Tag: steam

[Life] Steam Machine Thoughts

I’m going to preface this by saying that this is not an unbiased review of the steam machine. We’ve had a steam deck in our house since 2022, and absolutely love it (for reasons that I’ll get into shortly). It is not a surprise that we also enjoy the steam machine a great deal. If you’re looking for unbiased comments or someone who hates it you’ll have to keep searching.

To start things off, we are a 4 person gaming household. We have two PC, a laptop, and (previously) the steam deck (now replaced by the steam machine). We also have a Switch 2, but that isn’t the object of this post.

Our steam deck handled our (huge) steam libraries, including family sharing, and also hosts our xbox game pass (streaming library). That in itself is a very large collection of games. The steam deck would see daily use, but it had some limitations, not all games work, and some games really needed a mouse / keyboard combination. It has also been a few years now, and I’m not certain if you can upgrade the hardware, it was starting to show its age.

So we discussed whether we would buy a new PC, another laptop, or the steam machine. All of them are expensive prospects this day in age. Eventually we decided to go with the steam machine. I put us in the queue and waited for the lotto – which we did not initially get in.

A few weeks later, here we are.

It was VERY simple to set up. I did also have to configure it to add the xbox game pass to it, but that went without a hitch. I know these days you can also add GOG, Amazon Gaming, and even Epic Games. I haven’t done any of that.

We opted to go with the 2TB version, and got the controller, too. The price could absolutely be reduced if you opt to go with the 512GB version, get an SD card, and forego the controller (you can use a wireless xbox controller just fine). The footprint this machine takes up is TINY, which is amazing. It’s silent, and so far honestly I have nothing negative to say. It has only been a day though, so of course I’ll need to give it more time. Hopefully it holds up just as well as our steam deck has.

Teddy’s Haven

There is a shop type game on steam that just recently released (Early Access of course) called Teddy’s Haven. You set up a shop, you upgrade the shop, decorate the shop, customers come, and then there’s also things to do outside of the shop – adventuring type things. Farming and gathering type things. Sometimes strangers wander by and sit outside, buffing your shop sales for the day. There’s also some cats you can pet. Yesterday someone dropped off a baby bear and I’m supposed to use a heal potion on it but I have no idea how to do that. You can stock your shop with things from a never ending catalog (they cost coin) or you can harvest items yourself from the beautiful world around you.

The characters who come to your shop are all sorts. Pictured above, a flock of … geese… came by. What on earth the geese wanted daggers and swords for – well, I’m just the shop owner. It’s not my job to judge the patrons.

The game was only $15 CAD, and I found it to be absolutely worth the money. I can’t wait to see what else gets added to this game, but even if nothing were to change from the state that I played today, it’s still absolutely worth what I paid for it (and more).

As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself.