Gaming is downtime for me. Put in the disk and play. I don't want to deal with anything else. If a steambox can bring me this (roughly speaking), then I'm interested in what they are bringing to the table.
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^this^ :)
 
Qbert said:
:laugh:


In all seriousness, pc hassle is next to none. I just recently built a new pc, and from point of building, installing OS to playing BF4....it took less time than getting my PS4 up and running and ready to play games on launch day.


PC systems are so easy to set up now.
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Didn't you have trouble with your PC build and have to troubleshoot it pretty heavily?

The PC Building thread is full of quite a few people having to troubleshoot their builds.. which isn't rocket science, but certainly can be a lesson in frustration.
 
BunzHoles said:
Didn't you have trouble with your PC build and have to troubleshoot it pretty heavily?

The PC Building thread is full of quite a few people having to troubleshoot their builds.. which isn't rocket science, but certainly can be a lesson in frustration.
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No, my issues had to do with initially buying a crappy mobo and then not realizing that I my old harddrive was not compatible with my board. I had issues initially also with BF4 crashing, but that's a BF4 issue, not pc issue.

The install itself was pretty smooth.
 
I've built my own PC in the past, but now I do most of my gaming on consoles. All I really need is a simple box to run the cool indie stuff on Steam and some of the legacy games. I'm still going to play my shooters and most other games on my console. That's where my friends are. I just need something for those games that rarely make it to consoles that are on Steam. I'm probably 80% console and 20% PC at this point.

I just don't PC game enough to put the effort into researching all the parts (don't get me started on all the various video card options and price points, cpu's, mobos, etc). I spent 2 weeks researching my last PC build.

Even though I've worked in IT for going on 20 years, I still always worry about hardware support too (I'm the software guy). I've had PCs last 5 years without a hiccup (the one I built myself actually), but I've also had them go bonkers 6 months in.
 
BunzHoles said:
Soooo.. you mean.. you had an issue you had to troubleshoot?
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Come on dude, that's not really an issue....that's like me buying a console, but not realizing that I had the wrong cables to connect to a TV.


There wasn't an issue...I simply rushed into buying stuff without paying attention to what I needed.
 
Kerosene31 said:
I've built my own PC in the past, but now I do most of my gaming on consoles. All I really need is a simple box to run the cool indie stuff on Steam and some of the legacy games. I'm still going to play my shooters and most other games on my console. That's where my friends are. I just need something for those games that rarely make it to consoles that are on Steam. I'm probably 80% console and 20% PC at this point.

I just don't PC game enough to put the effort into researching all the parts (don't get me started on all the various video card options and price points, cpu's, mobos, etc). I spent 2 weeks researching my last PC build.

Even though I've worked in IT for going on 20 years, I still always worry about hardware support too (I'm the software guy). I've had PCs last 5 years without a hiccup (the one I built myself actually), but I've also had them go bonkers 6 months in.
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Fair enough, honestly, pc gaming isn't for everyone. For me, most of my games that I play, are all on pc, so for what it's worth, going console for the inferior versions of games and a higher price tag was not worth it.
 
Qbert said:
Come on dude, that's not really an issue....that's like me buying a console, but not realizing that I had the wrong cables to connect to a TV.


There wasn't an issue...I simply rushed into buying stuff without paying attention to what I needed.
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I just saw you in the PC Building thread checking your temps, disabling your sound card, changing your OS, etc.

It's all pretty common to figure out how to stop a game from crashing, and it's the type of thing a lot of PC gamers gloss over when advertising the hobby.

Was it the game? Probably.. but then again, you got it to work by upgrading your OS. You might find that another game fails in Windows 8.1 (Civ 5 doesn't work for me for instance in Windows 8 )

I'm sitting next to a GTX Titan build that just won't work no matter what I do with it.. super load beep comes from the mobo, none of the beep codes seem to match it.

All very common things to deal with.
 
BunzHoles said:
I just saw you in the PC Building thread checking your temps, disabling your sound card, changing your OS, etc.

It's all pretty common to figure out how to stop a game from crashing, and it's the type of thing a lot of PC gamers gloss over when advertising the hobby.

Was it the game? Probably.. but then again, you got it to work by upgrading your OS. You might find that another game fails in Windows 8.1 (Civ 5 doesn't work for me for instance in Windows 8 )

I'm sitting next to a GTX Titan build that just won't work no matter what I do with it.. super load beep comes from the mobo, none of the beep codes seem to match it.

All very common things to deal with.
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That was all BF4 related, and last I checked, BF4 has more issues on consoles right now than on pc. I was able to resolve my BF4 issues by simply upgrading to the OS that is the DICE recommended OS. PS4/XB1 issues.....until DICE fixes it, are still a pain in the arse.


Anyway, my point is, there's really not any major hassles with pc gaming.
 
Qbert said:
Fair enough, honestly, pc gaming isn't for everyone. For me, most of my games that I play, are all on pc, so for what it's worth, going console for the inferior versions of games and a higher price tag was not worth it.
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Oddly enough, I was mostly a PC gamer until the 360 came out. I didn't even own a console from the NES until the original Xbox (which I didn't use much). I actually used to be the annoying PC fanboy who hated on consoles.

A bunch of my friends all went console and we ended up playing a ton of 360 games together and it just kind of rolled from there. Only one of my old PC gamer friends even owns a modern gaming PC, and he just got one after years of not having one.
 
Kerosene31 said:
Oddly enough, I was mostly a PC gamer until the 360 came out. I didn't even own a console from the NES until the original Xbox (which I didn't use much). I actually used to be the annoying PC fanboy who hated on consoles.

A bunch of my friends all went console and we ended up playing a ton of 360 games together and it just kind of rolled from there. Only one of my old PC gamer friends even owns a modern gaming PC, and he just got one after years of not having one.
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I was mostly a pc gamer until the 360 came out as well. Then I was mostly console, probably all console for awhile there. Then I started going back to pc once I started playing mostly multiplat games.

For the past couple of years, it got to be that I only used console for CoD games mostly....so yeah, mostly pc gamer again.
 
I finally got around to building an HTPC with some old components and am loving the ability to play some great indie games on the couch. Samurai Gunn is pretty damn amazing, and I just played through Gone Home.
 
D-V-ANT said:
Each to their own, I guess. I want the least hassle free experience I can get. I don't even want to read a box to get minimum settings. I completely understand the appeal in building your own box and setting it all up and getting the best bang for your buck. That's not for me. Gaming is downtime for me. Put in the disk and play. I don't want to deal with anything else. If a steambox can bring me this (roughly speaking), then I'm interested in what they are bringing to the table.
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Same here.

I never believe the guys who say it's easy to build your own gaming PC. Easy for you, maybe. I have no tech background and no experience in building any computers. Getting a modem to run is a challenge (I'm kidding ... sort of). If I tried to do it myself, it would be a major chore -- there would be parts scattered all over my floor, and I would be in the corner, either crying or raging.

That's why I'm interested in these steamboxes. Just give me a box I can plug in and get gaming.
 
aceattorney said:
I finally got around to building an HTPC with some old components and am loving the ability to play some great indie games on the couch. Samurai Gunn is pretty damn amazing, and I just played through Gone Home.
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What'd you think of Gone Home? I got it during a steam sale the other day but haven't played it yet.
 
Z A C K said:
What'd you think of Gone Home? I got it during a steam sale the other day but haven't played it yet.
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It reminds me of Myst. I finished it in a couple of hours, but apparently there's more to the story than I caught on. Plenty to explore and expand the story.

The wife was watching me play the whole time, and she was engrossed with where the story was going.

That said, it's not my favorite storyline in a game.
 
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