It's not like their computers aren't going to work anymore lol

They're just not releasing anymore updates. We had a VIP system at work running XP up until 2 years ago, when we finally updated to a tablet style system.

According to Google there are still 100 million machines still running Windows 7. Sometimes theres just no reason to update.

 

Thats the frustrating thing, if Linux just had even MacOS levels of software support and somebody with a vested interest in building consumer mindshare then we'd have that alternative and it'd save tons of computers from going to waste and millions of people being vulnerable just because it isn't financially beneficial for shitty corporations in Redmond and Cupertino to support them anymore. SteamOS and Proton are as good an opportunity as we're probably ever going to get for that, so I can only hope that it does well and that Valve have further hardware plans beyond it to push it further.

Security is always a reason to update. Anything that isn't getting patches and has contact with the outside world is liability, especially if it's running something with an install base as huge as Windows. The gates of hell are going to open for Windows 10 when MS stops supporting it and there are going to be millions of people vulnerable because the fact is that most people with adequate but old computers aren't using them out of choice, which is made all the more worse this time because of how MS are handling this transition. You can't just try and hand wave that stuff either if you are a business or organisation, data breaches can have serious legal consequences and the disruption of having your IT systems brought down or destroyed can be ruinous.

 

I completely agree. With the costs of cybersecurity and the vulnerability of older systems, sometimes it's just a matter of time before an exploit takes an older system down. The relentless pursuit for the next newest thing drives the obsolescence cycle.

 

Never had a problem in 25 years of building systems

Trust me, your systems will still function  

 

I have that 25 at home plus 20 doing IT support and management for a living, i've seen some shit.  

 

Haha, oh I bet. Fun stuff for sure  

 

Between the porn, other illicit items on staff computers, plus the whole "now, why the HELL is it blinking?!" mentality (not to mention the den of snakes that is a server room), you probably have some digital PTSD. lol

 

Hot keys are an ITs worst nightmare.

 

I fully intend on giving a Roy Batty monologue on my death bed about ransomware idiocy and people thinking that WiFi would also charge their laptop.

Back on the topic of Steam Deck, I caved and put in a reservation after thinking about it a bit more. Considering the ongoing video card debacle, I think it's worth putting your foot in the door even if your just considering it since it's a long wait and it won't cost you anything if you ultimately decide not to get one.

 

Even if you do decide to purchase and find that you don't love it, you can easily flip it. I know Gaben said "millions" but I'm getting the impression that this will go the way of GPD and their handheld units. Hot and desirable and really hard to find for a good price when it's all said and done. Unless they do another Steam Machine screw-up, I can't see this having the failure rate with the audience. I've been wrong before, though...

 

Yeah, Steam Machines I think were more of a niche in comparison to the Deck, which is trying to more efficiently fit a more accessible niche, at least if you ask me. Aside from anything GPD made and the Aya Neo, we haven't had a real mainstream handheld PC that made a lot of sense for gaming. Meanwhile Steam Machines kinda seemed like proprietary replacements for full PC systems which just seems absolutely worthless. The only real use for Steam Machines I see is just as a kind of console, but then it's questionable to begin with.

Though I don't know the specifics since I never looked at any of them in-depth, was there a catastrophic failure on their part that caused it to flop or was it just something that didn't really hit?

 

Wonder if Windows 11 will take on the Deck

 

For the Steam Machines, a big hurdle was that SteamOS wasn't available/stable/consumer ready by the time several of the hardware partners were ready to go. This caused rigs like the Alienware Alpha to ship with Windows and not be branded as a Steam Machine. Several other manufacturers dropped the Steam Machine branding as well for the same reasons and Valve never released their own hardware that they had at one of the electronics shows as a proof of concept. Really, they never got off the ground.

I've heard that 11 won't support screens smaller than 9" so probably not unless that wasn't accurate info

 

They were more or less overpriced hype and no substance. i3 instead of i5, etc. Fenrys got the rest of it laid out. It was just poorly conceived, constructed, and deployed. I saw those machines at Walmart a year or so later, maybe more, and they went for a song. Like $200 out the door. So much was lost...

As long as the MOBO supports TPM 2.0 it'll pass. It needs SecureBoot in order to be 11 capable. A modern mass-produced PC should come with it standard in this day and age.

It docks, though. I certainly hope they wouldn't make Deck owners suffer just because of one aspect and ignoring the rest. It's supposed to output at 4k, 120fps (not gaming) via dock. I hope they don't do that to owners of this PC.

 

The thing to remember about Steam Machines was that they were the early form of a solution to a problem that ended up not existing. There was allot of talk coming out of MS at the time of Windows 8 that they would eventually ditch Win32 entirely in favor of UWP, the logical conclusion of which would have been an MS monopoly on software sold for Windows via their store and the death of PC gaming as we know it due to the nature of UWP. Thankfully that didn't happen because nobody else on the face of the planet actually wanted that and Nadella changed the direction of the company when he took over from Balmer, so there wasn't really any need for SteamOS or Steam Machines and the whole thing ended up as a damb squib.

Things are different this time round not just because Proton has made SteamOS actually useful, but because Deck is a thing that people seem to actually want that doesn't already exist in a polished high quality form for which Windows isn't really suitable for. Valve are obviously way more invested in this then before given that they've personally got involved with the hardware engineering and AMD also have a vested interest in this being successful because it'll give them a foothold in the market for small but powerful devices which they are pretty much entirely absent from right now.

It's going to be very interesting decade for PC if all the stuff we are seeing the early stages of at the moment starts moving forward in a big way over the next few years. From this alone we've got possible mainstreaming of handheld gaming PCs, Valve putting effort into an OS platform and mobile AMD APUs with good performance. Add that onto the pile with RT and ML, all the stuff that's happening with ARM and Intel starting to take GPUs seriously.

 

I had forgotten that Microsoft was considering moving away from Win32 in favor of UWP, so glad that never went anywhere.

I've been saying since friday that the Deck seems to be the culmination of Valve's previous hardware endeavors. It's got a revamped and hopefully much improved SteamOS (Steam Machines), gaming away from a stationary desktop or laptop (Steam Link), trackpads on the controller (Steam Controller) and so on. It really is like they took lessons learned from their previous attempts and refined them into this. Considering Valve is reportedly not making a huge profit on these, it's a good sign of commitment, and if they can market it right it could do really well. They don't necessarily need to become the next hardware manufacturer on par with Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft, I don't really think that's needed for PC gaming, but if this takes off it could definitely make PC gaming a bit more main stream and accessible, which is definitely not a bad thing.

 

I should clarify that I mean mainstreaming in the context of PC gaming and not so much in the context of Nintendo or whatever. If a decent chunk of folks like us are willing to drop another 500 to have their games on the go then you've got a solid market strait away, especially if they can sort out the anti-cheat stuff to get the service game and e-sports guys on board as well.

I definitely think there is some scope outside of that if they can polish the experience enough, Switch-like portability but with good AA-AAA third party support and modern platform features is definitely something that might appeal to the XB and Sony crowd since neither of those are doing anything like that outside of streaming.

 

Absolutely agreed, and with it being a portable PC, the streaming games are also a nice option to further expand one's available games to play

 

so based on a few sites I've been reading it seems like Valve is either going to replace Big Picture Mode with a UI very reminiscent of the Steam Deck, or Steam is just going to get an update to make it's UI more like the Steam Deck. There's so little info on it except to say that the Steam Deck UI will be coming to the desktop application in the nearish future
Valve will replace Big Picture mode with the new Steam Deck UI

 

Steam is by far my favorite way to buy and play games on PC.