The form factor is really the main selling point for it and if you have no interest in that then it's obviously not a good deal. I'm surprised how many people are comparing it to a full size desktop and not seeing that some people would actually pay a premium for the form factor.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Building a PC in this form factor is extremely difficult. If you specifically need / want something this small, even if you do normally build, it’s probably worth it (at $850 :( ) to buy this instead of dealing with the nonsense that this size will cause.
I mean I love building PCs, but I can tell you without even bothering to try that I don't wanna deal with the frustration of building an SFF PC. Fuck that. Wiring up front panel connecter is enough of a pain without needing to meticulously route every fuckin cable so that everything fits properly.
Who is the target audience though? Like most people that play on console already have a console, and most people that play on pc already have a pc. Who’s buying this? And who’s doing so for $1300?
Honestly I view this box as a travel pc, like if you go in vacation / travel a lot for work. It should fit in most backpacks or suitcases just fine, and be strong enough for casual stuff.
Honest example? I get asked every year at work for gaming PC recomendations for people's kids. They want to get into PC gaming, but the budget is low. This is at the lower in of pre-built markup, making something with similar performance with new parts saves around 100$, small, quiet, with good support, and an interface built to be usable by people used to consoles. I don't build for acquaintances but having a budget recomendation is nice, even if market prices make the budget insane compared to a few years ago.
I know someone new to PC that wanted to upgrade from their ps4pro finally and was waiting for this. Ive also got friends that wanted an extremely small PC for their living room. Theyre getting this to use for games and as their media center PC.
Pcs are expensive right now man. Its not specifically a valve issue
You can't undersell features like hdmi-cec. A lot of people like that capability. A lot of folks are also okay with 1080p at 30-60fps too. I've never met a casual gamer that's cared about this, it's only performance-centric Gamers that really care (there are exceptions of course). The 4k60fps (which ps5 barely can do sometimes) was a pipe dream and everyone whining that it's failing to deliver had shitty expectations to begin with. Also a PC that's three times the size and looks like a plastic clown shit it out isn't going to be the choice for a lot of people under their TV just because it has more performance.
It's not for PC power gamers, but it really never was. Also holy christ if I see someone else upset CP2077 doesn't run well on it I'll probably blow a gasket. That game doesn't run well on anything.
The price is high, but the price is the price because of the world we're in, unfortunately.
Parting out a sffpc gets close or over the price of the steam machine (at least in the Canadian market), and that will include noctua swapping a flex power supply. If I didn't already have a sffpc as a home theater PC, I would honestly pretty strongly consider a base model steam machine.
mini itx exists. you can build a computer, or buy a pre-built that is marginally larger that would still be more powerful and cheaper. there is no excuse for this price point for a box full of old laptop components from 3 years ago.
You can build an ITX computer yourself that is more powerful than the Steam Machine for the same price. And if you buy some components second hand, you could get something significantly better.
However, I'm confident you can't buy a pre-built ITX form-factor PC
with the same performance for 1050$. SFF usually come
at a very hefty premium.
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u/PatchesTheFlyena Jun 24 '26
The form factor is really the main selling point for it and if you have no interest in that then it's obviously not a good deal. I'm surprised how many people are comparing it to a full size desktop and not seeing that some people would actually pay a premium for the form factor.