> without ever touching a controller, why would I start now?

I feel similar, but for us there's also no point to get a Steam Machine. Playing games while sitting on a living room couch in front of a TV with mouse and keyboard is not comfortable at all.

Using mouse and keyboard it is better to play games at a proper desk with an office chair and I already have such a PC.

I agree that I wouldn't get it in addition to a desktop PC (for one thing, I haven't owned a TV in 20+ years so couch gaming isn't a thing for me) but when the time comes to replace my current box I might well consider whatever Steam is offering at the time. Just because it's likely to be nicely designed, thoughtfully specced and decently supported.

Memory (both main and VRAM) might be a bit on the weak side for some non-gaming workloads though. I hope we'll see those bump up once the current supply squeeze is over.

I don't :)

I have an M1 Macbook, no gaming for me. So the Steam Machine is perfect for me.

I can just tap a button, it'll turn on and I can be gaming on my main monitor before I have time to grab a controller.

Yeah that's true. But I suppose you could just as well buy any other windows/linux PC. (I did so after finally ditching the playing-games-in-bootcamp-on-an-imac life.) I realize the same could be said about the "a box under the living room tv" use case, but I feel like to a lesser degree?

My main issue is that I don't want or have space for a massive PC tower. And building a small form factor PC is both very expensive and very difficult.

All the components come at a premium price and you also get to spend hours finding obscure forums with exact measurements of cases and components to see if the GPU fits lengthwise or whether a specific CPU + cooler is too tall for the case =)

And even if you make it, you're easily way over 1k€ before get to even picking the M.2 drive and RAM.

Thus: Steam Machine. I click "buy" on Steam, it appears on my doorstep, I plug it in and it'll start working.

Nice, then it sounds like a good fit for you. Basically a Mac mini for gaming :)

This is also what i do not understand about the price structure. Valve states that they want to sell it at PC prices, and not console prices. But then sells it like a Console, with the console bits.

Its like there is a identify crisis even at Valve. Why can this not be a streaming machine for people who want to remote game. Why do you need a controller, if maybe you have a steam deck and stream PC games from the Steam PC > Deck...

What if you just want to use this as a cheap dedicated gaming PC with a monitor and keyboard/mouse.

I feel like there is a identify crisis with the product. Like the started out making a console, but then realized that nothing prevents people from using this as a cheap PC, if Valve puts the price too low. So you have this retraction on the pricing.

Early PC gaming, such as the mid 80s (40 years ago) was dominated by the need for a joystick, which is the parent to modern controllers.

Regardless, some games are far better with a joystick, some with mouse. If we care for gaming experiences, it should be whatever is best.

Rocket league is an example. The pros play on pcs but hook a controller into it

I absolutely get (and happily used) joysticks, but if a game needs a joystick I'll use a joystick, not a controller in the modern console sense. I'm sure those are good for something, but it's not something I've ever played.

I am also in the same category, but some games are made for the controller.

Admittedly, the only one I can think of at the moment is Eldenring: The PC (mouse+keyboard) experience was terrible.

I still passed on a controller but the controller first experience was glaring.

Action roguelikes like Hades is also better on controller.

This is intended for use in a living room, on a couch, in front of a TV. Keyboards or joysticks are not suited for this.

Can't in the sense that it's irresistible :)