accideath

But they also do not care about picture quality beyond brightness, if at all.

I mean, it’s good in that case, too, but it’s also good if you have a Jellyfin server and want a device that supports modern standards like DolbyVision and that isn’t completely overflowing with ads.

Can I get support for DolbyVision using kodi or similar?

On that note, does anybody know a good set top box with DolbyVision support that doesn’t require Amazon or Google services?
Because the only one that comes to my mind would be an AppleTV and I don’t want to believe that’s the least terrible option…

It’s mostly a thing of what’s available for your phone. For pixels 6 and newer (and I think some new motorolas as of recently) you can use graphene. If you are on fairphone or a bunch of other devices, you have support for e/OS. In general, graphene is a bit more secure than e/OS, so if you have the choice, it’s probably the way to go but if you don’t have a pixel and don’t want to buy one, e/OS is probably one of the better maintained degoogled android versions out there.
Here you can find a list with a feature comparison.

I use the app Gamenative. Works fairly well for steam, gog and epic and has a nice UI

I recently bought a retroid pocket because I really wanted a pocketable handheld device for when I’m traveling for work.
It’s great. Emulates almost everything (including switch) and even plays a lot of PC games (if they’re not too power hungry). It’s like a steam deck lite.
Great for exactly the type of games that you can just pick up n play for a little bit.

But you do need to get that info from somewhere, be it forums, tutorials, etc.
And if you have no idea about what makes a computer good (for gaming), that’s quite a hurdle that many would rather not need to get into, by buying something prebuilt/pre-set-up like the steam machine

You don’t have to learn everything. People have all kinds of hobbies and not a lot of time.

And I don’t expect anything to be handed to me. I expect to pay extra for people who know what they’re doing to do it for me.

I personally would never do that for a PC because I do have the know how because I enjoy bargain hunting for hardware and building my own rig.

But when I have an issue with my car, I bring it to a mechanic because I don’t have enough time and interest to teach myself how to repair it myself. I‘d rather put my little time into my existing hobbies.

I know, I myself enjoy building PCs. But I know a lot of people who don’t. And they’d rather pay some amount of money more to not have to look up hardware comparisons, find out what works best together, install operating systems, etc. It’s a hobby not everyone enjoys and for those people a pre built and configured system with manufacturer support is great, even if it might cost them a little more.

That’s definitely a worse experience in any way besides price.

The steam machine promises a certain point of build quality, support and ease of setup your proposed solution will not.

It’s not the best bang for the buck, sure. But it’s not targeting people who have the know how or patience to either build and/or configure their own system.

Yea but how would someone who isn’t into PC hardware know what a decent GPU, nevermind a decent second hand PC would be, without going to forums, watching reviews, etc.

The whole appeal of the steam machine is it being a console-like PC for people who don’t have the knowledge and/or patience to build their own.

I wouldn’t buy it because I enjoy building myself a bang-for-the-buck PC from used parts and ain’t scared of installing Linux myself. But if you want the benefits of a PC (game availability and prices, flexibility, compatibility) with the benefits of a console (plug-n-play, couch game friendly), a steam machine is pretty much it.

I do know more than one people

I don’t know any people who still buy digital music. Most have streaming services and those who don’t either rip CDs or have a collection of YouTube downloads.

I don’t dislike valve. I do enjoy and regularly use their services.
But valve is still like any other company out there. For the time being, they (and in turn we) profit from them being in private hands. But that likely won’t last forever, Gabe is already 63.

And forced price parity is a bad thing because it takes away choice from consumers: Do I want the product including great service on one platform, or do I not care about that service and buy it cheaper on another service.

Forcing price parity is an Apple AppStore type move. Subscription services, for example, according to Apple’s terms n service, are not allowed to be more expensive in the AppStore, where Apple takes a 30% cut for providing payment services, etc., than they are when directly subscribing through a service’s website. That’s forcing devs to either take a loss on Apple devices or overcharge customers everywhere else.

And it’s the exact same thing with valve. A: you’re not gonna go somewhere else with less convenient service if it’s not cheaper on there (which makes it harder for competitors to invest in their infrastructure to make up for the huge lead valve has over time) and B: It takes away your ability to chose between a better service and a better price, which, looking at the current rise in game prices, could make a meaningful difference for a lot of gamers.

Also, in any industry, where you’re dealing with physical goods, the manufacturer sells a product to the store for a given price and the store then decides their markup. That’s why the same graphics card can be one price at Amazon while having another on mindfactory or on newegg. The manufacturer still sells their product to those retailers for the exact same money (unless specifically negotiated otherwise). It’s your decision whether to pay more for better service or less for less.

That doesn’t matter though. It’s a win for steam, sure, 20 years ago. But it’s not about historical developments. It’s about the current state of the market. And there valve is using their market share to stifle competition.

Yes and it all gets beaten sooner or later regardless

Man y‘all are getting really defensive when it comes to your favourite multi billion dollar company.

I like the service steam provides but they’re not your friend. They’re still a profit oriented company.

And just because valve’s competition are incompetent and/or assholes doesn’t mean valve’s not anti competitive.

It’s not about a dev selling a game cheaper on another platform once it becomes popular, it’s about valve forbidding them to sell it cheaper somewhere else at release. Them using their 80-90% market share to forcing developers to either comply or get locked out of more than three quarters of the market is the essence of anti competitive behavior. Doesn’t matter if it’s Ubisoft who’s complaining (fuck ubisoft). It’s monopolistic.

Also didn’t valve very recently state that they’re gonna enforce their terms of service more strictly in regards to keys sold on other platforms?

And Microsoft and itch.io.

So, only gog is as expensive for devs on PC as Steam.

And of course they would ask as much as steam would, if they were in valve’s position. But they aren’t and valve is actively using their position of power to keep them there (besides the stores being worse, feature wise, but a lot of people would ignore that for 20% cheaper games on epic, for example).

They aren’t a monopoly. But they are monopolistic. They have a market share of 80-90% and are using that power to make it harder for competitors to gain market share (for example by pressuring developers to not lower their prices on platforms with lower fees).