The death of affordable computing in America.

OK. Never bought anything from Nintendo, so that’s not a great sacrifice.

Wait, what? Are you implying there is a world outside the US? Preposterous!

So, is there a nude mod yet? Asking for a friend.

I know a great loophole for avoiding setting up a Microsoft account: don’t use this steaming pile of shit in the first place.

I’ve been playing quite a bit of Grim Dawn lately. It really captures the spirit of the original Diablo.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

You’d probably be breaking a lot of sanctions. And if you’re not part of the oligarchy that will have consequences.

They’ll probably drop the price soon. At $500 it might be worth looking at…

Meanwhile Nvidia:

The 9070 would have to be below $500 to have a chance.

Oh noes! 600 billion fluffybucks that only ever existed in the feverish fantasies of stock market analysts! Oh the humanity!

You’re obviously not a true red blooded American! True patriots enjoy being choked to death by exhaust fumes!

Finland has been “close to completing” their storage site at Olkiluoto for quite a long time now. Let’s see when they finally get it into production. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

They don’t care about being liked, they just want to prop up the oligarchy by controlling access to information.

And they want to hedge against Windows trying to monopolise the gaming market. You know, the kind of thing government oversight used to prevent in days gone by.

Just give us the damn price, ffs!

That would be a massive headache because you’d have to make it work on any hardware. And if you bork your users’ PCs you’re in for a really bad time. It would be much better to come up with a new Steam machine.

And they haven’t managed to come up with a decent product in decades.

I’ve built my latest PC myself and yes, i could absolutely do that. But that’s not the point. The point is that i want Linux to succeed as a mainstream OS. A machine like that would go a long way, even more so than the Steam Deck.

Absolutely. But now is the time. They have a huge game library that’ll run without any hassle and anyone who can use a console can use Steam. I’m honestly surprised nobody has done that yet. If I had a few million lying around in the bank, I’d do it myself.

Yes, that is what I mean. Installing an OS is just too hard and/or too much bother for most people. If Linux is finally to achieve mainstream acceptance, the product needs to be ready to run as soon as you unpack it. You know, like the Steam Deck. And yes, I could do the install myself, but I can’t be bothered.

Sure. But the Deck is a bit underpowered for a 4k TV. It would have to be powerful enough to play most games at 4k with some frame generation.

Sure. But that was then and this is now. Gaming on Linux has come a very long way since then.

Yes, I could just use Bazzite. But i want something that works out of the box.

Box, machine, whatever.

What I’m really waiting for is a Steam box that I can hook up to my TV. I’d buy that in a heartbeat. I really don’t understand why they haven’t come out with one of those yet. Should be much easier to do than a handheld.

They’re starting to sell their second generation of discrete GPUs right now. They’ve had integrated GPUs for a long time.

There have been rumours like that for as long as the GPU business has existed.

Only white people will be allowed to play.

Nah. They’re probably going to kill it because it doesn’t provide high enough margins.

Sure. Or you could use Bazzite. But I want something I don’t have to faff around with, like the Steam Deck. Plug it in and start gaming. That’s the selling point. If Valve can achieve that, make it perform well and be affordable, they have yet another goldmine.

Any old mini PC will run steam link.

I have a gaming PC, a Steam Deck and a PS4. But I’ll buy a Steam machine in a heartbeat.

They’re less open about it but you can bet they’re still at it. Any OEM that sells anything but Windows will be penalised in licensing deals.

And you really believe they’re not doing that any more?

Let’s see what MS has to say about that. Although they won’t say anything officially, of course. But they’ll certainly try to prevent this sort of thing from catching on from behind the scenes.

They’re the kind of people who write “Git gud, n00b!” in Linux forums.

Anyone who is just starting out with Linux and doesn’t want to put in a lot of effort should definitely choose Mint over Arch. If you really want to learn the ins and outs, Arch is great. If you just want a usable computer, Mint is your daddy.

Good. The more nonsensical projects he starts, the less damage he can do elsewhere.