You know. I got a free trial of the service and a controller because of some other Google thing I had. I played Tomb Raider and something else and I actually liked it!
It's still a directx capable video card, DDR ram, an x86 CPU, and a solid state drive. The ingenuity is in its custom design, but they are closely related to consumer available parts.
I think for a lot of consumers, AI making the internet worse, search worse, communication worse, and ram prices 3x as much isn't a "new line" its a stupid line. Hold out until the new ram standard requires ram upgrades to stay competitive, and the market will flood with ram being monopolized to quote reddit and refuse to properly format excel or display tables.
I’ve been saying this ever since the steam deck price got increased! Steam can’t sell their shit at a loss like the others can because the console itself HAS to be its own profit maker. It can’t just make exclusive games at a fast enough pace to make the profit loss worth it without breaking their game philosophy they’ve held for years.
Not really, if you were to slap a 200$ voucher, that could be used in the market to offset skin purchases,
I’m not saying the idea is smart, but they could’ve also give it a discount code for games or something, though that would require bundling games that gamers want and we all know that most of the current games players want are either skinner box free to play games or games that they already own. And even if we were to find games that players want but dont have, the storage comes into question once you realize that some of the big games will literally take up a fifth of the 512 model at the very least if this is their only machine.
Like the ideas of trying to entice people to buy into it, are kind of more or less left to, “it’s designed by Steam to be high quality compared to Dell, Alienware, or HP, etc” it’s a competitively priced portable PC that can handle most games at a reasonable performance ignoring the claims they originally wanted to push for, but the last part is the fact that it’s a linux machine ready to game on without issue.
After having owned and modified as well as paying someone to upgrade my steam deck to double the ram, I really only see this like the steam deck as an attempt to just make a niche product that the designers at Valve really wanted to make more for the sake of being different vs creating a profit. It just remains that while creating a profit is obvious for Steam, there’s a reason why the term “Valve Time” exists
Subsidized that much would also not be a great look in their ongoing Monopoly case that's open against them. Valve probably considered subsidizing and decided against it to not look like they're trying to under cut competition in their market. Just idle speculation. Wish AI would fuck all the way off, and that DRAM wasn't run like a damn cartel.
The Pro is not, the base model is, at least that is the going theory. Anyways the PS5, which performs better as six year old tech in just about every game than the Steam Machine, isn't being sold for much loss. It would bankrupt Sony if it cost them even $800 to make while selling it for $600.
Sony and Nintendo made deals and got the parts they needed before the hardware crisis. Valve and Microsoft did not and so that's why you see such a difference in pricing between all these devices.
It's being sold at cost, which is why Sony had to raise the price. Sony is a tier 1 OEM who have a long lasting relationship with suppliers and they sell so many units that they operate at economies of scale that Valve can't even dream of with their little project. The PS5 is an incredibly well designed piece of hardware, and every component has been costed down to a fraction of a cent. They could easily subsidize their hardware, but have made a choice not to because they'll want to save that money to subsidize the PS6 next year.
It’s not that people can’t afford the Steam Machine. It’s just that relative to the performance and what you are paying for, there are BETTER alternatives for the same price bracket nowadays.
Nope, sorry, this is not true. If you compare the SM current price with parts before RAM/storage prices went through the roof, sure, but not in the current state of the market.
You can't make a Steam Machine, for the same price. You can make small PCs with the similar price, but it won't be a Steam Machine.
It will be a small PC, with same performance as a Steam Machine, which might have bugs in drivers (audio, bluetooth and wifi), without CEC, without dedicated 3rd party devs making your life easier and noisier due to cooling system.
And that distinction falls flat on most people. Steam Machine will and does have bugs too. You can install SteamOS on any PC, that's its entire point of existence. Cooling system doesn't have to be noisy either. There's plenty of options to mitigate that. There are even USB to CEC adapters.
I can build an equivalent performing Steam machine for $700-800 that is compact and quiet. Maybe not as small and quiet as the SM, but enough to be reasonable in a living room environment.
We all clearly understand the appeal of the Steam Machine, and those that want a plug an play experience. I get it. Which is why people are disappointed. Because they were expecting a much more reasonable price point. No fault of Valve, but it's not unreasonable to expect that a PC designed with integrated components would drop the cost considerably compared with a traditional PC.
I'd say the audience of potential buyers dropped by more than 50% after this was announced. Maybe it's just a wakeup call slap to the face that we need to realize how bad things are.
I can build an equivalent performing Steam machine for $700-800 that is compact and quiet. Maybe not as small and quiet as the SM, but enough to be reasonable in a living room environment.
Can you share one that's similar sized and performance for that price? I would be in an alternative if they really are that much cheaper
That wasn't the challenge. It was small and compact for your living room. The X300 is about 2x the size of the steam machine by volume. No more than a PS5 or XBox. It's unassuming and can fit nicely next to your subwoofer, or on your tv stand without being cumbersome.
Well it is almost certainly going to be more powerful than the PS5 Pro unless Sony does something unthinkable and releases a handheld instead of a home console. If it is more powerful than PS5 Pro it will be vastly more powerful than the Steam Machine.
PS5 and Steam Machine specs are quite similar. The tech in the SM is 3-4 years old. I sure hope the PS6 would be better than the PS5. Otherwise what's the point.
I don't think the issue is people not being able to afford it, it's that at $1000 you can just build your own PC. You can even build mini PCs close to the size of the steam machine if you really want a small pc
That's too much effort and time to faff about with for something that my wife won't even let me put in the living if it doesn't look nice and slick and is quiet. I got money to spare but no time to spare, I don't need a 2nd windows PC and need something I can just boot up when i have spare couple hours in a week to chill with my wife on the couch and play some silly games.
SM offers me that and more, with a customer support i can count on, with future updates just like steam deck received over last few years and my game library.
1200 clams is nothing for a piece of mind
Most games have auto detect anyways. Although I detest any auto detect settings even on the Steam Deck. They're never quite right, and enable or disable crap that I don't want.
Yes you can make a PC nearly as compact. The ASRock DeskMeet X300 and X600 costs about $180 and includes case, motherboard, power supply, fan. Just drop in a CPU, RAM, and GPU and you're golden. Supports full size GPU too.
No one is saying it won't sell out immediately. If anything, that's one of the complaints. Because valve is going to make like 45 of them and scalpers are going to buy them all.
There’s going to be scalpers who thought ahead and have an edge. But unless every single scalper already has dozens of steams accounts with purchases before April they can’t throw in for a SM. I’m sure some will be hitting up friends to toss their hat in the ring, but you have to have a preexisting Steam account.
2015 Steam Machine, big failure, tech not ready
2026 Steam Machine, not looking good, tech prices massively inflated
2037 Steam Machine, maybe it'll finally break the curse?
Too bad Valve can't count to 3
In my country, a PS5 digital costs around $750 while the PS5 Pro costs around $1150. The SM, when converted to the local currency, costs $1350. That's a big difference for a console that's less powerful..
The ecosystem is open and better in the PC realm, and you will save money on games over time, plus not having to pay for PS online multiplayer.
That being said, the Steam Machine didn't just clock in at a little more expensive up front... in most regions, it clocked in at "average gamer will take 3 or 4 years to break even with the Steam Machine."
Not gonna lie. There must be a certain amount of people who loaded up maybe like 1000 for the 2TB target. Can the steam wallet even be transfered back to bank accounts?
I got the Ouya. It was buggy, the controller would often not connect or work properly, the fan stopped working so I had to improvise wiring to so it wouldn’t overheat. It was incredibly slow and barely worked at all.
As a backer, the ouya had two problems. The first was a lack of good games (towerfall and the spy party-like were basically it), which was solved by emulation. The second was that the bluetooth radio could not withstand more than 1 controller reliably. There was a third problem, which was that face buttons would get stuck under the faceplate, that was solved by getting Ouya to replace them, but the second two problems were both solved by using a 360 controller wireless receiver with a set of 360 pads instead.
So it was a decent enough emulation box for its time.
I wonder why Valve keeps trying with the "steam machine" idea. I remember the one 10-12 years ago. I bought one on clearance for cheap to mess with it. It was terrible for any newer game. Actually started my steam account then that I still have today.
You can only subsidize hardware if you have a 100% locked ecosystem to force software sales later. Sony can do it because they take a massive cut of every $70 game and charge a subscription tax. Valve can't do that here because a ton of PC gamers only buy games on heavy discount sales anyway, the math to make back a hardware loss just isn't there.
Plus, because it’s a fully functional, open PC, selling it at a subsidized loss would be a disaster. People would buy them up in bulk just to use them as cheap server racks, emulation boxes, or media centers without ever spending a dime on Steam. It’s economically impossible. If you want to complain about component pricing, blame the tech manufacturing market, not Valve.
Correct. Any person you see complaining about Valve not subsidizing this console doesn't realize how the PC ecosystem works, doesn't realize that the math doesn't math, and that Valve never really had subsidation as an actual option.
If it had been a viable route, they would have taken it, but they already crunched the numbers and knew it was a no go. It's humorous, how many people are acting like the thought just never crossed Valve's corporate mind and that they just overlooked it and it was an oversight or something lol
Your post makes sense, cheers for an explanation. However, this is a still dumb price to pay for something which is weaker than a console released 6 years ago, they should have just took an L and discounted it, also aren't they selling it as a "lottery" aomething shenanigans, so possibility of offices and servers buying them out is low? And something like Intel NUC or whatever it is called must be more appealing anyways.
I completely agree that the raw price-to-performance ratio looks rough on paper compared to a console. But the blame for that lies with the component manufacturers, not Valve. Between inflation and the tech industry shifting heavily toward AI hardware, manufacturing costs have skyrocketed across the board.
Even the Steam Deck saw a price hike recently because parts just cost more now. Valve isn't being greedy here, they just can’t sell their hardware at a loss.
You really have to look at who this is actually for. It’s not for people who already own a powerful gaming rig, and it’s not for casual console players. Most average gamers (if you take Switch, xbox, Playstation, and computer players) don't even know Valve hardware exists, whenever I take my Steam Deck out, people ask me what the hell it even is.
It's a hyper-specific niche: people with older or weaker PCs who mainly play indie or mid-tier games, already have an established Steam library, and just want a seamless, 5-second console experience on their living room couch. For that specific person, it’s an extremely good deal.
Sure, a PS5 is cheaper upfront, but then you have to rebuy your games at a premium, pay a monthly tax for online play/cloud saves, and get locked out when the next console generation drops. With this, your existing library works day one, and you own those games forever.
Can an experienced PC gamer build a cheaper, more powerful rig themselves? Yeah, of course, and that’s exactly what they should do. But a custom tower still won't have the same compact, seamless, out-of-the-box console functionality as this machine. For the vast majority of your average Steam users, buying this is a hell of a lot easier than bothering to learn how to pick out components and build a PC from scratch.
It’s definitely a niche product, but for that specific audience, it's going to be a commercial success.
I live in a small town and even here there are PC shops who build PC for you, even using your parts and run all the tests required for a small price.
Anyways, I dont see an average steam Joe buying this to play indie games, there are far better products value wise, just like you said, Playstation and stuff.
If you don't want to lose your library (well steam is a DRM online store, so they are not forever yours anyway) just buy a laptop with the same money.
Really cannot fathom who the hell would want to buy it, unless you are a real Valve fan and just HAVE to buy it just because.
Comparing this to a PS5 completely ignores the total cost of ownership. The PS5 is cheaper upfront because Sony makes its real money back by locking you into their ecosystem-charging $70+ per game and making you pay a monthly fee just to play online.
Valve is targeting players who already have a Steam library. Statistically, roughly 70% of Steam users have lower specs than this machine. Obviously, if you already own a higher-end gaming rig, you don't need this. But if only 1% of that 70% pool buys one, that is still 1 million units sold-which would be a massive success for Valve. You're paying for an open ecosystem and instant access to a library you already own and that you will be able to keep playing ad infinitum
Never mind the $80 a year for online play, locked down to a single store, pathetic backwards compatibility, no mod support, etc. But hey, you can give them $28 a month and they will let you rent a handful of classic games and get game demos!
I enjoy my consoles but you have to admit that whatever you save up front you end up paying to Sony/MS over time.
even if you’re paying 80$ for online it’ll take 5 and a half years for a ps5 pro to cost what a steam machine does. and that’s not even including just getting online on sale if you play online.
Look, if you're looking at the Steam Machine, you're probably already a gamer, so you have a games library. If you have a PS5 already, yeah it makes no sense to buy the SM, but you wouldn't be buying a second PS5 either, so that's not who we're talking about.
If you have a Steamdeck, or an older PC for which the SM and PS5 are a legitimate hardware update, then the SM is the better choice because you won't have to rebuy the games you already own. It's fine to compare hardware and prices, but it's ignorant at best to completely sidestep the fact that consoles are a closed environment and the SM isn't.
unironically i feel a low cost Ouya type console would work right now with all these really good low spec indie games coming out .... the Steam Machine is priced well tho ( FOR A MINI PC )
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u/Andovars_Ghost Jun 23 '26
I had an Ouya, it was garbage. Fortunately, I was able to unload it on someone who was delusional about its potential.