Is Valve Taking On Microsoft? with Steve Burke

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Steve Burke of GamersNexus to talk about Valve’s new console-like Steam Machine and Vision Pro-like Steam Frame, and what this means for the future of gaming. GamersNexus: Valve Steam Machine, Desktop SteamOS, Steam Frame VR, & Controller | ft. Engineering Discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ Valve Steam Frame Engineering Deep-Dive: Water Cooling, Thermals, Power, Acoustics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NSjvJDe6Ic Support GamersNexus’ AI Surveillance Dystopia Series: https://store.gamersnexus.net/ai-dystopia https://www.youtube.com/gamersnexus https://gamersnexus.net/ https://bsky.app/profile/gamersnexus.bsky.social https://x.com/GamersNexus Steam Machine: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine Steam Frame: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/ Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at https://discord.com/invite/QUUQUP9szv Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Email Me: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

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• 1:08Speaker 03

  Call Zone Media.

• 1:11Ed Zitron?

  Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host, Ed Zitron.

• 1:26Ed Zitron?

  And I'd like to announce that much like Nvidia revealed in a recent leaked memo, we are also nothing like Enron. Today, I'm joined by the wonderful Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus, who's going to talk to you about, I know it's a thematic shift from the show, about something that actually exists. And we're talking about an announcement from a few weeks ago from Valve, about the Steam Frame Headset and the Steam Machine Console. Steve, thank you for joining me.

• 1:49Speaker 05

  Thank you for having me. A quick question. What was the Enron thing?

• 1:53Ed Zitron?

  Yes. Oh, no, this is, this is important. So Nvidia had an internal memo that they put out, and they said, it's, and the headline from Barron's was, I'm just going to pull this up right now because it's one of my favorite I've ever read. Nvidia says it's not Enron in private memo refuting accounting questions. Ah, good stuff. That's, that's, that's what we want to hear. And apparently, and they were like, we're nothing like Enron because we don't use SPVs to inflate revenue.

• 2:23Ed Zitron?

  It's also good. It's all it's all real, Steve. It's all very real.

• 2:27Speaker 05

  I'm starting to I'm starting to have my doubts that the AI stuff is built on anything real. Although I did hear about the the two data centers that are currently sitting empty because the grid can't support them until 2028.

• 2:41Ed Zitron?

  Oh, which ones?

• 2:42Speaker 05

  I think it was in Northern California.

• 2:44Ed Zitron?

  Hell, yeah. I love this. This is we live in the future. But genuinely, talk to me about the Steam machine. What is this thing? It's like a games console. Like, walk me through it.

• 2:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I mean, this stuff's actually it was a really nice break from everything else, because, like you said, it's real. They're actually doing stuff. It's consumer facing, so that's nice. And there's some pretty some of these things have cool innovations in them. So the Steam machine is a small, basically small form factor PC. But it's kind of positioned almost like a console, at least in terms of sizing, the intent to be used with a TV or in a living room, although it could be used desktop. But instead of being a more closed down console, it has the openness of a PC in terms of you have access to BIOS and things like that. Some modularity of components.

• 3:38Speaker 05

  And it's running on Linux. It's running on SteamOS. And so right now, we've had some hands on time. We had interviews with the engineers. We have the specs. Haven't tested it yet, you know, can't make any value judgments or anything at the time because they haven't even given us a price. But it does. There are some cool things, I think, that regardless of how their launch goes with the Steam machine. It is, in the very least, very promising for Linux, which helps to maybe get people unstuck from Microsoft. So.

• 4:11Ed Zitron?

  Yeah. So what makes this thing unique, though? Is it just like a because Steam, for those listening who don't know, Steam is a it is not really a monopoly, but it's like the best way to download games and keep track of them, I would say. But it does also involve paying one company.

• 4:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:29Ed Zitron?

  But is that really it? Is it just a big PC is because you've you've at least messed with it a little bit.

• 4:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's it is still.

• 4:40Speaker 05

  I I think it still qualifies as sort of just a computer, but um really what they're doing is I guess in the same way that some handheld devices are technically computers. I mean, a lot of the modern handheld gaming, we'll call them consoles, are actually just handheld PCs. Some of them, a lot of them have windows on them even. Um, and so it's that concept, except applied to a cube that goes, I mean, people have been jokingly, I don't know who coined this and I wish I did, but people have been jokingly referring to the Steam Machine as the Gabe Cube, as in Gabe Newell, the CEO of Valve.

• 5:19Ed Zitron?

  That's really good.

• 5:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I I saw that and I was like, God damn it, I wish I thought of that for a video.

• 5:25Ed Zitron?

  That's a banger. Well, so is it, so is it the, is it like a kind of consumer friendly UI? Like, have you, what, how much have you had to, how much of a chance have you had to play with it?

• 5:35Speaker 05

  Uh, we had in total, I think it was about five or maybe six hours with Valve. And um, so in that time, we were able to speak with engineers and, you know, mess around with it. So yeah, it's a SteamOS, which is on the Steam Deck. So the Steam Deck is a gaming handheld device that uh, these have existed for a long time. But the Deck was kind of the first one in recent years to really breathe life into the gaming handheld market outside of Nintendo. And um, that's not necessarily because everyone bought the Deck, but it's because all the other manufacturers saw like, oh, this is real. Like Steam is a serious uh, venue, you know, to move games and people will buy stuff.

• 6:19Speaker 05

  And so uh, Asus and Lenovo and all the other competitors jumped in. So the Steam Machine is building on that because the Steam Deck uses SteamOS, which is a, an Arch Linux based distribution. And uh, it has a, a lot of optimizations that solve long running problems with Linux uh, and gaming in general. So that would include, for example, um, translation layers and things like this. Uh, so they, they build on that. And then, yeah, as far as the user experience goes, it is a basically a sort of big picture mode or desktop mode, you know, operating system. But it, it's computer, it's just you kind of navigate it more like a console, I guess.

• 7:03Ed Zitron?

  Did you play it at all?

• 7:04Speaker 05

  Only a little bit. Yeah, we tested the new Steam controller.

• 7:09Ed Zitron?

  What? Yeah. Talk, talk to me about the, how does that feel in your hand? Cause I'm, I have peculiar hands myself and that thing looks straight. It's got like two little touchscreens at the bottom and.

• 7:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, it is large. It's so the two, it's basically a.

• 7:26Ed Zitron?

  Screens, but you know.

• 7:27Speaker 05

  Yeah. Touch, touchpads, trackpads. So it's got two trackpads and they function like, um, like a laptop trackpad, except there's haptics and things like that. There's a gyro and.

• 7:39Ed Zitron?

  Or something like buzz is kind of like, kind of like you get on the switch as well.

• 7:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You'll get like the haptic feedback like you would get, you know, yeah, in a phone. And, um, yeah. So controllers. To me, it's interesting and, um, it's cool that they're trying it again. They last tried a controller somewhere around a decade ago. And it went.

• 8:03Ed Zitron?

  With the Steam, the, the Steam, the thing that could mirror your Steam PC, right?

• 8:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, they had the Steam link, the controller.

• 8:12Ed Zitron?

  Yes.

• 8:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I think there was like one more thing in that sort of round of hardware. I don't really remember it. Maybe the Steam boxes, but, um. Yeah. So the, the original Steam controller, I guess, went so well that they had to dump them on fire sale for $5 each.

• 8:28Speaker 05

  And they've memory hold it by releasing a new Steam controller with the same name.

• 8:32Ed Zitron?

  But how did it feel? Was it, how does it feel in comparison to like a first generation Xbox controller?

• 8:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, the first gen Xbox was, it's probably, I think the Xbox controllers are probably regarded as one of the sort of most, um, you know, user friendly layouts.

• 8:54Speaker 05

  It's hard for me to say too much. The stuff that I tested with it in the limited time we had with it was, um. Related to some of the more unique inputs. So I will say it is a little larger.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  But um.

• 9:08Ed Zitron?

  Larger than the original Xbox controller or like larger than like an Xbox 360.

• 9:13Speaker 05

  Larger than, larger than a more modern, yeah, Xbox controller. I would have to put it next to the original, but.

• 9:19Ed Zitron?

  That, that's an idea for the future.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, but the, some of the interesting inputs, I guess. So.

• 9:26Speaker 05

  There's a grip sense where when you, if it's enabled, when you let your fingers off of the grip. So you're still holding it, but you're not like tapping your fingertips to the actual grip of the, you know, controller. It'll detect that and it can use that to. Stop input. So you can rotate, you know, it's got a gyro. You can rotate to turn in the game if you want, and then you can basically lift your fingers off if you want to stop. Or kind of. Stutter step the rotation as you move. And so it's got, it's got some like clever execution of input. It feels like it takes some inspiration, maybe from things like the Switch and stuff like that.

• 10:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, and this is important, not a single time, literally not even once. Did at any point, anybody from Valve say AI in that order of letters?

• 10:20Ed Zitron?

  Oh, magnifique. Thank God. Not once.

• 10:24Speaker 05

  Not one.

• 10:25Ed Zitron?

  How delightful. God. No, it's because they're building a real thing. I, how do you feel about this? So I was talking to my mate, Casey Kagar, our friend of the show about this and he, he kind of put the thought in my head. This could be a quite dangerous. Like this could be quite dangerous to Xbox, especially because Microsoft is kind of. Just sitting there and letting that fester at times.

• 10:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I think. This is probably the absolute best time for anybody new to try and get into. Like console or console equivalent type devices and. In particular, I mean Valve is, is a deadly combination with it, but Xbox is kind of at the lowest of its lows.

• 11:10Speaker 05

  You know, they just, they. They can't seem to stop fucking everything up and. Their best new thing they have is just a rebranded Asus ROG Ally handheld.

• 11:23Speaker 05

  And like that's doing well for Asus, but by Microsoft numbers historically, it's not impressive. And so, yeah, I think Microsoft right now, it's they're in a compromised position. Their sales are awful. I don't have the numbers offhand, but they're they're easy to find and they're just not even close to what PlayStation's been doing. They're losing control of the market and it just looks like they're kind of going the route of Sega right now. Where Sega, yeah, Sega abandoned consoles, for anyone who doesn't know, and they went full on game publisher. And so, yeah, I mean, I agree. I think Steam or Valve is in a position right now where

• 12:03Speaker 05

  this is before a new console launch cycle from the incumbents. And it's when Microsoft's at its weakest with Xbox. So it's really good timing for them.

• 12:14Ed Zitron?

  Well, I don't know what you're saying. Microsoft can't innovate any further because they're reading this now, it's 24th of November and I read this, Xbox prices could go even higher. Because ground shortages, they seem to be doing it. It is really funny to just follow the Steam machine with that as well. Just being, just being like, hey, guess what? It was more expensive and it sucks more. Do you like it? Please, God. But

• 12:41Speaker 05

  And the Xbox has been out for like a long ass time now. I don't remember when it might be like five years already or something. The prices are supposed to come down. And I know like some of these are whatever market factors they can't exactly control, although even though Microsoft does kind of have a big part in the AI thing that's making the prices go up, but we'll forget about that. Yeah, there's stuff they can't control. But even still, like, consumers aren't gonna wanna pay more for a thing that is now ancient.

• 13:16Speaker 00

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• 13:47Speaker 02

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• 14:19Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 14:33Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic. In a big way, that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 14:44Speaker 06

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• 14:50Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 14:55Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 15:18Ed Zitron?

  It just kind of, it feels like they've been spinning their wheels for the longest time because it felt like they were sort of moving away from Xbox by leaning on Game Pass. Then it turned out, giving everyone access to as many games as possible for $30 was not a good decision. So now they're, they want to do something else. It just, it does, I hadn't thought of the Sega comparison, but it really does feel like that. Like Microsoft won't die, but Jesus.

• 15:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, they're fortunate, I guess, to have their spine division with Windows. So they'll, they'll be fine, I guess.

• 15:55Ed Zitron?

  Their, their ad revenue they get from installs of Windows on laptops that take 10 minutes to turn on.

• 16:00Speaker 05

  Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No, they're, that'll keep them in business maybe better than what Sega had when it left hardware. But yeah, no, they're in a, they're in a bad spot for Xbox. I'm not really sure what the plan is over there. It doesn't seem like they're sure either. So.

• 16:16Ed Zitron?

  So I had a specific steam machine question. So what's it doing GPU wise? Like, is it doing, is it doing like a, one of the AMD ones with both a GPU and a CPU on the same die? Like, what, what is the situation there?

• 16:28Speaker 05

  It is. So for the silicon, the short answer to that question is it's an RDNA3 GPU with 28 CUs. And I'll kind of loop back to that. But the silicon in general, the CPU and the GPU are the only non-modular sort of normal components that you might swap in a computer. So meaning you can't change the CPU or the GPU. This is a big split from a normal computer. They're using BGA parts, ball grid arrays. They're soldered to the board. And that makes it more like a laptop. In fact, they are basically laptop parts. They're semi-custom

• 17:08Speaker 05

  laptop CPU and GPU that are discrete. And the, yeah, the GPU, so RDNA3, 28 CUs, that makes it a little bit smaller than an RX 7600 as an example. Off the top of my head, I think that's 32 CUs. And.

• 17:29Speaker 05

  The CPU is a Zen four part. It's six cores, 12 threads. Their maximum advertised boost is 4.8 gigahertz and they claim a 30 watt TDP. And so for reference, I mean, some of the other low.

• 17:44Ed Zitron?

  How does that compare to like a gaming handheld exactly?

• 17:47Speaker 05

  Well, gaming handheld, it's yeah, it's higher power than a gaming handheld for sure. So it is, it is better than that. You have the benefit of not worrying about a battery, not worrying about skin temperature on the device. Cause they're not holding it. And so for those reasons, they can run more power. So I think they're in total somewhere around 110 watts for the GPU. And then a 30 watt claim for the CPU. So, you know, with, with other miscellaneous devices and with inefficiencies and whatever, you maybe call it 200 watts. And I think the power supply is 300 watts. And, and so compared to a handheld, I mean, that at peak power consumption,

• 18:28Speaker 05

  which you're not normally at, uh, this is significantly more power and will perform. I mean, significantly better. It's a big difference.

• 18:37Ed Zitron?

  Kind of it almost feels inevitable as well, because the fall of Microsoft, sure, it's that they don't give a shit and don't seem to be trying in any way imaginable. But it's also at some point we were going to meet, we're going to reach peak console, surely. At some point there's just, how much more can we do with this?

• 18:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think, and you can, this is, this gets into like a broader, interesting topic. I've been thinking about lately too, but which is, um, for gaming in general, you know, you, you do hit a point where it's like, okay, the graphics are sufficient. And actually now the kind of meta is, you know, more people are playing indie games that don't push the graphics to insane levels. And people are kind of rediscovering that, oh, wait, I play video games to have fun. And it doesn't need to be.

• 19:30Ed Zitron?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's that? Well, no, that's not why I play. I play games to get upset. Yes.

• 19:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, I have a game for you. I need an investor right now. Actually it's AI company simulator.

• 19:47Ed Zitron?

  That sounds more fun.

• 19:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, I think the the thing with the, um, on the gaming side, uh, I think the Steam Machine on a technicality, like it's, it's more powerful than a lot of hardware people have. I guess if you look at the Steam survey, um, in reality, it's a low end modern computer. And, uh, I think they're probably going to be partly leaning on things like FSR upscaling to try and bridge the, the gap, the performance gap. I mean, one of the things they didn't say that I can remember when we were talking to them,

• 20:31Speaker 05

  but they did say on the spec sheet was that the Steam Machine supports, um, 4K 60 FPS with FSR. And, uh,

• 20:42Ed Zitron?

  That's pretty good. And FSR is the one where they use AI, but like actual, actual AI, real stuff.

• 20:49Speaker 05

  Actual machine learning. Yeah. Like actually does something. Um, yeah. And so like, I, I wasn't too happy about that when I saw that on the spec sheet. Cause like saying factually, it's probably accurate because it says with FSR there. But, um, that's, it has to always be there. They can't just say 4K 60 because there's a big difference and this hardware cannot do 4K 60 without some kind of crutch, which FSR would be. But, uh, point being, you know, it's, it's a low end computer. They say it's going to be priced like a, an entry level gaming PC. I don't know what that means.

• 21:24Ed Zitron?

  Anything.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:26Ed Zitron?

  That could mean literally could cost seven million to like, what the?

• 21:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a big range. I mean, it's, you know, in the old days, like 20, I don't know, 12 to 16. Maybe you could build a super low end PC for 450 bucks. More realistically, probably 550. That's kind of gone now. So, um, so I think they'll have some pricing.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  The biggest concern is for sure price, but at a hardware level, really, I think the big story is the Linux side and then what you're saying, the Microsoft side where it's like, is this just kind of twisting the dagger on Xbox?

• 22:07Ed Zitron?

  I, I hope so because Microsoft sucks and Mike, and the thing is PC gaming is cool. Like it's the, the one, like it's one of the great things about it in that there's such a great indie gaming, gaming industry and I feel like Steam is, though imperfect, is a great way to get into that in a way that I don't feel like the big consoles are.

• 22:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, indie games are kind of like the lifeblood of it now. I feel like there's so much character in them and they're very accessible in terms of often price, but also not being overbearing on systems, you know, requirements.

• 22:45Ed Zitron?

  Well, my favorite game of this year was Dead Zone Rogue, if you have played that.

• 22:50Speaker 05

  I have not, but I will look it up.

• 22:51Ed Zitron?

  It is a, it's a rogue-like, it feels like the, and I realize there are numerous other sufferers who listen to this may not understand what I mean. It feels like when Destiny was fun in the single player, it has that kind of very clicky, very, it was just very satisfying game. Indie game, never heard of the developers, don't know if they've ever made anything before. Fantastic game. I haven't enjoyed any AAA that much, unless you consider Hades 2, which I'm not sure that counts.

• 23:19Speaker 05

  I feel like that doesn't really count, you know, like it's, yeah, I feel like that, that to me still feels like sort of the smaller, um, yeah, side of things. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, there's a big market there and I think, um, I, I do think that big picture for some of these companies, I was about to say gaming companies, uh, referring to, you know, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, but that's not really what they are anymore. But look at. These companies, I'm happy to see some of the success of indie games and I'm happy to see things like a steam machine in terms of hardware being capable of playing most of the games people

• 23:58Speaker 05

  play. Because specifically, you know, the cynical side, it's like if you sell GPUs for playing games and the graphics have kind of peaked for a while and it might take a few more years to really reach another major peak where it's invalidating older hardware to a point where people feel forced to buy something new to keep the flow of money going for the companies. In that situation, cynically, it would feel like you would need to invent a problem to solve so that people will buy your next GPU to play games unless you can generate sort of escape velocity from the gaming side and get into some other business, which right now

• 24:40Speaker 05

  appears to be AI data center. They don't need to invent problems to solve for gaming because they're doing that for someone else.

• 24:46Ed Zitron?

  Invented one for the economy.

• 24:48Speaker 05

  Right.

• 24:50Ed Zitron?

  But it's, it's actually, this is, I feel like you, this is just a question I had, I forgot to ask, you can't replace anything inside the steam machine, it looks like?

• 24:59Speaker 05

  So you can do the RAM, the...

• 25:01Ed Zitron?

  Oh, that's not bad.

• 25:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, the RAM is so dim, so it's laptop memory sticks. And then you can also do the SSD. It supports up to M.22280, which is the sort of standard larger form factor. Those would be the main ones, I guess.

• 25:17Ed Zitron?

  That's not too bad. Can you, hard drive is probably going to be solid state, though.

• 25:21Speaker 05

  Yep, yeah, solid state. And then it is very accessible. I mean, it's, it's easy to remove the cover and the heat sink, if you wanted to, you could poly, you could swap it. The fan is easy to swap and replace. The power supply has a blade connector, so it's sort of similar to server form factor styles where they don't use cables, but they use just a connector. And so all of these things, from a repairability standpoint, would in the very least be easy to repair and swap. Valve has a pretty good track record of making those parts available for the Steam Deck, so hopefully they'll do that here, too.

• 25:59Ed Zitron?

  Yeah. Jesus, I'm not used to companies not just immediately being evil.

• 26:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, there's still time.

• 26:08Ed Zitron?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:09Speaker 05

  There's still time.

• 26:09Ed Zitron?

  It could end up being $1,200. Like, that's where I could see them fucking this one up for me.

• 26:15Speaker 05

  Right.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Empower is all about helping you invest well, so you can go out and live a little. And their Free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals, and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends, or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money, and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.

• 27:28Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 27:42Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 27:53Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 27:59Speaker 08

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 28:04Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 28:29Ed Zitron?

  Talking of successful industries that everyone loves, the Steam Frame.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:35Ed Zitron?

  What is going, what is this meant to, is it, is it meant to be a Vision Pro situation? Is it meant to be like the, like, like, what was the Valve Index? Like, what is it?

• 28:45Speaker 05

  Steam Frame is pretty interesting. So the Steam Frame is a new VR headset from Valve. They launched the HTC Vive with obviously HTC a long time ago now. And then later the Index and then there was Oculus Rift that later turned into Meta Quest. And so that's kind of the VR industry. It's really just, these are the, um, the, the big milestones. There've been a lot of other devices in between, but Valve is jumping back into it with what they're calling a Steam Frame. The Steam Frame is pretty interesting in that it both has standalone functionality with basically an integrated, we'll call it a compute unit that mounts to your face with the goggles.

• 29:30Speaker 05

  And, uh, and then it's also got streaming capability where it streams content from an actual gaming computer. And so Valve is here leveraging the fact that it has a, an unbelievably large library of games, probably the largest ever to have existed. And, uh, the fact that most of its players probably have a decent gaming computer. And so they can render the game content on their computer and then stream it to the headset. Basically you're cat, you're casting a video to the headset. Uh, so you're not rendering locally. And then that allows you to be tetherless and wireless from the computer, which solves a lot of the problems this kind of VR has had historically.

• 30:15Ed Zitron?

  But it does own its own thing.

• 30:17Speaker 05

  Yes. Yeah. So, but the new problem, if you're doing this is anytime they're streaming, there's latency.

• 30:24Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 30:25Speaker 05

  Yeah. And so the concern just becomes if I'm streaming this from my computer, instead of playing it with a wire plugged into the back of my headset, uh, am I going to notice that? In actions in game and the cool part, I think that maybe this technology could apply elsewhere in some capacity, but is what they're calling foveated streaming. And so, yeah, so there's already a thing called foveated rendering. But basically, the concept is to preserve bandwidth and maximize sort of how much data

• 31:09Speaker 05

  you can get across without causing major latency issues, you know, to keep the frame rate high and everything else. What they're doing is they are targeting specific areas where the eyes are tracked to be looking and then rendering those, assigning basically the maximum amount of bits to those areas. Yeah. And everything else gets a reduced bitrate in the streaming, uses less bandwidth. And so it technically renders at a lower quality. But in the quick testing we did, you know, I only had a little bit of a hands on with it, but I couldn't tell. I mean, when I was, when I was looking wherever I was looking in the headset, it looked full quality.

• 31:53Speaker 05

  And then if I tried to, you know, quickly dart my eyes over somewhere else, like I, I'm not fast enough. I don't know that any human is fast enough really to move your eyes quick enough to be when it detects your, your change of focus and then reassines those bits to the new area to maximize that area's resolution. So I think the response time is something like eight to 12 milliseconds.

• 32:20Ed Zitron?

  But it's a, it is both like a Vision Pro and a VR headset.

• 32:25Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. In the sense, yeah, you can technically do like, call it productivity tasks and things like that.

• 32:33Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, I just, I, I'm, I'm a Vision Pro truther. I actually think that, I think it's a fun idea. I wish there were more fun ideas like it, but I also recognize I'm peculiar for that one. And also I don't think Apple gave enough of a shit. It's just, it is nice to see Valve doing something. I think, I realize also talking to you about this, how depressing it is to just be like, yay, someone did something else.

• 32:59Speaker 05

  I mean, that's, that's how it felt. It was like, it's, yeah, I mean, the VR side doesn't get a lot of love compared to when it started.

• 33:09Ed Zitron?

  It does, but it does VR games as well, though.

• 33:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, it's primarily a VR gaming headset. And then they are saying, look, if you want to replace your monitor with this, you can do that.

• 33:21Ed Zitron?

  That sounds expensive, though. And of course, they have yet to say how much this will cost.

• 33:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, they said less than an index, but they didn't say how much. And

• 33:31Ed Zitron?

  Okay, so.

• 33:32Speaker 05

  And an index. Yeah, there's a few SKUs. I think the commonly cited.

• 33:37Ed Zitron?

  Dollars.

• 33:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, they range like 600 to, I want to say the highest is 1200 or something, but it's not going to be 600. It'll, it'll be a thousand plus.

• 33:49Ed Zitron?

  But we, and we don't really have an idea of when these things are coming out, do we? Just next year?

• 33:53Speaker 05

  Next year, the, the frame, specifically the Steam frame, the VR solution, they said early 2026, which in my experience, early to a lot of these companies just means first half. So.

• 34:05Ed Zitron?

  Yes.

• 34:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:07Ed Zitron?

  You excited?

• 34:08Speaker 05

  I am.

• 34:09Ed Zitron?

  I'm, I'm oddly excited about both of them. I, it feels like we're finally getting something in PC gaming again.

• 34:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I'm excited because for that same reason, it's nice where it's like, okay, it's just the hardware and there doesn't appear to be a lot of bullshit. So, you know, if we test it and it's not the best solution for the value, then fine, that's a really easy review. You know, you maybe you say it's good, but it costs too much. But that is a lot better than saying, like, what I'm kind of having to lately think about, which is, okay, when Nvidia launches their next GPU. How do I handle the conclusion where, you know, do you get to the end and you're like, uh, other than the fact that they're partnering with Palantir, which has openly admitted to,

• 35:00Speaker 05

  uh, developing technology that is used on occasion to kill people, the GPU is pretty good. You're like, how do you cross that bridge, right? Like it gets into this really serious stuff.

• 35:10Ed Zitron?

  It's a problem across the whole tech industry. So I think Google's working with Border Patrol.

• 35:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:15Ed Zitron?

  Like it, it's just, and I always had the theory that people were like, wow, I can't believe the tech companies are suddenly doing this. I'm like, they have been fucking waiting.

• 35:25Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:25Ed Zitron?

  They've been looking like this has been, they're like, oh, goodie. Finally the chance to make all that revenue from the evils.

• 35:32Speaker 05

  Or they've already been doing it and now it's just more in the open or whatever.

• 35:37Ed Zitron?

  Um, yeah. And it's, and I'm guessing that this is becoming increasingly a challenge with like, even with like AMD, who is increasingly, though I realize the evils are slightly different there.

• 35:47Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, AMD is, um, is not quite as, uh, boisterous, I guess, as Nvidia in that way, but they, they still, a lot of the same concerns. And so, yeah, with Valve, it's been, I think that's why,

• 36:04Speaker 05

  why the reception's been so good on this, cause there's no, there's no hardware launch yet. It's just announcements, but the sentiment's pretty high and I do think that's because people just feel so kind of beaten down.

• 36:18Speaker 05

  Uh, where it's just every RAM prices are skyrocketing over a hundred percent in several cases. I think we saw one stick, one kit that was like 185% higher than it was three weeks ago. Yeah. Um, that's going to affect GPUs. That'll right when the prices were coming down on those. And, and these will affect the steam machine, but I think just like the, the sort of, hey, it's just hardware that plays video games. And I guess if you want to use it for other stuff, you can too. Like that sadly is pretty exciting right now. Uh, so, so yeah, I'm excited about it. I think the steam frame I'm actually really interested in, I, um,

• 37:00Speaker 05

  The original VR testing we did, we did some really cool VR benchmarks a long time ago.

• 37:07Speaker 05

  And it just kinda did it a couple of times, never did it again. I thought it was a cool idea, but the setup for VR was just way too burdensome. At that time, I was still running the company out of my childhood bedroom. And so RoomScale VR was like,

• 37:28Speaker 05

  you'd need to spend like three hours cleaning your house.

• 37:32Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, the term room was a little bit fungible.

• 37:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it was like, but now it seems like all of that has matured a lot. And as someone who has not felt any desire whatsoever to play any VR games for the last like 10 years, I actually do really want to try the Steam Frame. And I think it'll be pretty fun. Yeah.

• 37:56Ed Zitron?

  It's so weird. It's like we even, I wouldn't say Microsoft was ever known as like a deeply quality company, but there was at least at some point a level of prestige to it. There was like, oh, Microsoft would never just make a big pile of shit. They'd never wheel out of, I mean, they might do that in their software, but it felt like they were at least, there was the brief period where we could humor ourselves being like, oh, I like my Xbox. Not anymore.

• 38:22Ed Zitron?

  Fuck you, customer.

• 38:23Speaker 05

  I do, I think you're right. I mean, I think the hardware for a while, it was like,

• 38:30Speaker 05

  it seems pretty serious, you know?

• 38:32Ed Zitron?

  Their laptops were pretty well respected. I like the wind. They had the weird, I think it's Panos Panay who's over at Amazon now, but they had like a weird thing where they were respectable for laptops.

• 38:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:46Ed Zitron?

  And now, I don't know, it's all just, it's all eating itself, it feels like.

• 38:51Speaker 05

  Well, it felt like, it felt like after, after the Zoom, they realized they needed to change something in hardware and it went okay after that. And just to put it out there, I, I still have my original Zoom.

• 39:05Ed Zitron?

  Oh, yeah. Hell yeah, I I I'm a was a creative nomad guy myself.

• 39:12Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, creative got really screwed during that whole period. I mean, it was. Yeah, just in the sense that it was like creative was kind of they were sort of their first or very early and they they did a lot of innovation and they just got squashed by Apple. Uh, you like Apple did kind of the Apple thing where it just it's this juggernaut and

• 39:35Ed Zitron?

  Drop their weight on them.

• 39:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think there was even a lawsuit. I want to say creative one. It was maybe like a couple hundred million dollars or something. I don't know. And

• 39:43Ed Zitron?

  I'll load this up.

• 39:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, that's it's a it was one of those win or lose, you still lose.

• 39:51Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, yeah. No, no one's winning by the end of this other than Apple. Oh, boy. Well, on that happy note, Steve, what where can people find you? And what are some recent things they should go and look at?

• 40:03Speaker 05

  Hundred million dollars, 2006, by the way, Apple will pay creative 100 million dollars for a paid up license to use creatives awarded patent. MP3 players. Anyway, what was your question?

• 40:14Ed Zitron?

  Oh, yeah, they it's just where can people find you? And what are some interesting things you've been covering recently?

• 40:20Speaker 05

  Most interesting, yeah, recently is um, so we have a story coming up where I previously mentioned to you, I would be going to the UK for something and you immediately said, I'm sorry.

• 40:33Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, that's the appropriate.

• 40:36Speaker 05

  And so we went over to London. Um, we've got a really interesting thing we're finalizing now where uh, I'm still trying to sort through who's right, who's wrong, all that stuff. But like long story short, there is a guy who uh, bought Sega, Nintendo, Microsoft and other game development kits and development cartridges from a scrapyard. Uh, we visited the scrapyard, we visited the guy and um, he was arrested by the police. And um, Sega was connected to it. They had a private investigator look into the guy and basically all the, you know, the companies involved in the chain, as far as we tell

• 41:20Speaker 05

  freaked out when they found out their game development kits and cartridges made it into the hands of a person, even though they had thrown them out. And uh, we're basically trying to sort through.

• 41:32Speaker 05

  Where did stuff fall through the cracks? And is this an overextension of a corporation into someone's home to work with the police on a raid over game development cartridges? You know, or is there any?

• 41:47Ed Zitron?

  These were old games, right?

• 41:49Speaker 05

  Primarily, I think there's maybe like some Switch stuff in there, which is, I think, probably what set the alarm bells off.

• 41:56Ed Zitron?

  Fucking Nintendo.

• 41:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:00Ed Zitron?

  Anyway, but that, so that will go up, I'm guessing in the next few weeks. So of course we'll link to Gamers Nexus. But yeah, thank you for joining us, Steve. It's always a pleasure having you.

• 42:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

• 42:12Ed Zitron?

  And you've been listening to Better Offline. You can find me at betteroffline.com. Who knows when this one goes out? Been in the next couple of weeks, he says, knowing that you'll have no concept of the time scale I'm talking about, but thank you so much for listening, everyone.

• 42:33Ed Zitron?

  Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com. M A T T O S O W S K I dot com. You can email me at [email protected] or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot where's your ed dot at to visit the Discord and go to r slash better offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.

• 43:05Speaker 03

  Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 43:38Speaker 02

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• 44:40Speaker 09

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 44:53Speaker 10

  Zolir 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people 1 year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolir, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolir. Zolir may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolir should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolir is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolir.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolir.

• 45:36Speaker 10

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