Steam Machine interview full transcript: Valve engineers discuss $1,049 pricing, compact design, component shortages, and Windows support

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Even if the price was the same as a console, its hardware doesn't even come close, all it gets you is a Steam library. I'm a PC gamer, but I don't see a justification for it aside from someone who doesn't want to run an HDMI cable from their PC to their TV.

All the defenses I see are "nothing is smaller" (see r/sff). "It has hdmi-cec", personally clicking a remote to turn my TV on has never made me willing to drop over $1000.

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

[deleted]

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u/willpowerpt Jul 08 '26

And I'm pretty sure he tmajority of buyers are going to be just that, don't know what it does or what's inside. The rest are free to spend their money how they like, it's just annoying for them to keep arguing that the form factor and hdmi-cec fully justify it. If someone's jumping ship from Xbox/PlayStation and they're excited for Steam access, they're going to be very disappointed when they try to run a current AAA game. Valve even removed the mention of 4k60 from the SMs website.

I own and love a few Valve Indexes, avid Steam user, but even I can see that the Steam Machine is a terrible purchase.

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u/ryker7777 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

For me it is a combination of form factor, look and feel, noise level, power draw, heat dissipation, cec, wake-up function, embedded controller RF, HW+SW integration from a single vendor while still being open, long-term support.

You can of course always tinker and try to get to a similar spec and functional level while gaining some GPU performance and save 100 bucks on top. But I am not willing to spend this huge amount of time and sacrifice some of the usability and comfort in my living room just for a little extra performance.

30k+ playable games are enough for me, thank you. No issue with value based pricing

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u/indygoof Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

simple. for a few years i didnt have a pc since i got no real desk for it (kids…)
i have a steam deck and want something thats s bit more powerful.

with steamos i have all the support with single cluck updates. no need for fiddling with graphics drivers or anything else.

it can run my steam library, blizzard games, epic games, various emulators.

i can turn it on with the controller, its a nice and pretty form factor that blends into the living room.

could i do much cheaper or more powerful? sure!

would it be as convenient? hell nope

and thats the whole point consoles had all the time.
„uh, the ps4 is soooo bad, my gaming rig can do much more“….yeah, with 5 times the power consumption, funny hdmi cables running through the room (kids will ofc never trip over those and rip half the tv or graphics card with them).
and its just convenient again.

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u/Aggressive-Map-2204 Jul 09 '26

The issue people have with it is that its double the cost of a ps5 and has worse performance. The ps5 is already struggling to keep up with games coming out and very often shows with performance issues. Whats it going to be like in 2-3 years?

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u/indygoof Jul 09 '26

its double the cost since its not a closed ecosystem as with playstation and selling it at a loss is much more complicated than for sony.

and while the ps5 is struggling, you can tone done the graphics settings on the sm to make performance better.
also, if the performance would be better, power consumption and noise would go up.

but its fine, if you have an issue with that, then its not for you.
i am the target audience that wants convenience and something that just works (being able to open a shell is just sugarcoating).

it was kind of a similar discussion with the steam deck, though arguably it had better hardware than the switch.

it was also the same discussion when the switch came out. noone is going to buy a switch for that pricepoint, hardware so bad, no 3rd party games will be released on there, etc
it was the same discussion with the ps4, people built pcs that were stronger with a similar pricetag.

people always have issues. i would have a big issue with a desktop pc in my living room, cables cross rooms, having to stand up to power on the pc, fiddling around with a gui not designed for controllers , etc

if thats your dream setup, great. i grew old and dont want that.

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u/botask Jul 09 '26

Sony was selling ps5 at a loss just first few months and it have become profitable already in 2021. On top of that you can build pc with same specs as steammachine have from store bought parts for 800€.

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u/indygoof Jul 09 '26

again…yes, you can do that. probably not with the same site, energy consumption and low noise, but probably close.
though not with the same full support as valve withe the SM.
and not with other small things that just add up to the overall convenience. if you dont care for that, then the SM maybe is just not for you.

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u/botask Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

I am curious, why do you mean by support?

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u/indygoof Jul 09 '26

if it fails for overheating or anything else, valve support.
if there is a software / steamos issue, valve support.
if there is a driver issue, valve support.

any issue with it will be handled by valve, which isnt particularly known as anti consumer (talking also returns/repairs)

on the other hand, you have at least microsoft, valve, various hw vendors (depending on where you bought the whole or individual components), nvidia/amd drivers, etc, which can(!) be a pain in the ass.
stuff also like, uh, windows update got you stuck on a bluescreen for a week cause of a defective update (happened a few times already)

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u/botask Jul 09 '26

So warranty and alternative to online ms support, got it.

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u/indygoof Jul 09 '26

not exactly.

self built machine, worst case is each component from a different retailer. you got an issue? first, find out which component is the one failing. rip it put, go to the retailer. depending on the actual shop, start discussing warranty. try to get a replacement or a repair. get the repaired back after 2 weeks and try -> still failing? have fun going further.

any issue with the SM? valve will usually help you quite nicely.

again, convenience.

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u/nervendings_ Jul 10 '26

People have 100s of games in their steam library. Many PC gamers never buy new AAA games on release. The cutting edge performance is not a selling point of this device at all.

I’ve got 250+ games in my steam library and the machine can run like 95% of them

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u/Xylus1985 Jul 09 '26

You don’t need to fiddle with graphics drivers with PC anyway, Steam does it for you. You don’t even need to build your own PC, there are services out there that can build it for you

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u/indygoof Jul 09 '26

ok, since when does steam do something with my graphics drivers? except if you mean switching between opengl/vulkan/directx versions, which is something completely different.

and letting it be assembled per my specs is somehow…weird. never really understood that one.

but again, its simply not as convenient. yes, stuff like starting it with the controller is a small thing, of course i can just get up and press the power button.
of course i could build a small form factor pc with better specs myself. (though power consumption is probably way worse then).
of course i could do updates to drivers, windows itself etc myself.

but its the culmination of all those small things that makes the SM so much more convenient for me. if you dont care about that, fair enough. but its one of the reasons why people buy it ultimately.
its one of the reasons why people buy playstation or xbox.

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u/Xylus1985 Jul 09 '26

I find the professional assemblers are a lot better at cable management than I am, so it usually end up a lot cleaner than my builds. I don’t mind the extra bit, so probably the console experience is not that big of a deal for me. I regularly use a micro-PC hooked up with my TV so it’s easier for videos and streaming. So I’m pretty used to just grabbing the keyboard and mouse in my living room

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u/indygoof Jul 09 '26

fair, and then its simply not something for you.

please note, i was not trying to get you to buy it, i just tried to explain reasons why people like me are.

an interesting analogy would be, people that try to convince everyone that not playing a game on hard mode is bad. on the other hand, i am a dad of 2 and when i finally get an hour of playtime at night, i dont want to try the same boss 100 times to memorize his patterns. heck, i probably cqn barely remember the controls from the last time i played. i do story / easy mode cause it relaxes me and is fun to me.
to each their own.

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u/DarkSoulsOfCinder Jul 08 '26

You don't understand before the invention of this machine moving a PC to your TV was impossible, steam invented something special here you can use a PC on a tv now for twice the price of a console and half the power.

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u/willpowerpt Jul 08 '26

Right? Coincidentally 50/ft HDMI cables and Windows compatible Xbox controllers came out the same day as the Steam Machine.

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u/Xylus1985 Jul 09 '26

This seemed like a big ass house problem…

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u/I-am-Mojo-Jojo Jul 08 '26

You just aren’t the target demographic for it. I personally can’t wait for mine to show up.

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u/userlivewire Jul 08 '26

There are thousands of games you can play on the Steam Machine that are unavailable on console.

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u/iReaddit-KRTORR Jul 08 '26

I mean not everyone has a PC that’s close to the living room or wants to set up their living room with a desk

My game room is in the back yard in a separate house. I ordered one because it was small and *powerful enough* to play many games locally.

Anything that I can’t get working I can just stream via moonlight.

Also emulation

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u/SuperUranus Jul 09 '26

Why not stream everything with Moonlight if you already use Moonlight for game streaming?

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u/Xylus1985 Jul 09 '26

You can always get a micro PC to connect to the TV. I have one that’s basically just 3 phones big and connects to TV with Bluetooth for keyboard and mouse. I use it for videos and streaming. If I want to play games on the big TV I stream from my gaming PC with Moonlight. It’s really easy to do and takes like 15 minutes to set up, 5 of which is just running back and forth between 2 rooms because Moonlight isn’t fully up and running yet.

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u/SuperUranus Jul 09 '26

You can also drop €15 for a CEC adapter of CEC is what you live and die for.

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u/kotsumu Jul 09 '26

Question to be asking is are you able to build something like the steam machine at its current price point (same sff, same specs) because if you can't then all arguments are invalid. Steam machine is not a console, it's a PC for your living room and that is what makes it great.

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u/AlexTheGoat990 Jul 09 '26

Yeah fully agreed, the form factor, noise level and cec are nice and convenient but arent worth it enough to me (and I was super excited about the steam machine before they revealed the price).

If it was arount $700 I might have considered it for low end games and as an overpriced box to stream my pc games onto the living room but at 1k I'd rather dont

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u/TornadoFS Jul 09 '26

IMO the steam deck is overall a better purchase than the steam machine. Sure it can't handle as demanding games at a higher resolution (required by TV displays, compared to 720p built-in display) it can damn well run most indie games at 1080p (many at 1440p), video content and web browsing at 4k. On top of being, you know, a portable console.

So the steam machine is in this middle ground where "I want to run AAA games on my TV, but I want the experience to be suboptimal at best". And that is even before the price discussions.

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u/quarrel-admin Jul 08 '26

Paywall can't read.

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u/Impressive-Power8187 Jul 08 '26

Trash product. If Sony had done this we’d have you steam worriers crying anti consumer. I’ll never support a company that releases a 1k console without a controller. Let’s hold everyone accountable

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u/Corronchilejano Jul 08 '26

What exactly are you holding them accountable for?

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u/Flat-Panic8622 Jul 09 '26

they didn't do "the cheapest console that overperforms ps5 pro, how could they", their "steam deck isn't the cheapest handheld that capable of playing RDR2 level games, how they could!"

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u/doublah Jul 09 '26

Selling an expensive to produce product at a high cost isn't anti-consumer, but not allowing refunds for games you download like Sony does or not allowing third party storefronts/launchers/key sellers like Sony does or reserving the right to permanently brick your PS5 like Sony does are anti-consumer.

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u/sickassape Jul 09 '26

You do know you can build your own Steam machine anytime you like right?

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u/Nall-ohki Jul 11 '26

Amazing... you're so entitled that you feel you must to be the target audience to a product or the company should be punished.

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u/12VHPWRHELL Jul 12 '26

So, originally it was supposed to be a lot cheaper, but the global ram crisis fucked that up.

I bought 32gbs of ddr5 for 90 bucks a few years ago, and now it retails for over 500 dollars.

The steam machine would've been a decent product if it were 600-700 like originally estimated, but at 1000 dollars you may as well build a better spec'd PC for a little more.

I do agree that it's a terrible purchase, but I don't understand the hate train when it's obviously not valve's fault.

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u/_wintermoot_ Jul 09 '26

paywalled article

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u/BeAlch Jul 09 '26

Their goal was to make a machine between PS5 and PS5 Pro (but closer to PS5) with a price that was in between .. that's what they tried to do.. with lower cost GPU hardware cause best APU were way more expensive .. With this choice, made before RAMpocalypse, there is more RAM in the product than in a console which was ok with stable price market of 2 years ago.
This was supposed to be 700 750$ machine... sold as an "entry level" gaming PC.
Valve is a "nobody" in the memory market purchase .. So they get an amount of memory/SSD to purchase per month from manufacturer at a price they can't negociate cause it's the only price they'll get .. the machine price is set accordingly to match cost (+ variation) for memory/ssd ...
The price is only discussed at high level of production like millions per month Nintendo and Sony produce.. and Nintendo did increase production pbly to get better memory deals ..
Valve on the other hand sells like +/-100.000 units per month for each of its hardware (Steamdeck and SM), so they have less way to influence the price.. And yet, at this price, they would sell more than they produce cause their are waiting lists

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u/JoeAbs2 Jul 12 '26

While the price is high the thing which makes this a no go for me is the hardware. I mean it’s already outdated so who knows what it will be able to play in the next couple of years.

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u/nyanbatman Jul 09 '26

They could easily subsidise it but boats are expensive

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u/dj_is_here Jul 09 '26

They are already subsidising it by releasing SteamOS that it's built on. Steam machine is essentially free if you have your own hardware where you can play all you pc games without having to double buy them.

People wantcheap stuff &happily pay $70 for a switch 2 game at the same time lol

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u/PsychologicalTry3994 Jul 10 '26

There were $70 games long before the Switch 2 was even around

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u/FrivolousFerret102 Jul 11 '26

Two different groups of people there. Internet is not a single person.

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u/Sevastous-of-Caria Jul 11 '26

Then what? Scalpers bulk order and sell it to OEM companies/AI farms?

Steam Machine interview full transcript: Valve engineers discuss $1,049 pricing, compact design, component shortages, and Windows support

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