Hello everyone and Merry Christmas. Ho ho ho.
Christmas songs have been playing in the office
all fucking day. It is the 14th of November.
Correct. It's grim. Shouldn't be fucking played
this early. No chance. I'm sick of it. What I'm
not sick of is how much shit we've missed in
the last two weeks of not podding. No, one week.
Yeah, we only missed last Friday, but that was
because of logistical things like me getting
a new job. Work's been very, very busy. Work's
been very exciting. Probably the happiest I've
been in the last 20 years, work -wise. Me and
Ash now work together. Mental. Which is, we'll
go down a little bit of history. This is, without
fangirling, but it is fangirling, is one of the
happiest moments of my life. So me and Ash haven't
worked. We've known each other for what? Six
years, I think? Coming on six years. I didn't
like you for about a year. Yeah, I've been doing
this for almost six years. So I've known you
from the start of that. And we haven't worked
together for pretty much five years of that.
So we've been doing a podcast. We've been talking
and blah, blah, blah. But we haven't actually
worked with each other for... considerable amount
of time and there was there's been so much begging
in the background by me to get this man to come
work with me and finally we fucking caught him
snagged me caught the big fish and it's been
one hell of a week oh my god the gang's back
together fucking you me Connor Daryl Manister's
gone it's a dream it's fantastic I'm not gonna
lie I absolutely love it. I'm very happy. Definitely
the right choice. All the games. All the gaming.
Conversations. It's everywhere. We're professional
at work. We're unprofessional here. Oh, fucking
hell. Bang on. Bang on. Bang on. GTA's been delayed.
Yeah, fuck. I forgot about that. I read it and
I was like, wow, but I don't care. Yeah. Right
now. Yeah, I think. I was not annoyed at all.
But when Steph told me, I went, fuck's sake.
I said, for fuck's sake. But not out of pure
annoyance, just like little annoyance. You know
what I mean? I was angry for about five seconds
and then fine. Because for me, and I think for
most people, it's just been so fucking long.
It's been so long where it's like, yeah, okay,
whatever, man. You're going to delay it, delay
it. It's beyond the point of really caring. You
feel me? You understand? I feel you. I just don't
care. I mean, it's going to come when I'm dead
at this point. I would have thought they would
have released another trailer by now because
of that, but I guess not. I'm sure it will come
before Christmas. Someone made a good point of...
you think that's bad but see what Bethesda did
with Skyrim where they just gave you a mountain
range and then went bye Elder Scrolls it's there
that was about 10 years ago that was a long time
ago man people still dissect that trailer and
be like it must be Hammerfell and it's just like
come on man that was so many years ago they've
got nothing else to fucking go by yeah we won't
we won't that's GTA out of the way we've spoken
about that for fucking millennia that's been
spoken about to death it's another year away
at least now so we might as well just ignore
it for six months and then get excited again
have you been seeing much on Black Ops 7 I saw
some fucking fucking hell I saw some geezer like
because they love the movement in Call of Duty,
didn't they? I saw some geezer slide and then
jump over everyone's heads, do a bit of wall
running. I was like, I'm so glad I'm not fighting
that. I see a geezer that had a perk that turns
him fully invisible. Great. And then he just
ran around a corner because it was the POV of
the person that got killed. And I think at first
they thought they got hacked, but it's literally...
they're just running, and someone, they die,
and then as they die, the person comes out of
their, like, invisibility, and he's like, what?
And then, yeah, when he watches the kill cam,
the geezer, like, does something, I didn't see
what, whether he touched his watch or some shit,
and then, yeah, fully cloaks himself, and then
goes running off and kills people. Great. Obviously,
the minute you fire a gun, you're out of invisibility,
but I was like, that, who the fuck thought that's
a good idea? I've seen the campaigns, got zombies
in it, and some big, massive boss, geyser with
mechanics uh it looks really weird call of duty
has just completely and utterly lost every piece
of identity it's ever had call of duty used to
be like did you ever play medal of honor yeah
medal of honor like the first ever one when i
was a kid and you were doing like the battle
of normandy beach and stuff and it was like the
most epic thing you've ever seen and call of
duty was like battling with that for like military
shooter like realism dark and gritty and now
it's just you know it's just i don't know what
it is anymore it's just like a it's like pop
culture isn't it fortnight but done wrong yeah
basically at least like i feel like fortnight
set the precedent of being what it is a battle
royale that has since turned into just fucking
you can do whatever you want on fortnight got
his thing from just stealing his ideas from everyone
else but just doing it better So let's not forget
that most of their shit is just stolen off of
something else or very, very closely similar.
But legal and done very well. And they're very,
very popular for it. It's fair enough. And it
was a good battle royale. It still is. And the
cosmetic side of it is top notch. I feel like
Call of Duty just tried to muscle in on that.
And it's just utter shit. It's utter shit. Why
is fucking Beavis and Butthead being killed by
Nicki Minaj? In what world is that a thing with
an AR -15? It makes no sense to me. It's alright
in a cartoony game like Fortnite, but in a military
shooter like Call of Duty, it's just weird. It
just doesn't hold that title anymore. Not when
Battlefield 6 is there as well. But even then,
they want to be fucking careful with the portal.
That weird shit that I'm seeing coming through
that. Keep it there. Don't start introducing
that into... Yeah, but that is what it is. It's
user -created stuff. So it's not... That's all
separate. The fucking... You know... You see
them on GTA all the time in the private matches
and shit like that. Where it'll be like a gradient,
like a hill or a bridge or something. And you've
got to try and run up it while cars and shit
are being sent down and blowing up. And you've
got to try and zigzag and avoid them. I'm pretty
sure I see a clip of Battlefield 7 where that
is in the campaign. Battlefield 6, yeah. Sorry,
Black Ops 7. Oh, Black Ops. Yeah, something like
that is in the campaign. Yeah. Well, I'm not
surprised, mate, to be honest. I don't think
anyone plans on fucking playing it, do they?
None of us lot, anyway. No, no, no, none of us
lot are going to fucking touch it. Sorry, it's
just work shit. No, it wasn't really. Kind of
a big deal now, aren't we? Somehow. Somehow.
Yeah, fuck Call of Duty. Anyway, what's next?
Steam Deck Box. We can either go into Steam Deck
Box, Xbox Box, or there's Outer Worlds 2. Fuck
Outer Worlds 2. Hold on, let's touch on something
else Dean keeps crying about. Please talk about
Ghost of Yotai. Ghost of Yotai exists. Next.
I told you, neither of us have played it yet.
Do you know what? It's funny because on the way
here, I was thinking, should I buy that? Because
I am kind of between a lot of games at the moment
and I'm back on that kind of, you know, swords
and shit. But I have played nothing at all this
week and I hope that that changes in the next
week. But if I carry on feeling as I do now,
it's not going to. I may never play a video game
again or I may never play a game that large again.
So whilst it's one of the most amazing things
that's happened with me and Ash now working together
and Connor and Daryl, Ash now has to get up like
three hours earlier than we normally used to.
Yes. So it's now. What time was you getting up
normally? Half six, quarter seven. And now you
get up when? Half four. Same time as me, baby.
Yeah. Lovely. Half hour to shit and shave and
then an hour to get to the yard. Or 40 minutes
to get to the yard, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, nice.
So my eyes are burning past midday. Yeah. I'll
adjust. So Mark has platinumed Ghost of Yotai
and he said that it's very, very, very good.
Better than Ghost of Tsushima. So I will definitely
play it. Completely forgot that Assassin's Creed
Shadows exists. Completely forgot. I will be
playing that at some point. I'm just not... It's
one of them ones where so many decent games released
in one month, it fucking ruined it for me because
it was too much shit. Far too much shit. I slogged
through Dying Light, even though I really enjoyed
it, to just fucking get that done. I'm now playing
Outer Worlds 2. I fucking love it. I'll tell
you what, talk about that because I'm just going
to shut my eyes for a minute and let you wax
lyrical about it and I'll say yes and no and
grunt every now and again. Just go on. I love
it. It's incredible. So I was on, I'd played
for three hours or four hours on the Friday and
then by the Sunday it was at 18 hours. Wow. There's
just, it's so fun. Great. It's so much fun but
I really liked Outer Worlds 1. Yeah. So this
just improves on Outer Worlds 2. And you've got
these perks that you get throughout the game
by doing various things. So like one that I've
got at the moment, which I like but don't like
at the same time. If you crouch enough times,
it pops up with a perk where your knees pop.
But it makes you move 50 % quicker when you are
crouched. So I took that and it's quite cool.
There's also perks where if you stare at the
sun, it's called like sun gaze or something like
that. Permanently blurs your vision. But I think
it does, it's something like it makes you do
100 % critical hit chance or something to do,
like 100 % spread or some shit like that. But
the entire rest of your playthrough is slightly
blurred. And I was like, I ain't doing that because
these are irreversible. there what else was there
there's been a couple um that i've declined because
you decline them then that's permanent as well
you you ain't getting them um for the rest of
it uh i can't remember what some of them were
some of them were pretty shit some of them were
pretty good there was one where um if you're
in sunlight you're constantly healing but the
detrimental effect of it was pretty fucking awful
i think it was something like you had like 50
less health or some shit like that i was like
no you're right i'll just eat a packet of crisps
every time i'm a bit damaged that makes more
sense than doing something like that um i know
that i'm really enjoying it because the first
planet that i went to i did absolutely everything
on it every side quest discovered everything
i spoke to every single person i killed everything
it was great I was like, this is the bollocks.
And I was trying to explain it to Steph where
I was like, I think I enjoy it so much because
it's obviously a shooter. I won't say first person
because you can go from first to third. But it's
the character dialogues and the quests and all
the different little side stories and the companions
and the relationships you make and this thing
does this and the perks that come alongside it
like lockpicking and engineering and stuff like
that. I've skilled into hacking, lockpicking,
and engineering as my main things. So that means
that the majority of places I can get into. So
it makes your playthrough so much more different
to someone who's skilled into speech and leadership
and melee weapons. And I like that because it
just gives you that different dynamic. Please
explain to me. What is better about this one
that you've noticed than the first one? Because
I honestly thought the first one was absolute
dog water. And I love Obsidian games, and I love
space games, and I love Fallout -style games,
which is all three of them things, but it felt
as fucking deep as a puddle, the first one. Kind
of... Kind of the same. There's a familiarity
there. Outer Worlds 2 is completely separate
to Outer Worlds 1, so you can play 2 without
having touched Outer Worlds 1. It's in the same
universe, but has no connection to the characters
of Outer Worlds 1 or the story at all. You're
on a completely separate thing, so you don't
have to have played the first game to understand
what's going on in the second one. I get what
you mean by story depth in the first one, because
you were sort of just thrusted into it, and then
the storylines that you were playing a part in,
they were very shallow. Not even just that, I
just felt the game was just, it just felt like,
you know, it's hard to explain, maybe like, knowing
you play Fallout or something, Fallout 4, for
example, and you go into a town and that. all
the people are bowling about doing stuff whereas
in like Outer Worlds they were all just standing
still in like the same places they weren't really
like it wasn't like they were moving around doing
shit they just stand there and then you go out
in the middle of the night and they're still
just standing there it's just like that sort
of I'd say it's better it's better now the people
are actually the NPCs are actually doing stuff
and you can interact with most of them and there
is when you go into a town or a city there is
there is more I know what you mean It felt very
empty, whereas now it feels a little bit more
hustle and bustle going on. I think the other
thing is if you compare Fallout 4 to something
like Outer Worlds, even Outer Worlds 2, the mapping's
completely different. So obviously Fallout 4,
or most of the Fallouts, I think all of them
to be fair, completely open world. I know you
can fast travel, but you can go from one end
of the entire map to the other in one sitting
if you wanted to. Outer worlds, you can't. It's
a map -by -map system or planetary thing. And
like I say, I'm like 20 -something hours in now
and I've only just left the first planet. So
I can't really speak for the other exploration
side of it, but the first planet that I was on
was very much the same. Not massive, not small,
but... that open world feeling was there but
you were also hyper aware that you're on one
solitary map yeah i don't mind that that's that's
fine i just felt like i don't know everything
just felt shallow like you you picked up the
same shit constantly there was not much loot
variation it was always the same loot in the
boxes there was never anything like oh that's
great that's what i find i'm glad i looked down
this corridor and like i say everyone stood still
The gunplay was fucking shite. The companions
were shite. Their abilities were shite. I don't
know why. I just really didn't like that game.
The tongue -in -cheek comedy just didn't stick
with me. I just thought it was fucking lame.
And I wanted to like the game. It's exactly the
sort of game that I love. It just did not work
for me. And I have no idea why. It just felt...
crap chances are you won't like this then yeah
that's why i'm bothered because it is very similar
to outer worlds one but it's it's for me i think
it's better i think the guns feel better but
they feel very it feels very very similar just
improved upon yeah but only on a on a smaller
scale because but i'm coming from it of a mind
where i really liked the first one i had very
little to complain about so naturally i'm going
to think oh shit They've made it a little bit
better in Outer Worlds 2. For me, that's great.
For you, it'll probably still be shit. I will
play it. It'll just be one of them I'll pick
up when it's on PlayStation Plus or when it's
like a score or 10 or whatever. But, yeah, I've
got nothing against it and I will definitely
try it. It's just the first one just didn't hit
for me. Maybe it was just the time I played it
and I weren't in the mood for it. I don't know.
But I never gave it another chance, so maybe
that's on me. No, no, I'm really enjoying it.
But there's not really much more I can speak
on it because even though I've put a couple of
hours in, I haven't done much in terms of the
game itself. I don't know how long it is to complete
it. I haven't bothered looking it up. I'm not
interested. I'm taking my time with it. I'm enjoying
everything. And yeah, hopefully, at some point
this weekend, I get to fucking play it because
I haven't touched it since Sunday. I need to
play it. Steam. Oh, yeah. I love Steam. Steam.
Box, Xbox, box, box. That's the only thing I
have done this week. I put Steam Deck on for
about 10 minutes and I was like, my eyes, and
then I turned it off. I'm loving the Steam Deck
at the moment, man. I've played that more than
anything. I'm fucking in love with it, bro. I
think I've even bought more games that I haven't
even played just because that's what you do on
Steam, isn't it? Well, early 2026, you'll be
able to play them on the big screen, mate. Well,
I do anyway. I just dock it. Well, fuck the dock
off and plug the PC in. Well, yeah, there's a
chance I might do that. But if I buy that, I
don't need it. But I want it. And I don't even
know what it does. No, I don't need it. I'm going
to buy it. So if you're wondering what we're
talking about, Steam announced on a random Wednesday
with no prior teasing whatsoever, they released
a video showcasing three new things. The first
thing is a controller. which is basically take
a steam deck, rip the screen off, and then smush
it together, and you have yourself the controller.
It's got magnetic joysticks, so basically they're
calling them anti -drift joysticks, which is
quite cool. I believe the PS5 Pro controller
does the same thing as well. And the coolest
part about the controller is the charging. So
it's just a dock that it comes with. So rather
than having to plug the fucking thing in, blah,
blah, blah, you just dock it on and it clips
in. And I believe the battery lasts for something
like 35 hours, I think they showcased, which
is pretty fucking cool. Mental, to be honest.
And then they also, there's customisable buttons
and all sorts of other higgledy -piggledy. Looks
like a cool controller. By the way, none of this
stuff has a price point yet. There's nothing
official that's come out saying the price. So
fuck knows how much it costs. I wonder if they
do that because they want to gauge the reaction,
interest, and then just see what people... Because
people are going to talk about that all over
Reddit, Discord, the YouTube comments, all that.
I wonder if they kind of gauge the price on what
they feel they can get. The general consensus
of what... So the second thing they introduced
was called the Steam Machine. And basically,
it's a little cube with a customizable faceplate
that you can take off and change with anything
else. And LED light. And an LED light bar that's
customizable. And basically, it is a PC. So the
idea is that you're able to plug it in alongside
your TV. or wherever you want to plug it in.
And it runs SteamOS, not Windows, just straight
SteamOS. So same thing with the Steam Deck. And
you're able to play your entire Steam library.
So they are branded that it is a PC. So you're
also able to access other applications and things
like that from this tiny little cube. I'd say
if you had a standard Rubik's Cube, it's probably
like three times the size of that. So it's really
not that big. It's very, very sweet. It's a square
Amazon Alexa. Yes, there you go. Perfect. And
they're saying that it's six times more powerful
than a Steam Deck. It's got a partly custom AMD
GPU, CPU. And I think from what I was reading,
they're meant to have like a two terabyte version.
And they said that it will run 4K 60 frames per
second. Didn't say what games it will run that
at though. Because the Steam Deck also says it
will run Cyberpunk. And Baldur's Gate. And it
runs them. I know your one will be different.
But the standard one runs them terribly. Unless
you really fucking dull down the settings. So
saying that it runs 4K at 60 frames per second.
That's great. But it only does it with a fucking
2D 5 quid indie game. It's of no benefit to the
majority. There's not a selling point. But going
back to what Ash was saying about price point,
a lot of people, from what I was reading, the
general consensus is that they seem happy to
pay between 600 and 700 quid because it is a
PC. So this is being branded as a not entry -level
PC, but for the gamer that does not want to commit.
Or just isn't interested in building a PC. So
like me for example. I have a laptop. I now have
the room. Because I'm in my own house. To have
a full PC. Set up a tower. I've got a dedicated
room for all of this. Beforehand I didn't. I
still probably won't do it. Because I don't want
to spend the money. And I use this mainly for
World of Warcraft. I don't need a tower and all
the other shit. This plays it fine. So for me.
That little Steam machine looks amazing. Yes,
give me something. Give me that. Because I don't
really like playing games on Steam on my laptop.
I'd much rather sit down on the sofa and play
it and all that shit. And I'm not interested
in switching on the Steam Deck and getting a
dock. It's just not for me. Whereas that little
PC, I don't need it. You don't need it. I fucking
want it. It looks sick. It's just a little cube
that you can just plug into your telly. And if
I want to plug it somewhere else, I'll pick it
up and I'll fucking plug it somewhere else. I
just wonder what the difference is, though. I
know it's six times more powerful than Steam
Deck. What is the difference between that and
me just fucking plugging my Steam Deck into the
dock? Because it all pops up on the telly. It's
all nice. It all runs at 60K. It's all beautiful.
I use my PlayStation 5 controller. All links
up. Perfect. Well, it'll run better. But it runs
perfect. Yeah, but this will run better games.
is the idea yeah that's that's what i want to
know what level of games are we talking about
here um i'm currently uh because also they released
a vr um announced a vr device vr is dead to me
it makes me feel sick i will still talk about
it though because did you did you look into any
of that no very very cool not enough to make
me want to do it because it makes me feel sick
well i genuinely believe steam is one of the
best companies for gaming in the world steam
steam right now is doing what xbox should be
doing steam is i tell you what steam's doing
is filling xbox's hole they're leaving so xbox
are leaving the play state the the the competitive
gaming market and probably more pushing um like
stream anywhere kind of thing and and steam is
stepping in going hold on we've got a new box
that will fill it and make it the trio of gaming
competitiveness again yeah so yeah yeah Bang
on, Xbox is moving towards the PC streaming thing.
Let me have a look. I don't want to watch a video
of it. I want to see a breakdown of it because
there's already been a hands -on with the Steam
machine and the controller and stuff like that.
So people are aware of what's going on. Also,
cool thing with the controller. because it's
steam they've made it so that you can very very
easily take apart the controller and see the
inner workings and change things around with
the controller it's held on it's like two screws
so they encourage you to to take it apart and
fuck around with it um So let's have a look.
So this time around, instead of partnering with
outside manufacturers, Valve is building and
releasing a singular Steam machine with the goal
of being able to run all current games at 4K
with upscaling. The secret behind this is an
AMD RDNA -free GPU with power roughly equivalent
to an RTX 4060 or RX 7600 mobile graphics card.
An RTX 4060 is chonky, decent. This might be
disappointing to anyone looking to max out everything
at high resolution, but it should have plenty
of power while still being relatively affordable
in brackets, we assume. Valve hasn't announced
a price for the thing yet. I spent a day at Valve
playing around with this new mini gaming PC,
and while I haven't had the chance to run my
usual gaming benchmarks, it looks like the new
Steam Machine might be a serious contender for
your living room space. This is by Jacqueline
Thomas. by the way, over at IGN. But I need a
breakdown. On the surface, the new... I don't
know why they're calling it the new steam machine.
I know it's new, but saying the new steam machine
makes it sound like there was an old steam machine.
Which I'm pretty sure there wasn't. Oh, seems
a lot like the old steam machine. What's the
old steam? I'm going to have to go off track
here to have a look at the old steam machine
because I don't know what that is. What do you
need to know about steam machines? They were
a thing? What? Steam Machines are console -sized
computers that feature PC components, run Valve's
Linux -based operating system, SteamOS, and are
compatible with Valve's wireless systems. It
comes with a slick... Oh, they did have things
like that before then, but they were partnered
with someone else. Okay, let me go back. So...
Blah blah blah, they're both gaming PCs with
a modest spec and meant to run games on Valve's
own Linux -based SteamOS, but while the original
machines had trouble selling, mostly due to high
prices and a lack of Linux capability at the
time, SteamOS has changed a lot over the last
decade. The biggest part of this is Proton, Valve's
compatibility layer that essentially translates
Windows games to Linux, allowing you to play
most of Steam's vast catalogue of games on SteamOS,
even if they don't officially support Linux.
Anyone that's used a Steam Deck over the last
few years will know that most games run extremely
well on steam os sometimes even with performance
that exceeds equivalent windows 11 machines as
was the case with the steam os version of lenovo
legion go s the um there are a few exceptions
notably some online multiplayer games with anti
-cheat software that doesn't play nice with steam
os like battlefield 6 and destiny 2 but for the
most part if it's on steam it will run on steam
os um the pc so whilst i was at valve playing
games on the steam machine the company had a
wide variety of games installed to show it off
the pc ran everything from cyberpunk 2077 to
silent hill f without any major issues though
the latter did have some performance trouble
obviously once i get the steam machine in the
lab i'll be able to run a wider variety of games
just to see how flexible it is but for the time
being it seems like most games will run Valve
is also taking the Steam Deck verified program
from the Steam Deck and duplicating it for the
Steam Machine. Soon there will be three different
verification badges, one for the Steam Deck,
Steam Machine and the Steam Frame, the company's
new VR headset, because the hardware isn't actually
out yet. I'm not sure how widespread this will
be, blah -de -blah -de -blah. Doesn't look like
one. It's a tiny little black box with a slim
RGB light bar across the front. The cube measures
roughly six to seven inches on each side and
appears less than half the size of the Xbox Series
X. It's closer in size to a GameCube. Front panel
is magnetic, can be swapped out. I saw a steam
machine with a wood panel, which contrasted beautifully
with the rest of the all -black chassis. Valve
hasn't confirmed whether or not it will be selling
alternative front panels. But the company will
release 3D printing files so you can make your
own. Even that's quite nice. Yes. Because this
is a desktop PC, there's a wealth of ports on
offer with two USB -A ports, a microSD port at
the front. In the back, you'll find a display
port, HDMI, two USB -A ports, and a USB -C port,
along with a power connector. What's impressive,
considering the machine size, is that the actual
power supply is internal, which means you don't
have to worry about fitting a giant power brick
in your entertainment centre. A thin little cable
prints. So this fucking brick here that you see
won't fucking exist. That's great. That's amazing.
I love that. Valve did open the steam machine
so I could get a brief look inside. And what
I saw was impressive. A bulk of the space is
taken up by a giant heat sink, which has an exhaust
fan at the back that sucks air through the front
and bottom of the device and expels it through
the rear to keep the device operating cool. It's
a bold design, especially considering the Steam
Machine's GPU is operating with a TDP, thermal
design power, of 110 to 130 watts, blah, blah,
blah. The bottom of the device houses the SSD,
which will either be a 512GB or a 2TB drive,
depending on which version you buy. The drive
is easily replaceable by the user. Just like
the Steam Deck, the Steam Machine will ship with
an NVMe 2230 drive. However, unlike valves handheld,
the SSD slot has space for a full -sized 2280
drive, which are both more affordable and easier
to find on store shelves. Don't get too hopeful
about upgrading the device beyond the storage,
though. The rest of the components are soldered
on and will not be upgradeable. That is a little
bit disappointing. It says, especially given
Valve's history of letting its users do whatever
they want with their hardware. Blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. The Steam Machine will also be available
with the new Steam Controller or without one,
no matter whether or not you have the Steam Machine
bundled with the controller or not, though. The
PC will have the controller. controllers wireless
dongle built in yeah that's quite cool so the
so the dongle for the controller that they're
bringing out is built into the pc itself it sits
on the side on the inside of the casing which
is quite cool they're calling it a little antenna
um uh yeah so come with the wireless dongle uh
tying things up with the rgb light bar with 13
lighting zones So, lastly, I don't know what
kind of software Valve is cooking up for the
lighting control, though, blah, blah, blah. Bloody,
bloody, blah, blah, blah. Specs and performance.
This is the last bit that we want, yes? Agreed.
The Steam Machine is powered by a custom chip
made by AMD and Valve with an RDNA -free GPU
with 28 compute units, bloody, bloody, blah,
which would place it roughly around the blah,
blah, blah. We've spoken about that. Not exactly
the best graphics chip out there. This is paired
with a six -core lab... 6 core Zen 4 CPU. But
despite the modest specs, the Steam Machine seems
to be a capable gaming PC. I played Cyberpunk
2077 at 4K with the Ultra preset and FSR to set
performance. set to performance and the action
stayed nice and smooth i even went into the settings
menu and turned on ray tracing and performance
seemed to stay solid though i didn't have a frame
counter up telling me exactly what kind of frame
rate i was getting things were slightly different
with silent hill f though after a lengthy process
of installing the shaders something every game
seems to need to do these days it defaulted to
ultra settings at 4k with um with fucking TSR,
in brackets, temporal super resolution, instead
of AMD's FSR. At these settings, Silent Hill
struggled, chugging along at what seemed like
15 to 20 frames per second, not exactly what
I'd call playable. After adjusting the settings
down to a medium, at 1440p with FSR enabled,
things felt much better. But this just highlights
that the Steam Machine is still a gaming PC at
the end of the day, for better or worse. Tweaking
settings to optimize performance is a time -honored
tradition among gaming PC gamers, but again,
might be less appealing to people who just want
to plug in and play. Valve says it intends for,
there isn't much left, there's like one paragraph.
Valve says it intends for the Steam machine to
be able to play all current games at 4K with
FSR, upscaling, but there are going to be plenty
of games, especially ones running on Unreal Engine
5, where you'll have to lower settings to get
it running at a smooth frame rate. Ultimately,
I'll have to get in the lab to benchmark. I'm
sold. Me too. I'm guessing... I'm guessing you
can get a keyboard and mouse for this shit. Yeah,
it's a PC. That's what all the ports and everything
are. Yeah, you'd be able to... Yo, I don't want
to fucking plug it in. You wouldn't have to.
You could still Bluetooth it. Yeah, that's what
I mean. Bluetooth it and then just be a... Pardon
me, be a PC but you can sit on your sofa. It's
a PC. It is a PC. You can connect a keyboard
and a mouse to your Steam Deck. Oh, that just
sounds mental. I've already got... That's too
confusing. I know it's the same. You use Bluetooth.
I know, but you've got a Steam Deck. It's a fucking
Steam Deck. Then plugged into a dock, which is
plugged into the telly. And then I'm using a
fucking PlayStation 5 controller via Bluetooth.
And then I'm going to connect a keyboard. That
sounds like too much bullshit. What I want is
a machine that I go... and then i'm ready to
go well this is what you're gonna have if you
get if you get the steam machine the fact that
it doesn't have a power brick an external power
brick i think is amazing yeah um because that
is one of the ball lakes of having having something
like a laptop um especially if you obviously
it wouldn't be that big but imagine still half
the size of that If that was part of it and you
were trying to plug a steam machine into the
telly, you've now got to find somewhere to rest
that. Because they're heavy, you can't just have
them dangling either because it fucks the cables
up. So the fact that you haven't got that, so
you will just have the cable, is fantastic. So
I'm going to assume... If you've Bluetooth, if
you've wirelessly connected your keyboard and
your mouse to it, that's all you're going to
have to do is have this little cube and it's
going to be two plugs, an HDMI for the telly
and a fucking power plug. That is it. Which is
piss. My laptop has more than that going on with
all the fucking other stuff. I just have a real,
real fucking love for shit like where I can just
play that. and then be like, right, I'm fucking
loving this shit, but I've got to go and stay
at my in -laws to look after their dogs, and
I'll just take my Steam Deck. Yeah. And I can
carry on what I was doing. That is just great.
Or you just unplug the little Steam machine and
take it with you. Just take the cube. You can
put it in your pocket, for fuck's sake. It's
smaller than a GameCube. You can literally just
pick it up, pull it in your bag. And a magnetic
faceplate. The front. I've seen the one with
a wooden... Have you seen the one with the wooden
faceplate? I saw the one where they replaced
it on the thing, on the trailer. The wooden...
It just looks amazing. I didn't care. I'll just
get Darth Vader. It looks so good. Darth Vader
on the front, looking menacing. Yeah. I think
it looks... It will just be the same as a Steam
Deck, but a PC version. I love Steam, I do. I
would imagine it will have the same... to be
able to swap in and out like with Steam Deck
from SteamOS to Linux, which I'm going to assume
you haven't done. I did it once and it terrified
me, so I turned it back. That's fine. It terrified
me too. But I'm going to assume it will be the
same thing. So the OS will be exactly the same
as Steam Deck. I just think Steam is just a great
company. Every day, every single day, I see Reddit
posts. I don't know why I get notifications of
random shit from Reddit, but I do. And every
day it's someone saying, my Steam Deck broke
and it was three years out of warranty and I
asked them fucking for a new charger and they
just sent me a new Steam Deck. And it's just
like, why are they so brilliant? And I'll tell
you why they're brilliant. Because it keeps customers
for life. Well, here you go. You was wondering.
why you would have this rather than just docking
your Steam Deck. While the Steam Deck is plenty
powerful for running PC games on its 800p display.
It can't really handle higher resolutions very
well, especially when you connect it to a 4K
TV. The Steam Machine then is the answer. This
is a living room gaming PC that should be able
to play most games at 4K, assuming you're okay
with upscaling from 1080p, but of course most
gaming PCs should be able to do that these days.
And while the Steam Machine will have to be contended
with similarly specced gaming PCs that can be
upgraded, I don't think this is for the traditional
DIY hardware enthusiast. Rather, this feels more
like a PC for console gamers. which is fucking
you and probably me. People who don't play games
on PC until the Steam Deck hit the market in
2022, which is you, it runs the same operating
system and has the same library, only it will
be able to play games at much higher settings.
After all, Valve claims the Steam Machine is
up to six times more powerful than the Steam
Deck, so it should avoid situations like Baldur's
Gate 3, where the second you load into Act 3
on the handheld, your frame rate slows to a crawl.
So if the Steam Deck, this last paragraph is
for you. So if the Steam Deck made you flirt
with the idea of PC gaming, which it did, the
Steam Machine looks like it will be a great next
step, especially as games get increasingly more
demanding as we head into the next generation
of consoles. For everyone else that already had
a gaming PC, at least the hardware support for
SteamOS is starting to broaden a bit. I've got
a gaming PC, though, and it's sick. Yeah. I don't
use it. Yeah. I wonder if you'll know this straight
away, I imagine. Do you reckon you could play
WoW on that? Yes. Because you can switch it over
to the browser thing. Yes. Interesting. You'd
have to follow the same guide that I would imagine
that you have to follow on Steam Deck because
it's run through Linux. So you have to download
loads of shit. But yeah, you would be able to...
The same way you could run it on Steam Deck,
you'd be able to run it on the Steam machine.
I know, it's quite cool. That was my... it was
quite cool but obviously fucking they're bringing
what was it where I was talking about where I
can't remember where Battle .net got mentioned
as it's going to be able to run on oh yeah the
next Xbox that's coming out that will probably
be a PC rather than an Xbox console will run
natively Battle .net It will be an application
that's already on there, hinting at the idea
that WoW will be coming to console in the very
near future. So yeah, you would be able to download
World of Warcraft onto the Steam machine. I'm
going to imagine the same way you do on the Steam
Deck. Arguably, it might be even easier. I'm
going to assume, even though it's the same operating
system, it won't be exactly carbon copied. The
SteamOS maybe, but the Linux side of it... difficult
to tell certainly be easier to to work with um
because your because your main issue with with
having the laptop was that you couldn't set it
up comfortably wouldn't it really yeah but then
the same thing will happen on the on this though
because then i'll just have to have a keyboard
and mouse on my lap never you you were also able
to play it with controller pretty well so you'd
be able to a standard yeah so you would you would
be able to set it up and just kick back with
a controller instead but also since the last
time you played fucking well they brought out
a one button rotation so for the for the immediate
whilst you'd be learning it you can literally
you can literally have it so that it's one button
does your entire rotation and your cooldowns
are separate so you still click them individually
but it's literally one button that just cycles
through and it's Extremely intuitive. So it's
able to change on a... I think you've mentioned
this before, but you miss out on 0 .3 of damage,
and then obviously for the min -maxes, that's
no good. It's still competitive, which is the
scary thing. A lot of people use it... It's just
cheating then, isn't it? Really? It's accessibility.
It's what it's branded as. Yeah, it's accessibility,
but unless that gap's large enough, it's cheating.
It has to be a clear... If you go into a fight
with someone... It's large enough. You've played
it long enough. If you go into a fight with someone
that does that, if you can't kill them comfortably,
I'd say that's cheating. You can. It's large
enough for you to not use it typically on the
end game. I don't know if people do, because
you can. But that is where it's heading towards
that console release and trying to work that
out. But I'm saying, if you were to have the
Steam Machine... get wow on that and then you
wanted to play it on controller but it was too
daunting at the time there's a button there now
that enables you to get to break through into
that and then start working out go alright well
I want to move away from just one button so that
I can use multiple buttons so rather than you
jumping in going fuck there's 50 abilities and
I have to somehow macro them to a controller
no now there's one one main button in your cooldowns
very very interesting very interesting what's
the buttons? What's the buttons, exactly? What's
the buttons for this? I'm excited for it. The
VR, neither of us are interested in VR, but I
am interested in the hardware that's come with
it. So this VR headset that they've announced,
the VR frame, has eye tracking on the headset
itself. It looks very comfortable. It looks like
a big, massive pair of goggles that just engulf
the fucking eyeballs of your face. Something
that you'd notice with the PlayStation VR is
that trying to focus it is a right cunt, and
whenever you move it, it blurs certain aspects
of it. That won't be a thing on the Steam VR,
so where it will be independently tracking your
eyes. It's also got local storage, as far as
I'm aware, so streaming won't be so much of an
issue. It will run better. other than that i
couldn't really give a fuck it's wireless which
is always nice we love a wireless headset especially
for vr that's something that very very nice it's
not the only one that we do in it but very nice
um so yeah that's all i'll say i think it's fantastical
and i can't wait to play it like And I will definitely
fucking buy it because I'm a greedy cunt. And
that is about it. See you later, everyone. We're
going to go and do the patron.