December 3, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Steve Burke of GamersNexus to talk about Valve’s new console-like Steam Machine and Vision Pro-like Steam Frame, and what this means for the future of gaming.
GamersNexus:
Valve Steam Machine, Desktop SteamOS, Steam Frame VR, & Controller | ft. Engineering Discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ
Valve Steam Frame Engineering Deep-Dive: Water Cooling, Thermals, Power, Acoustics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NSjvJDe6Ic
Support GamersNexus’ AI Surveillance Dystopia Series: https://store.gamersnexus.net/ai-dystopia
https://www.youtube.com/gamersnexus
https://gamersnexus.net/
https://bsky.app/profile/gamersnexus.bsky.social
https://x.com/GamersNexus
Steam Machine: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine
Steam Frame: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe
YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed Zeitron,
and i'd like to announce that, much like in video
revealed in a recent leaked memo, we are also nothing
like Enron. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Steve Burke
(00:28):
from Gamers Nexus, who's going to talk to you about
I know it's a thematic shift from the show about
something that actually exists, and we're talking about announcement from
a few weeks ago from Valve about the Steam Frame
headset and the Steam Machine console. Steve, thank you for
joining me, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
For having me a quick question. What was that Enron thing?
I think, yes, oh.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
This is this is important. So Nvidio had an internal
memo that they put out and they said it's and
the headline from Barons was I'm just going to pull
this up right now because it's one of my favorite
I've ever read. And video says it's not Enron in
private memo refusing accounting questions. Ah, good stuff, that's Good's
that's what we want to hear. And they were like,
(01:10):
we're nothing like Enron because we don't use SPVs to
inflate revenue. It's also good it's all real, Steve, It's.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All very real. I'm starting to I'm starting to have
my doubts that the AI stuff has built on anything real.
Although I didn't hear about the two data centers that
are currently sitting empty because the grid can't support them
until twenty twenty eighth, which ones because it was in
that northern California.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Hell yeah, I love this. This is we live in
the future. But genuinely, talk to me about the Steam Machine.
What is this thing? It's like a games console, like,
walk me through it.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, no, I mean this stuff's actually it was a
really nice break from everything else because, like you said,
it's real. They're actually doing stuff. It's consumer facing, so
that's nice. There's some pretty some of these things have
cool innovations in them. So the Steam Machine is a
small basically small form factor PC, but it's kind of
(02:11):
positioned almost like a console at least in terms of
sizing the intent to be used with a TV or
in a living room, although it could be used ask top.
But instead of being a more closed down console, it
has the openness of a PC in terms of you
have access to bios and things like that. Some modularity
of components, and it's running on Linux, it's running on
(02:35):
Steam oass And so right now we've had some hands
on time, we had interviews with the engineers, we have
the specs, haven't tested it yet, you know, can't make
any value judgments or anything at the time because they
haven't even given us a price. But it does there's
some cool things. I think that regardless of how their
launch goes with the Steam Machine, it is in the
(02:55):
very least very promising for Linux, which helps to maybe
get people unstuck from Microsoft.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So yeah, so what makes this thing unique though? Is
it just like a because Steam for those listening who
don't know, Steam is a it is not really a monopoly,
but it's like the best way to download games and
keep track of them, I would say, But it does
also involve paying one company. Yeah, but is that really?
(03:24):
Is it just a big PC? Is because you've you've
at least messed with it a little.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Bit, Yeah, I mean it's it is still I I
think it still qualifies as sort of just a computer.
But really what they're doing is I guess in the
same way that some handheld devices are technically computers. I
mean a lot of the modern handheld gaming we'll call
(03:49):
them consoles are actually just handheld PCs some of them, right,
A lot of them have windows on them even, And
so it's that concept except applied to a cube. That
I mean, people have been jokingly I don't know who
coined this, and I wish I did, but people have
been jo jokingly referring to the Steam Machine as the
Gabe Cube, as in Gabe knowell the CEO valve. That's
(04:13):
really good. Yeah, I saw that. I was like, God,
damn it, I wish I thought of that first.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
That's a bang of well so is it?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Is it the is it like a kind of consumer friendly? U? Why?
Like have you how much have you had? How much
of a chance we had to play with it?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
H we had in total, I think it was about
five or maybe six hours with valve and so in
that time we were able to speak with engineers and you know,
mess around with it. So, yeah, it's a steam O
ass which is on the Steam Deck. So the Steam
Deck is a gaming handheld device that. Uh, these have
existed for a long time, but the deck was kind
(04:52):
of the first one in recent years to really breathe
life into the gaming handheld market. Outside of Nintendo. And
that's not necessarily because everyone bought the deck, but it's
because all the other manufacturers saw like, oh this is real,
Like Steam is a serious venue, you know, to move
games and people will buy stuff, and so Asus and
(05:15):
Lenovo and all the other competitors jumped in. So the
Steam Machine is building on that because the Steam Deck
uses Steam os, which is an arch Linux based distribution,
and it has a lot of optimizations that solve long
running problems with Linux and gaming in general. So that
(05:37):
would include, for example, translation layers and things like this.
So they build on that and then yeah, as far
as the user experience goes, it is a basically a
sort of big picture mode or desktop mode, you know,
operating system, but it's computer. It's just you kind of
navigate it more like a console. I guess, did you
play it a tool only a little bit? Yeah, we
(06:00):
tested the new Steam controller. What yet?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Talk to me about how does that feel in your hand?
Because I'm I have peculiarly hands myself, and that thing
looks straight. It's got like two little touch screens at
the bat.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, it is large, it's so the two it's basically
a uh you know, yeah, touch touch pads track pads.
So it's got two track pads and they function like
like a laptop track pad, except there's haptics and things
like that. There's a gyro and.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Like buzzes kind of like kind of like you get
on the switch as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, yeah, you'll get like the haptic feedback like you'd get,
you know, a phone, and yeah, so controllers to me,
it's interesting and it's cool that they're trying it again.
They last tried a controller something around a decade ago,
and it went.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
With the Steam the Steam the thing that could mirror
your Steam PC, right.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, they had the Steam Link the controller, yes, yeah,
and I think there was like one more thing in
that sort of round of hard where I don't really
remember it, maybe the Steam boxes. But yeah, so the
original Steam controller, I guess went so well that they
had to stump them on fire sale for five dollars each. Uh,
and they have memory hold it by releasing a new
(07:24):
Steam controller with the same name.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
But how did it feel? Was it? How does it
feel in comparison to like a first generation Xbox controller?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, the first Xbox was It's probably I think the
Xbox controllers are probably regarded as one of the sort
of most you know, user friendly layout. It's hard for
me to say too much. The stuff that I tested
with it and the limited time we had with it
(07:53):
was related to some of the more unique inputs. So
I will say it is a little larger, but.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Larger than the original Xbox controller or like loger than
like an Xbox three six.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Day, larger than larger than a more modern Yeah, Xbox controller,
I would have to put it next to the original.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
But that's an idea for the future.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, but the some of the interesting inputs, I guess.
So there's a grip sense where when you if it's enabled,
when you let your fingers off of the grip, so
you're still holding it, but you're not like tapping your
fingertips to the actual grip of the controller. It'll detect
that and it can use that to stop input. So
(08:38):
you can rotate. You know, it's got a gyro you
can rotate to turn in the game if you want,
and then you can basically lift your fingers off if
you want to stop or kind of stutter step the
rotation as you move. And so it's got it's got
some like clever execution of input. It feels like it
takes some inspiration maybe from things like the switch and
(08:58):
stuff like that. Yeah, and and this is important. Not
a single time, literally, not even once, did at any
point anybody from Valve say AI in that.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Order of letters magnific, thank god, not once.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Not once?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
How delightful. Oh god, it's just building a real thing.
How do you feel about this? So I was talking
to Mike kase Kagawa, friend of the show, about this,
and he kind of put the thought my head, this
could be a quite dangerous like this could be quite
dangerous to Xbox, especially because Microsoft is kind of just
(09:39):
sitting there and letting that fester at times.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, I think this is probably the absolute best time
for anybody new to try and get into like console
or console equivalent type devices, and in particular, I mean,
Valve is a deadly combination with it. But Xbox is
kind of at the lowest of its lows. You know,
(10:04):
they just they they can't seem to stop fucking everything up,
and their best new thing they have is just a
rebranded ACE who's rog ally handheld, and like that's doing
well for asues, but by Microsoft numbers historically, it's not impressive.
And so yeah, I think Microsoft right now it's they're
(10:27):
in a compromise position. Their sales are awful. I don't
have the numbers off hand, but they're they're easy to find,
and uh, they're just not even close to what PlayStation's
been doing. They're losing control of the market, and it
just looks like they're kind of going the route of
Sega right now, where cea, yeah, Sega abandoned consoles freder
who doesn't know, and they went full on game publisher
(10:50):
and so yeah, I mean I agree. I think the
Steam or Valve is in a position right now where
this is before a new console launched cycle from the
the incumbent, and it's when Microsoft's had its weakest with Xbox.
So it's really good timing for them.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Well, I don't know what you're saying. Microsoft can't innovate
any further because they're reading this note twenty fourth of
November and I read this, Xbox prices could go even higher.
Grand short, yes, they seem to be doing it. It
is really funny to just follow the Steam machine with
that as well, just being just being like, hey, guess what,
(11:31):
it was more expensive and it sucks more. Do you
like it, please God.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
But and the Xbox has been out for like a
long ast time now, I don't remember when, it might
be like five years already or something. The prices are
supposed to come down, and I know, like some of
these are whatever marketfacturers they can't exactly control. Although even
though Microsoft does kind of have a big part in
the AI thing that's making the prices go up, but
we'll forget about that. Yeah, there's stuff they can't control,
(11:57):
but even still, like consumers aren't could have want to
pay more for a thing that is now ancient.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It just kind of it feels like they've been spinning
their wheels for the longest time because it felt like
they were sort of moving away from Xbox by leaning
on Game Pass. Then it turned out giving everyone access
to as many games as possible for thirty dollars was
not a good decision. So now that they want to
do something, it just it does. I hadn't thought the
(12:36):
Saga comparison, but it really does feel like that, like
Microsoft won't die, but.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Jesus, I mean, they're fortunate, I guess to have their
spying division with Windows, so yeah, they'll be fine. I
guess at.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Their ad revenue they get from installs of Windows on
laptops that take ten minutes to turn on exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, that'll keep them in business. Maybe better
than what Sega had when it left hardware. But yeah, no,
they're they're at a bad spot for Xbox. I'm not
really sure what the plan is over there, and it
doesn't seem like they're sure either.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So I had a specific Steam Machine question, So what's
it doing GPU wise? Like, is it doing? Is it
doing like one of the amd ones with both the
GPU and CPO in the same diet, Like what what
is the situation there?
Speaker 1 (13:24):
It is? So for the Silicon, the short answer to
that question is it's an rDNA three GPU with twenty
eight CUS and I'll kind of loop back to that.
But the Silicon in general, the CPU and the GPU
are the only uh non modular, sort of normal components
(13:45):
that you might swap in a computer, so meaning you
can't change the CPU or the GPUs. This is a
big split from a normal computer. They're using BGA parts
ballgrid array, so they're soldered to the board and that
makes it more like a laptop. In fact, they are
basically laptop parts. They're semi custom laptop CPU and GPU
(14:06):
that are discreete and the Yeah, the GPU so rDNA
three twenty eight cus. That makes it a little bit
smaller than an R seventy six hundred as an example,
off the top of my head, I think that's thirty
two CUS. And the CPU is a zen four part
(14:28):
it's six cores, twelve threads. Their maximum advertised boost is
four point eight gigahertz and they claim a thirty watt
TDP and so for reference, I mean some of the.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Other how is that compared to like a gaming handheld exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, gaming handheld, it's yeah, it's higher power than a
gaming handheld for sure, So it is it is better
than that. You have the benefit of not worrying about
a battery and not worrying about skin temperature on the
device because not holding it, and so for those reasons,
they can run more power. So I think they're in
total somewhere around one hundred and ten watts for the
(15:04):
GPU and then a thirty watt claim for the CPU.
So you know, with with other miscellaneous devices and with
inefficiencies and whatever, you maybe call it two hundred watts,
and I think the power supplies three hundred watts and
so compared to a handheld, I mean that at peak
power consumption, which you're not normally at, this is significantly
(15:26):
more power and will perform I mean, significantly better. It's
a big difference.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Kind of it almost feels inevitable as well, because the
fall of Microsoft. Sure, it's that they don't give a
shit and don't see me trying in any way imaginable,
but it's also at some point we were going to
meet we're going to reach peak console. Surely at some
point there's just how much more can we do with this?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah? I think, and you can. This gets into like
a broader interesting topic I've been thinking about lately too,
but which is for gaming in general. You know, you
do hit a point where it's like, okay, the graphics
are sufficient, and actually, now the kind of meta is,
(16:12):
you know, more people are playing indie games that don't
push the graphics to insane levels, and people are kind
of rediscovering that, oh wait, I play video games to
have fun and it doesn't need to be whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, what's that? I don't know, That's not why I play.
I play games to get upset.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yes, yeah, well I have a game for you. I
need an investor right now. Actually it's AI company simulator.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And that sounds more fun.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great. Uh yeah, No, I mean
it's I think the the then with the on the
gaming side.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I think the Steam Machine on a technicality, like it's
it's more powerful than a lot of hardware people have.
I guess if you look at the Steam Survey, in reality,
it's a low end modern computer. And I think they're
probably going to be partly leaning on things like FSR
(17:18):
upscaling to try and bridge the gap, the performance gap.
I mean, one of the things they didn't say that
I can remember when we were talking to them, but
they did say on the spec sheet was that the
Steam Machine supports four k sixty FPS with FSR, and.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
That's pretty good. And FSR is the one where they
use AI but actual actual AI, real stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Actual machine learning, yeah, like actually does something. Yeah, And
so like I wasn't too happy about that when I
saw that on the spec sheet because like saying, factually,
it's probably accurate because it says with FSR there, but
that's it has to always be there. They can't just
say four k sixty because there's a big difference, and
(18:06):
this hardware cannot do four K sixty without some kind
of crutch, which FSR would be. But a point being,
you know, it's a low end computer. They say it's
gonna be priced like a an entry level gaming PC.
I don't know what that means anything.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, that could mean literally could colost seven million, Like what.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
The Yeah, it's a big range. I mean it's you know,
in the old days like twenty, I don't know, twelve
to sixteen. Maybe you could build a super low NPC
for four hundred and fifty bucks. More realistically probably five
hundred and fifty. That's kind of gone now, so so
I think they'll have some pricing. The biggest concern is,
(18:47):
for sure price, but at a hardware level. Really, I
think the big story is the Linux side and then
what you're saying the Microsoft side, where it's like, is
this just kind of twisting the death agger on Xbox?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I hope so, because Microsoft sucks, and the thing is
PC gaming is cool, like it's the one, like it's
one of the great things about it in that there's
such a great indie gaming gaming industry, and I feel
like Steam is though imperfect, is a great way to
get into that in a way that I don't feel
like the big consoles are.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, it's just indie games are kind of like the
lifeblood of it now. I feel like there's so much
character in them, and they're very accessible in terms of
often priced but also not being overbearing on systems, you know, requirements.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
My favorite game of this year was Dead Zone Rogue.
If you have played that, I have not, but it's
a roguelike. It feels like the and I realized there
are numerous other sufferers who listen to this may not
understand what I mean. It feels like when Destiny was
fun in the single player. It has that kind of
very clicky, very It's just very satisfying game. Indie game,
(20:04):
never heard of the developers, don't know if they've ever
made anything before. Fantastic game. I haven't enjoyed any Triple
A that much. I unless you consider Hades two, which
I'm not sure that counts.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I feel like that doesn't really count, you know, like
it's yeah, I feel like that. That to me still
feels like sort of the smaller yeah side of things. Yeah,
and yeah, there's a big market there, and I think
I do think that big picture for some of these companies.
I was about to say gaming companies, referring to you know,
(20:36):
Nvidio and tel AMD, but that's not really what they
are anymore. But look at these companies. I'm happy to
see some of the success of indie games, and I'm
happy to see things like a Steam machine in terms
of hardware being capable of playing most of the games
people play. Because specifically, you know, on the cynical side,
(21:00):
if you sell GPUs for playing games and the graphics
have kind of peaked for a while and it might
take a few more years to really reach another major
peak where uh, it's it's invalidating older hardware to a
point where people feel forced to buy something new to
keep the flow of money going for the companies. In
that situation, you know, cynically, it would feel like you
(21:21):
would need to invent a problem to solve so that
people will buy your next GPU to play games, unless
you can generate sort of escape velocity from the gaming
side and get into some other business, which right now
appears to be AI data center. You know, they don't
need to invent problems to solve for gaming, because they're
doing that for.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Sort of invented one for the economy, right, but it's
it's actually this is I feel like you've sliwd. This
is just a question I had got to ask. You
can't replace anything inside the Stay machine, it looks like.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
So you can do the RAM the which is yeah,
the RAM is a so dim so it's laptop memory sticks.
And then you can also do the SSD it sports
up to I'm not too twenty two to eighty, which
is the sort of standard larger form factor. Those would
be the main ones I guess too.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
That can you hot drives for Are you going to
be solid state though? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, solid state? And then it is very accessible. I
mean it's it's easy to remove the cover and the
heat sink if you wanted to, you could pull, you'd
swap it. The fan is easy to swap and replace.
The power supply has a blade connector, so it's sort
of similar to server form factor styles where they don't
(22:39):
use cables but they use just a connector. And so
all of these things from a repair ability standpoint would
in the very least be easy to repair and swap.
Valve has a pretty good track record of making those
parts available for the Steam Deck, so hopefully they'll do
this good too?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, Jesus, I'm not used to companies not just immediately
being evil.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, I mean there's still time, there's oh yeah there it.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Could end up being twelve hundred dollars. Like that's that's
where I could see them fucking this one up for me, right,
(23:25):
talking of successful industries that everyone loves the steam Frame, Yeah,
what is going? What is this meant to? Is it?
Is it meant to be a vision pro situation? Is
it meant to be like the like? Like what was
the Valve Index? Like? What is it?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Steam Frame is pretty interesting? So the steam Frame is
a new VR headset from Valve. They launched the HTC
Vibe with obviously HTC a long time ago, now, uh,
and then later the Index and and then there was
Oculous Rifts that later turned into the Metaquest. So that's
kind of the VR industry. It's really just these are
(24:03):
the big milestones. There's been a lot of other devices
in between, but Valves jumping back into it with what
they're calling the steam Frame. The steam Frame is pretty
interesting in that it both has standalone functionality with basically
an integrated we'll call it a compute unit that mounts
(24:24):
to your face with the goggles. And then it's also
got streaming capability where it streams content from an actual
gaming computer. And so Valve is here leveraging the fact
that it has an unbelievably large library of games, probably
the largest ever to have existed, and the fact that
(24:45):
most of its players probably have a decent gaming computer,
and so they can render the game content on their
computer and then stream it to the headset. Basically you're
casting a video to the headset. Uh, so you're not
rendering locally, and then that allows you to be tetherless
and wireless from the computer, which solves a lot of
(25:07):
the problems this kind of r has had historically. But
the new yes, yeah, so, but the new problem if
you're doing this is anytime they're streaming, there's latency, right yeah,
And so the concern just becomes if I'm streaming this
from my computer instead of playing it with a wire
(25:28):
plugged into the back of my headset. Uh am, I
going to notice that in actions and game and the
cool part I think that maybe this technology could apply
elsewhere in some capacity. Uh but is what they're calling
foviated streaming. And so yeah, so there's already a thing
(25:52):
called boviated rendering, But basically the concept is UH to
preserve bandwidth and maximize sort of how much data you
can get across without causing major latency issues, you know,
to keep the frame rate high and everything else. What
(26:13):
they're doing is they are targeting specific areas where the
eyes are tracked to be looking and then rendering those
assigning basically the maximum amount of bits those areas. Yeah,
and everything else gets a reduced bit rate in the
streaming uses less bandwidth and so it technically renders out
(26:36):
a lower quality. But in the quick testing we did,
you know, I only had a little bit of a
hands on with it, but I couldn't tell. I mean,
when I was when I was looking wherever I was
looking in the headset, it looked full quality. And then
if I tried to, you know, quickly dart my eyes
over somewhere else, like I'm not fast enough. I don't
know that any human is fast enough really to move
(26:59):
your eyes quick enough to beat when it detects your
change of focus and then reassigns those bits to the
new area to maximize that area's resolution. So I think
the response time is some like eight to twelve milliseconds.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
But it's a it is both like a vision Pro
and av Our headset.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, yeah in the sense. Yeah, you can technically do
like call it productivity tasks and things like that.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, I just I'm I'm a vision Pro truther. I
actually think that. I think it's a fun idea. I
wish there were more fun ideas like it. But I
also recognize I'm peculiar for that one. And also I
don't think Apple game enough of a shit. It's just
it is nice to see Belve doing something. I think
I realized also talking to you about this, how depressing
(27:52):
it is to just be like, yay, someone did something else.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I mean that's that's how it felt. It was like,
it's yeah, I mean the VR side doesn't get a
lot of love compared to when it started.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
It, but it does V all games as well, though.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, it's it's primarily a VR gaming headset. And then
they are saying, look, if you want to replace your
monitor with this, you can do that.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
That sounds expensive though, and of course they have yet
to say how much this will cost.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, they said less than an index, but they didn't
say how much and so and index. Yeah, there's a
few skews. I think the common aside is yeah, yeah,
it's it's they range like six hundred. I want to
say the highest of twelve hundred or something, but it's
not going to be six hundred. It'll it'll be a
(28:44):
thousand plus.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
But we don't really have an idea of when these
things are coming out, do we just next year?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Next year? The frame, specifically the Steam frame the VR solution,
they said early twenty twenty six, which, in my experience
early to a lot of these come it just means
first half.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So yes, yeah, you excited.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I am.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I'm I'm auldly excited about both of them. It feels
like we're finally getting something in PC gaming again.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, I mean I'm excited because for that same reason,
it's nice where it's like, okay, it's just hardware, and
there doesn't appear to be a lot of bullshit. So
you know, if we test it and it's not the
best solution for the value, then fine, that's a really
easy review. You know, maybe you say it's good but
(29:35):
it costs too much, But that is a lot better
than saying, like when I'm kind of having to lately
think about which is okay, when Nvidia launches their next GPU,
how do I handle the conclusion where, you know, what
do you get to the end. You're like, other than
the fact that they're partnering with palent here, which has
openly admitted to developing technology that is used on occasion
(29:59):
to kill p people, the GPU is pretty good. You're like,
how do you cross that bridge? Right? Like against this
really serious stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
It's a problem across the whole tech industry. So I
think Google's working with border patrol. Yeah, Like, it's just
and I always had the theory that people were like, Wow,
I can't believe the tech companies are suddenly doing this.
I'm like, they've been fucking waiting. Oh they've been looking
at like this is They're like, oh, goodie, finally the
chance to make all that revenue from the evils.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Or they've already been doing it and now it's just
more on the open or whatever.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, And it's and I'm guessing that this is becoming
increasingly a challenge with like even with like a m
D who is increasingly though I realized the evils are
slightly different there.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, I mean AMD is is not quite as boisterous,
I guess as Nvidia in that way, but they still
a lot of the same concerns, and so yeah, with
Valve it's been I think that's why why the reception
has been so good on this, because there's no there's
(31:04):
no hardware launch yet, it's just announcements, but the sentiment's
pretty high, and I do think that's because people just
feel so kind of beaten down where it's just every
ram prices are skyrocketing over one hundred percent in several cases.
I think we saw one stick one kit that was
like one hundred and eighty five percent higher than it
(31:25):
was three weeks ago. Yeah, that's going to affect GPUs.
That'll write when the prices were coming down on those,
and these will affect the Steam Machine. But I think
just like the the sort of hey, it's just hardware
that plays video games, and I guess if you want
to use it for other stuff you can too. Like
that sadly is pretty exciting right now. So so yeah,
(31:50):
I'm excited about it. I think the Steam Frame, I'm
actually really interested in the original VR testing we did.
We did some really cool be our benchmarks a long
time ago, and it just kind of did it a
couple of times. Never did it again. I thought it
was a cool idea, but the setup for VR was
(32:12):
just way too burn in some At that time, I
was still running the company out of my childhood bedroom
and so room scale VR was like you need to
spend like three hours cleaning your house.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Get the room was a little bit fungible.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And yeah, I mean it was like, but now it
seems like all of that has matured a lot, and
as someone who has not felt any desire whatsoever to
play any VR games for the last like ten years,
I actually do really want to try the Steam Frame
and I think it'll be pretty fun.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, it's so weird, it's like we even I wouldn't
say Microsoft was ever known as like a deeply quality company,
but there was at least at some point a level
of prestige to it. There was like, oh, Microsoft would
never just make a big pile of shit, They'd never
wheel out of I mean, they might do that in
their software, but it felt like they were at least
there was the brief period where we could humor ourselves
(33:13):
being like, oh that I like my xbox eymore fucking customer,
I do.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
I think you're right. I mean, I think the hardware
for a while, it was like, it seems pretty serious.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You know, their laptops were pretty well respected. I like
the wind they had the weird I think it's Panaspane
who's over at Amazon now, but they had like a
weird thing where they were respectable for laptops. Yeah, and
now I don't know, it's all just it's all eating itself.
It feels like.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
It felt like it felt like after after the zoon
they realized they needed to change something in hardware and
it went okay after that. And just to put it
out there, I still have my original Zoom. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Oh yeah, I'm a was a creative nomad guy myself.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Creative got really screwed during that
whole period. I mean it was yeah, just in the
sense that it was like Creative was kinda they were
sort of their first or very early, and they did
a lot of innovation and they just got squashed by Apple,
like Apple did kind of the Apple thing where it
(34:28):
just it's this jug or not.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
And they just dropped their weight on them.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah. I think there was even a lawsuit, I want
to say Creative one. It was maybe like a couple
hundred million dollars or something. I don't know, and yeah, yeah,
that's that's Uh. It was one of those win or
lose you still lose.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, yeah, No, no one's winning by the end of
this other than Apple. Oh boy. Well, on that happy note, Steve,
what where can people find you? And what are some
recent things they should go and look at?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
One hundred million dollars was two thousand and six. By
the way, Apple will pay Creative one hundred million dollars
for a paid up license to use Creative's awarded patent
im P three players. Anyway, what was your question?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Oh, yeah, it's just where can people find you? And
what are some interesting things you've been covering recently?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
The most interesting yeah, recently is so we have a
story coming up where I previously mentioned to you I
would be going to the UK for something and you
immediately said, I'm sorry, Yeah, that's the appropriate and so
we went over to London. We've got a really interesting
(35:37):
thing we're finalizing now where I'm still trying to sort
through who's right, who's wrong all that stuff. But like
long story short, there is a guy who bought Sega, Nintendo,
Microsoft and other game development kits and development cartridges from
a scrap yard, We visited the scrapyard, we visited the guy,
(36:02):
and he was arrested by the police, and SAGA was
connected to it. They had a private investigator look into
the guy and basically all the you know, the companies
involved in the chain, as far as we tell, freaked
out when they found out their game development kits and
cartridges made it into the hands of a person even
(36:22):
though they had thrown them out. And we're basically trying
to sort through where did stuff fall through the cracks
and is this an over extension of a corporation into
someone's home to work with the police on a raid
over game development cartridges, you know?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Or is there any old games? Right?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Primarily I think there's maybe like some switch stuff in there,
which is I think probably what set the alarm bells.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Off fucking Nintendo. Yeah, anyway, but well that so that
will go up, I'm guessing in the next few weeks.
So yeah, of course we'll link to gamers nextus. But yeah,
thank you for joining us, Steve. It's always a pleasure
having you.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
And you've been listening to Better Offline. You can find
me at better offline dot com. Who knows when this
one goes out in the next couple of weeks, he says,
knowing that you'll have no concept of the timescale I'm
talking about. But thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Everyone, Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor
and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matttersowski.
You can check out more of his music and audio
projects at Mattasowski dot com, M A T T O
(37:41):
S O W s ki dot com. You can email
me at easy at Better Offline dot com or visit
Better Offline dot com to find more podcast links and
of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go
to chat dot Where's Youreed dot at to visit the discord,
and go to our slash Better.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Offline to check out our reddit.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Thanks. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed Zeitron,
and i'd like to announce that, much like in video
revealed in a recent leaked memo, we are also nothing
like Enron. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Steve Burke
(00:28):
from Gamers Nexus, who's going to talk to you about
I know it's a thematic shift from the show about
something that actually exists, and we're talking about announcement from
a few weeks ago from Valve about the Steam Frame
headset and the Steam Machine console. Steve, thank you for
joining me, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
For having me a quick question. What was that Enron thing?
I think, yes, oh.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
This is this is important. So Nvidio had an internal
memo that they put out and they said it's and
the headline from Barons was I'm just going to pull
this up right now because it's one of my favorite
I've ever read. And video says it's not Enron in
private memo refusing accounting questions. Ah, good stuff, that's Good's
that's what we want to hear. And they were like,
(01:10):
we're nothing like Enron because we don't use SPVs to
inflate revenue. It's also good it's all real, Steve, It's.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All very real. I'm starting to I'm starting to have
my doubts that the AI stuff has built on anything real.
Although I didn't hear about the two data centers that
are currently sitting empty because the grid can't support them
until twenty twenty eighth, which ones because it was in
that northern California.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Hell yeah, I love this. This is we live in
the future. But genuinely, talk to me about the Steam Machine.
What is this thing? It's like a games console, like,
walk me through it.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, no, I mean this stuff's actually it was a
really nice break from everything else because, like you said,
it's real. They're actually doing stuff. It's consumer facing, so
that's nice. There's some pretty some of these things have
cool innovations in them. So the Steam Machine is a
small basically small form factor PC, but it's kind of
(02:11):
positioned almost like a console at least in terms of
sizing the intent to be used with a TV or
in a living room, although it could be used ask top.
But instead of being a more closed down console, it
has the openness of a PC in terms of you
have access to bios and things like that. Some modularity
of components, and it's running on Linux, it's running on
(02:35):
Steam oass And so right now we've had some hands
on time, we had interviews with the engineers, we have
the specs, haven't tested it yet, you know, can't make
any value judgments or anything at the time because they
haven't even given us a price. But it does there's
some cool things. I think that regardless of how their
launch goes with the Steam Machine, it is in the
(02:55):
very least very promising for Linux, which helps to maybe
get people unstuck from Microsoft.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So yeah, so what makes this thing unique though? Is
it just like a because Steam for those listening who
don't know, Steam is a it is not really a monopoly,
but it's like the best way to download games and
keep track of them, I would say, But it does
also involve paying one company. Yeah, but is that really?
(03:24):
Is it just a big PC? Is because you've you've
at least messed with it a little.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Bit, Yeah, I mean it's it is still I I
think it still qualifies as sort of just a computer.
But really what they're doing is I guess in the
same way that some handheld devices are technically computers. I
mean a lot of the modern handheld gaming we'll call
(03:49):
them consoles are actually just handheld PCs some of them, right,
A lot of them have windows on them even, And
so it's that concept except applied to a cube. That
I mean, people have been jokingly I don't know who
coined this, and I wish I did, but people have
been jo jokingly referring to the Steam Machine as the
Gabe Cube, as in Gabe knowell the CEO valve. That's
(04:13):
really good. Yeah, I saw that. I was like, God,
damn it, I wish I thought of that first.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
That's a bang of well so is it?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
So?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Is it the is it like a kind of consumer friendly? U? Why?
Like have you how much have you had? How much
of a chance we had to play with it?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
H we had in total, I think it was about
five or maybe six hours with valve and so in
that time we were able to speak with engineers and you know,
mess around with it. So, yeah, it's a steam O
ass which is on the Steam Deck. So the Steam
Deck is a gaming handheld device that. Uh, these have
existed for a long time, but the deck was kind
(04:52):
of the first one in recent years to really breathe
life into the gaming handheld market. Outside of Nintendo. And
that's not necessarily because everyone bought the deck, but it's
because all the other manufacturers saw like, oh this is real,
Like Steam is a serious venue, you know, to move
games and people will buy stuff, and so Asus and
(05:15):
Lenovo and all the other competitors jumped in. So the
Steam Machine is building on that because the Steam Deck
uses Steam os, which is an arch Linux based distribution,
and it has a lot of optimizations that solve long
running problems with Linux and gaming in general. So that
(05:37):
would include, for example, translation layers and things like this.
So they build on that and then yeah, as far
as the user experience goes, it is a basically a
sort of big picture mode or desktop mode, you know,
operating system, but it's computer. It's just you kind of
navigate it more like a console. I guess, did you
play it a tool only a little bit? Yeah, we
(06:00):
tested the new Steam controller. What yet?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Talk to me about how does that feel in your hand?
Because I'm I have peculiarly hands myself, and that thing
looks straight. It's got like two little touch screens at
the bat.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, it is large, it's so the two it's basically
a uh you know, yeah, touch touch pads track pads.
So it's got two track pads and they function like
like a laptop track pad, except there's haptics and things
like that. There's a gyro and.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Like buzzes kind of like kind of like you get
on the switch as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, yeah, you'll get like the haptic feedback like you'd get,
you know, a phone, and yeah, so controllers to me,
it's interesting and it's cool that they're trying it again.
They last tried a controller something around a decade ago,
and it went.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
With the Steam the Steam the thing that could mirror
your Steam PC, right.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, they had the Steam Link the controller, yes, yeah,
and I think there was like one more thing in
that sort of round of hard where I don't really
remember it, maybe the Steam boxes. But yeah, so the
original Steam controller, I guess went so well that they
had to stump them on fire sale for five dollars each. Uh,
and they have memory hold it by releasing a new
(07:24):
Steam controller with the same name.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
But how did it feel? Was it? How does it
feel in comparison to like a first generation Xbox controller?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, the first Xbox was It's probably I think the
Xbox controllers are probably regarded as one of the sort
of most you know, user friendly layout. It's hard for
me to say too much. The stuff that I tested
with it and the limited time we had with it
(07:53):
was related to some of the more unique inputs. So
I will say it is a little larger, but.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Larger than the original Xbox controller or like loger than
like an Xbox three six.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Day, larger than larger than a more modern Yeah, Xbox controller,
I would have to put it next to the original.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
But that's an idea for the future.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, but the some of the interesting inputs, I guess.
So there's a grip sense where when you if it's enabled,
when you let your fingers off of the grip, so
you're still holding it, but you're not like tapping your
fingertips to the actual grip of the controller. It'll detect
that and it can use that to stop input. So
(08:38):
you can rotate. You know, it's got a gyro you
can rotate to turn in the game if you want,
and then you can basically lift your fingers off if
you want to stop or kind of stutter step the
rotation as you move. And so it's got it's got
some like clever execution of input. It feels like it
takes some inspiration maybe from things like the switch and
(08:58):
stuff like that. Yeah, and and this is important. Not
a single time, literally, not even once, did at any
point anybody from Valve say AI in that.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Order of letters magnific, thank god, not once.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Not once?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
How delightful. Oh god, it's just building a real thing.
How do you feel about this? So I was talking
to Mike kase Kagawa, friend of the show, about this,
and he kind of put the thought my head, this
could be a quite dangerous like this could be quite
dangerous to Xbox, especially because Microsoft is kind of just
(09:39):
sitting there and letting that fester at times.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, I think this is probably the absolute best time
for anybody new to try and get into like console
or console equivalent type devices, and in particular, I mean,
Valve is a deadly combination with it. But Xbox is
kind of at the lowest of its lows. You know,
(10:04):
they just they they can't seem to stop fucking everything up,
and their best new thing they have is just a
rebranded ACE who's rog ally handheld, and like that's doing
well for asues, but by Microsoft numbers historically, it's not impressive.
And so yeah, I think Microsoft right now it's they're
(10:27):
in a compromise position. Their sales are awful. I don't
have the numbers off hand, but they're they're easy to find,
and uh, they're just not even close to what PlayStation's
been doing. They're losing control of the market, and it
just looks like they're kind of going the route of
Sega right now, where cea, yeah, Sega abandoned consoles freder
who doesn't know, and they went full on game publisher
(10:50):
and so yeah, I mean I agree. I think the
Steam or Valve is in a position right now where
this is before a new console launched cycle from the
the incumbent, and it's when Microsoft's had its weakest with Xbox.
So it's really good timing for them.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Well, I don't know what you're saying. Microsoft can't innovate
any further because they're reading this note twenty fourth of
November and I read this, Xbox prices could go even higher.
Grand short, yes, they seem to be doing it. It
is really funny to just follow the Steam machine with
that as well, just being just being like, hey, guess what,
(11:31):
it was more expensive and it sucks more. Do you
like it, please God.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
But and the Xbox has been out for like a
long ast time now, I don't remember when, it might
be like five years already or something. The prices are
supposed to come down, and I know, like some of
these are whatever marketfacturers they can't exactly control. Although even
though Microsoft does kind of have a big part in
the AI thing that's making the prices go up, but
we'll forget about that. Yeah, there's stuff they can't control,
(11:57):
but even still, like consumers aren't could have want to
pay more for a thing that is now ancient.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
It just kind of it feels like they've been spinning
their wheels for the longest time because it felt like
they were sort of moving away from Xbox by leaning
on Game Pass. Then it turned out giving everyone access
to as many games as possible for thirty dollars was
not a good decision. So now that they want to
do something, it just it does. I hadn't thought the
(12:36):
Saga comparison, but it really does feel like that, like
Microsoft won't die, but.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Jesus, I mean, they're fortunate, I guess to have their
spying division with Windows, so yeah, they'll be fine. I
guess at.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Their ad revenue they get from installs of Windows on
laptops that take ten minutes to turn on exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, that'll keep them in business. Maybe better
than what Sega had when it left hardware. But yeah, no,
they're they're at a bad spot for Xbox. I'm not
really sure what the plan is over there, and it
doesn't seem like they're sure either.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So I had a specific Steam Machine question, So what's
it doing GPU wise? Like, is it doing? Is it
doing like one of the amd ones with both the
GPU and CPO in the same diet, Like what what
is the situation there?
Speaker 1 (13:24):
It is? So for the Silicon, the short answer to
that question is it's an rDNA three GPU with twenty
eight CUS and I'll kind of loop back to that.
But the Silicon in general, the CPU and the GPU
are the only uh non modular, sort of normal components
(13:45):
that you might swap in a computer, so meaning you
can't change the CPU or the GPUs. This is a
big split from a normal computer. They're using BGA parts
ballgrid array, so they're soldered to the board and that
makes it more like a laptop. In fact, they are
basically laptop parts. They're semi custom laptop CPU and GPU
(14:06):
that are discreete and the Yeah, the GPU so rDNA
three twenty eight cus. That makes it a little bit
smaller than an R seventy six hundred as an example,
off the top of my head, I think that's thirty
two CUS. And the CPU is a zen four part
(14:28):
it's six cores, twelve threads. Their maximum advertised boost is
four point eight gigahertz and they claim a thirty watt
TDP and so for reference, I mean some of the.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Other how is that compared to like a gaming handheld exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, gaming handheld, it's yeah, it's higher power than a
gaming handheld for sure, So it is it is better
than that. You have the benefit of not worrying about
a battery and not worrying about skin temperature on the
device because not holding it, and so for those reasons,
they can run more power. So I think they're in
total somewhere around one hundred and ten watts for the
(15:04):
GPU and then a thirty watt claim for the CPU.
So you know, with with other miscellaneous devices and with
inefficiencies and whatever, you maybe call it two hundred watts,
and I think the power supplies three hundred watts and
so compared to a handheld, I mean that at peak
power consumption, which you're not normally at, this is significantly
(15:26):
more power and will perform I mean, significantly better. It's
a big difference.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Kind of it almost feels inevitable as well, because the
fall of Microsoft. Sure, it's that they don't give a
shit and don't see me trying in any way imaginable,
but it's also at some point we were going to
meet we're going to reach peak console. Surely at some
point there's just how much more can we do with this?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah? I think, and you can. This gets into like
a broader interesting topic I've been thinking about lately too,
but which is for gaming in general. You know, you
do hit a point where it's like, okay, the graphics
are sufficient, and actually, now the kind of meta is,
(16:12):
you know, more people are playing indie games that don't
push the graphics to insane levels, and people are kind
of rediscovering that, oh wait, I play video games to
have fun and it doesn't need to be whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, what's that? I don't know, That's not why I play.
I play games to get upset.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yes, yeah, well I have a game for you. I
need an investor right now. Actually it's AI company simulator.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And that sounds more fun.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great. Uh yeah, No, I mean
it's I think the the then with the on the
gaming side.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I think the Steam Machine on a technicality, like it's
it's more powerful than a lot of hardware people have.
I guess if you look at the Steam Survey, in reality,
it's a low end modern computer. And I think they're
probably going to be partly leaning on things like FSR
(17:18):
upscaling to try and bridge the gap, the performance gap.
I mean, one of the things they didn't say that
I can remember when we were talking to them, but
they did say on the spec sheet was that the
Steam Machine supports four k sixty FPS with FSR, and.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
That's pretty good. And FSR is the one where they
use AI but actual actual AI, real stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Actual machine learning, yeah, like actually does something. Yeah, And
so like I wasn't too happy about that when I
saw that on the spec sheet because like saying, factually,
it's probably accurate because it says with FSR there, but
that's it has to always be there. They can't just
say four k sixty because there's a big difference, and
(18:06):
this hardware cannot do four K sixty without some kind
of crutch, which FSR would be. But a point being,
you know, it's a low end computer. They say it's
gonna be priced like a an entry level gaming PC.
I don't know what that means anything.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, that could mean literally could colost seven million, Like what.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
The Yeah, it's a big range. I mean it's you know,
in the old days like twenty, I don't know, twelve
to sixteen. Maybe you could build a super low NPC
for four hundred and fifty bucks. More realistically probably five
hundred and fifty. That's kind of gone now, so so
I think they'll have some pricing. The biggest concern is,
(18:47):
for sure price, but at a hardware level. Really, I
think the big story is the Linux side and then
what you're saying the Microsoft side, where it's like, is
this just kind of twisting the death agger on Xbox?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I hope so, because Microsoft sucks, and the thing is
PC gaming is cool, like it's the one, like it's
one of the great things about it in that there's
such a great indie gaming gaming industry, and I feel
like Steam is though imperfect, is a great way to
get into that in a way that I don't feel
like the big consoles are.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, it's just indie games are kind of like the
lifeblood of it now. I feel like there's so much
character in them, and they're very accessible in terms of
often priced but also not being overbearing on systems, you know, requirements.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
My favorite game of this year was Dead Zone Rogue.
If you have played that, I have not, but it's
a roguelike. It feels like the and I realized there
are numerous other sufferers who listen to this may not
understand what I mean. It feels like when Destiny was
fun in the single player. It has that kind of
very clicky, very It's just very satisfying game. Indie game,
(20:04):
never heard of the developers, don't know if they've ever
made anything before. Fantastic game. I haven't enjoyed any Triple
A that much. I unless you consider Hades two, which
I'm not sure that counts.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I feel like that doesn't really count, you know, like
it's yeah, I feel like that. That to me still
feels like sort of the smaller yeah side of things. Yeah,
and yeah, there's a big market there, and I think
I do think that big picture for some of these companies.
I was about to say gaming companies, referring to you know,
(20:36):
Nvidio and tel AMD, but that's not really what they
are anymore. But look at these companies. I'm happy to
see some of the success of indie games, and I'm
happy to see things like a Steam machine in terms
of hardware being capable of playing most of the games
people play. Because specifically, you know, on the cynical side,
(21:00):
if you sell GPUs for playing games and the graphics
have kind of peaked for a while and it might
take a few more years to really reach another major
peak where uh, it's it's invalidating older hardware to a
point where people feel forced to buy something new to
keep the flow of money going for the companies. In
that situation, you know, cynically, it would feel like you
(21:21):
would need to invent a problem to solve so that
people will buy your next GPU to play games, unless
you can generate sort of escape velocity from the gaming
side and get into some other business, which right now
appears to be AI data center. You know, they don't
need to invent problems to solve for gaming, because they're
doing that for.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Sort of invented one for the economy, right, but it's
it's actually this is I feel like you've sliwd. This
is just a question I had got to ask. You
can't replace anything inside the Stay machine, it looks like.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
So you can do the RAM the which is yeah,
the RAM is a so dim so it's laptop memory sticks.
And then you can also do the SSD it sports
up to I'm not too twenty two to eighty, which
is the sort of standard larger form factor. Those would
be the main ones I guess too.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
That can you hot drives for Are you going to
be solid state though? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, solid state? And then it is very accessible. I
mean it's it's easy to remove the cover and the
heat sink if you wanted to, you could pull, you'd
swap it. The fan is easy to swap and replace.
The power supply has a blade connector, so it's sort
of similar to server form factor styles where they don't
(22:39):
use cables but they use just a connector. And so
all of these things from a repair ability standpoint would
in the very least be easy to repair and swap.
Valve has a pretty good track record of making those
parts available for the Steam Deck, so hopefully they'll do
this good too?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, Jesus, I'm not used to companies not just immediately
being evil.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, I mean there's still time, there's oh yeah there it.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Could end up being twelve hundred dollars. Like that's that's
where I could see them fucking this one up for me, right,
(23:25):
talking of successful industries that everyone loves the steam Frame, Yeah,
what is going? What is this meant to? Is it?
Is it meant to be a vision pro situation? Is
it meant to be like the like? Like what was
the Valve Index? Like? What is it?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Steam Frame is pretty interesting? So the steam Frame is
a new VR headset from Valve. They launched the HTC
Vibe with obviously HTC a long time ago, now, uh,
and then later the Index and and then there was
Oculous Rifts that later turned into the Metaquest. So that's
kind of the VR industry. It's really just these are
(24:03):
the big milestones. There's been a lot of other devices
in between, but Valves jumping back into it with what
they're calling the steam Frame. The steam Frame is pretty
interesting in that it both has standalone functionality with basically
an integrated we'll call it a compute unit that mounts
(24:24):
to your face with the goggles. And then it's also
got streaming capability where it streams content from an actual
gaming computer. And so Valve is here leveraging the fact
that it has an unbelievably large library of games, probably
the largest ever to have existed, and the fact that
(24:45):
most of its players probably have a decent gaming computer,
and so they can render the game content on their
computer and then stream it to the headset. Basically you're
casting a video to the headset. Uh, so you're not
rendering locally, and then that allows you to be tetherless
and wireless from the computer, which solves a lot of
(25:07):
the problems this kind of r has had historically. But
the new yes, yeah, so, but the new problem if
you're doing this is anytime they're streaming, there's latency, right yeah,
And so the concern just becomes if I'm streaming this
from my computer instead of playing it with a wire
(25:28):
plugged into the back of my headset. Uh am, I
going to notice that in actions and game and the
cool part I think that maybe this technology could apply
elsewhere in some capacity. Uh but is what they're calling
foviated streaming. And so yeah, so there's already a thing
(25:52):
called boviated rendering, But basically the concept is UH to
preserve bandwidth and maximize sort of how much data you
can get across without causing major latency issues, you know,
to keep the frame rate high and everything else. What
(26:13):
they're doing is they are targeting specific areas where the
eyes are tracked to be looking and then rendering those
assigning basically the maximum amount of bits those areas. Yeah,
and everything else gets a reduced bit rate in the
streaming uses less bandwidth and so it technically renders out
(26:36):
a lower quality. But in the quick testing we did,
you know, I only had a little bit of a
hands on with it, but I couldn't tell. I mean,
when I was when I was looking wherever I was
looking in the headset, it looked full quality. And then
if I tried to, you know, quickly dart my eyes
over somewhere else, like I'm not fast enough. I don't
know that any human is fast enough really to move
(26:59):
your eyes quick enough to beat when it detects your
change of focus and then reassigns those bits to the
new area to maximize that area's resolution. So I think
the response time is some like eight to twelve milliseconds.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
But it's a it is both like a vision Pro
and av Our headset.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, yeah in the sense. Yeah, you can technically do
like call it productivity tasks and things like that.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, I just I'm I'm a vision Pro truther. I
actually think that. I think it's a fun idea. I
wish there were more fun ideas like it. But I
also recognize I'm peculiar for that one. And also I
don't think Apple game enough of a shit. It's just
it is nice to see Belve doing something. I think
I realized also talking to you about this, how depressing
(27:52):
it is to just be like, yay, someone did something else.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I mean that's that's how it felt. It was like,
it's yeah, I mean the VR side doesn't get a
lot of love compared to when it started.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
It, but it does V all games as well, though.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, it's it's primarily a VR gaming headset. And then
they are saying, look, if you want to replace your
monitor with this, you can do that.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
That sounds expensive though, and of course they have yet
to say how much this will cost.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, they said less than an index, but they didn't
say how much and so and index. Yeah, there's a
few skews. I think the common aside is yeah, yeah,
it's it's they range like six hundred. I want to
say the highest of twelve hundred or something, but it's
not going to be six hundred. It'll it'll be a
(28:44):
thousand plus.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
But we don't really have an idea of when these
things are coming out, do we just next year?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Next year? The frame, specifically the Steam frame the VR solution,
they said early twenty twenty six, which, in my experience
early to a lot of these come it just means
first half.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So yes, yeah, you excited.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I am.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I'm I'm auldly excited about both of them. It feels
like we're finally getting something in PC gaming again.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, I mean I'm excited because for that same reason,
it's nice where it's like, okay, it's just hardware, and
there doesn't appear to be a lot of bullshit. So
you know, if we test it and it's not the
best solution for the value, then fine, that's a really
easy review. You know, maybe you say it's good but
(29:35):
it costs too much, But that is a lot better
than saying, like when I'm kind of having to lately
think about which is okay, when Nvidia launches their next GPU,
how do I handle the conclusion where, you know, what
do you get to the end. You're like, other than
the fact that they're partnering with palent here, which has
openly admitted to developing technology that is used on occasion
(29:59):
to kill p people, the GPU is pretty good. You're like,
how do you cross that bridge? Right? Like against this
really serious stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
It's a problem across the whole tech industry. So I
think Google's working with border patrol. Yeah, Like, it's just
and I always had the theory that people were like, Wow,
I can't believe the tech companies are suddenly doing this.
I'm like, they've been fucking waiting. Oh they've been looking
at like this is They're like, oh, goodie, finally the
chance to make all that revenue from the evils.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Or they've already been doing it and now it's just
more on the open or whatever.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, And it's and I'm guessing that this is becoming
increasingly a challenge with like even with like a m
D who is increasingly though I realized the evils are
slightly different there.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, I mean AMD is is not quite as boisterous,
I guess as Nvidia in that way, but they still
a lot of the same concerns, and so yeah, with
Valve it's been I think that's why why the reception
has been so good on this, because there's no there's
(31:04):
no hardware launch yet, it's just announcements, but the sentiment's
pretty high, and I do think that's because people just
feel so kind of beaten down where it's just every
ram prices are skyrocketing over one hundred percent in several cases.
I think we saw one stick one kit that was
like one hundred and eighty five percent higher than it
(31:25):
was three weeks ago. Yeah, that's going to affect GPUs.
That'll write when the prices were coming down on those,
and these will affect the Steam Machine. But I think
just like the the sort of hey, it's just hardware
that plays video games, and I guess if you want
to use it for other stuff you can too. Like
that sadly is pretty exciting right now. So so yeah,
(31:50):
I'm excited about it. I think the Steam Frame, I'm
actually really interested in the original VR testing we did.
We did some really cool be our benchmarks a long
time ago, and it just kind of did it a
couple of times. Never did it again. I thought it
was a cool idea, but the setup for VR was
(32:12):
just way too burn in some At that time, I
was still running the company out of my childhood bedroom
and so room scale VR was like you need to
spend like three hours cleaning your house.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Get the room was a little bit fungible.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And yeah, I mean it was like, but now it
seems like all of that has matured a lot, and
as someone who has not felt any desire whatsoever to
play any VR games for the last like ten years,
I actually do really want to try the Steam Frame
and I think it'll be pretty fun.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, it's so weird, it's like we even I wouldn't
say Microsoft was ever known as like a deeply quality company,
but there was at least at some point a level
of prestige to it. There was like, oh, Microsoft would
never just make a big pile of shit, They'd never
wheel out of I mean, they might do that in
their software, but it felt like they were at least
there was the brief period where we could humor ourselves
(33:13):
being like, oh that I like my xbox eymore fucking customer,
I do.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
I think you're right. I mean, I think the hardware
for a while, it was like, it seems pretty serious.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You know, their laptops were pretty well respected. I like
the wind they had the weird I think it's Panaspane
who's over at Amazon now, but they had like a
weird thing where they were respectable for laptops. Yeah, and
now I don't know, it's all just it's all eating itself.
It feels like.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
It felt like it felt like after after the zoon
they realized they needed to change something in hardware and
it went okay after that. And just to put it
out there, I still have my original Zoom. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Oh yeah, I'm a was a creative nomad guy myself.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Creative got really screwed during that
whole period. I mean it was yeah, just in the
sense that it was like Creative was kinda they were
sort of their first or very early, and they did
a lot of innovation and they just got squashed by Apple,
like Apple did kind of the Apple thing where it
(34:28):
just it's this jug or not.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
And they just dropped their weight on them.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah. I think there was even a lawsuit, I want
to say Creative one. It was maybe like a couple
hundred million dollars or something. I don't know, and yeah, yeah,
that's that's Uh. It was one of those win or
lose you still lose.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, yeah, No, no one's winning by the end of
this other than Apple. Oh boy. Well, on that happy note, Steve,
what where can people find you? And what are some
recent things they should go and look at?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
One hundred million dollars was two thousand and six. By
the way, Apple will pay Creative one hundred million dollars
for a paid up license to use Creative's awarded patent
im P three players. Anyway, what was your question?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Oh, yeah, it's just where can people find you? And
what are some interesting things you've been covering recently?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
The most interesting yeah, recently is so we have a
story coming up where I previously mentioned to you I
would be going to the UK for something and you
immediately said, I'm sorry, Yeah, that's the appropriate and so
we went over to London. We've got a really interesting
(35:37):
thing we're finalizing now where I'm still trying to sort
through who's right, who's wrong all that stuff. But like
long story short, there is a guy who bought Sega, Nintendo,
Microsoft and other game development kits and development cartridges from
a scrap yard, We visited the scrapyard, we visited the guy,
(36:02):
and he was arrested by the police, and SAGA was
connected to it. They had a private investigator look into
the guy and basically all the you know, the companies
involved in the chain, as far as we tell, freaked
out when they found out their game development kits and
cartridges made it into the hands of a person even
(36:22):
though they had thrown them out. And we're basically trying
to sort through where did stuff fall through the cracks
and is this an over extension of a corporation into
someone's home to work with the police on a raid
over game development cartridges, you know?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Or is there any old games? Right?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Primarily I think there's maybe like some switch stuff in there,
which is I think probably what set the alarm bells.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Off fucking Nintendo. Yeah, anyway, but well that so that
will go up, I'm guessing in the next few weeks.
So yeah, of course we'll link to gamers nextus. But yeah,
thank you for joining us, Steve. It's always a pleasure
having you.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
And you've been listening to Better Offline. You can find
me at better offline dot com. Who knows when this
one goes out in the next couple of weeks, he says,
knowing that you'll have no concept of the timescale I'm
talking about. But thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Everyone, Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor
and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matttersowski.
You can check out more of his music and audio
projects at Mattasowski dot com, M A T T O
(37:41):
S O W s ki dot com. You can email
me at easy at Better Offline dot com or visit
Better Offline dot com to find more podcast links and
of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go
to chat dot Where's Youreed dot at to visit the discord,
and go to our slash Better.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Offline to check out our reddit.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Thanks. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Ed Zitron
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