Some might remember that, earlier this year, Valve made the Steam Machine available for purchase. I'd had my eye on one since they were first announced; I had it on my wishlist. Having had a lot of fun with my Steam Deck, I was sure I'd appreciate what was looking to be its bigger sibling (in terms of size and power, if not age).
Also, having had success with buying the Steam Controller, I was all set to sign up for the "lottery" and see if I could get into the queue for a Machine too. But there was a wrinkle: the opening of the window to throw your hat into the ring, and the projected delivery date should you be lucky, coincided with our holiday in the Netherlands. If I'd been successful, delivery would have taken place while I was out of the country1.
Given this, I waited until I got back and then put my name down for a 512GB machine without a controller. Unsurprisingly, I found myself on the waitlist, not a reservation list. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Along with a lot of other people.
Then, last week, I was scrolling through Reddit and saw a few people talking about how they'd left the 512/no-controller list, jumped on the 512/with-controller list, and then got a purchase invitation email pretty quickly; some within minutes, some within hours. After some wondering about this, I decided it was worth a try. What's the worst that could happen? I still have to wait, which I was anyway, or I get the offer to buy and I'm down about an extra £80 because I went for a controller too.
I decided that, just for the laugh if nothing else, I'd go for it. I removed myself from the 512-no-controller list, added myself to the 512-with-controller list, and... within minutes I had a purchase invitation email! Oh shit! Now I have to decide!
So I decided.
Fast forward to this afternoon and...
So, yeah, along with the Steam Frame, that's my toy budget used up for a wee while to come!
I've not had the chance to unbox it yet and likely won't get the chance until the weekend. While, yes, I could be doing it now rather than typing this, I'm rattling this out between routine family duties and unboxing it would not have given me the free time to actually have a proper play.
Once I do get the chance, I'll try and make a point of jotting down my initial impressions.
Hopefully, at some point soon, I'll get to hook it up with the Steam Frame too and see how well they work together. As I understand it, that's still a bit of a "coming soon" thing, with work in progress on the SteamOS beta on both hardware platforms.
So, at this point, I've somehow ended up with a reasonable little Steam ecosystem:
- Steam Controller (MkII) (times two)
- Steam Deck
- Steam Frame
- Steam Machine
Also, if we're going to throw in Steam hardware of old, I even still own a Steam Link. At this point, I kind of wish I had my hands on a first generation Steam Controller, just to be somewhat completionist.
Ironically, while in the country where the device would ship from. ↩