The title is a bit misleading, as the article lists diverging analysts’ opinions, ranging from Valve willing to sell at a loss or low margins, to high prices due to RAM and SSD price volatility.
At $1,000 that’d be a hard pass for me even though I love Valve, I could easily build something better for less. I seriously doubt that’ll be the price too, it’ll probably around $600-800.
For me it’s either this or Framework Desktop, I’ve got the money, just waiting for the email from Valve telling the final price.
Steam Machine is better for gaming, which is nice
But Framework can do Mac levels of AI work, which is also nice, it’s also not completely useless for games.
It has a midrange graphics card, it can’t cost more than 5 or 6 hundred
no way this thing costs more than 800
I’m not in the market for the GabeCube but if I were, I’d find a price point of $500-$600 attractive, given it’s mostly just laptop tier hardware. I would prefer it over the current gen of consoles, although I don’t know if there’s gonna be the same level of optimisations for games on this as there is on consoles (most likely not really). It’ll be a ripper emulation box, though.
Upgradability would’ve been nice, too. Soldered in RAM is ok for a hand-held device but for this? Nah mate…I think the RAM just uses laptop sticks, so it is upgradable edit: https://www.digitalfoundry.net/features/hands-on-with-steam-machine-valves-new-pcconsole-hybrid
Oh that’s cool, didn’t see that. I have no idea why Valve didn’t mention that in their reveal, that’s a huge advantage over consoles.
The article i saw a few days ago specifically mentioned that they didn’t really talk about the price but when asked if it would cost more than the ps5 pro they didnt really say no and only offered that it will be priced accordingly to the hardware used to make it. To me, that most likely means it’s going to cost around $1k. The absolute max is would ever be willing to pay is like $600. I have no doubt it will sell, but at that $1k price, they will severely limit the group of people that will be buying it. Honestly, if that is the cost, they should be shying away from even associating it as a console and just market it as a PC due to how people think.
They did say that it’s a mini PC, not a console
Yeah, on announcement day people were adamant about it costing less than consoles, but one look at the specs and you’d know there’s no way of that happening.
I’d be shocked if it’s under $600
I’m calling $700 US price. Valve’s the only company that can get into the console space with console prices since the real revenue source is the game store they run.
Edit: I slept on it and decided $750 is a safer bet, at least on the base model
The problem is that it makes less sense for them to sell at a loss than for example Xbox or Sony. It’s just a capable PC, corporations could buy hundreds or thousands and they wouldn’t make a cent off of game sales.
It’s not impossible, however, have you seen what corporations buy for their employees? Saving on upfront cost isn’t really part of the equation, it just has to say “dell” and/or “workstation” on it. A large company values long-term support and supply way more than what they’d save by getting a gaming machine.
And besides all that, it’s not like the best selling console of all time didn’t make money because a (objectively large) minority of owners only used it as a DVD player.
It’s not a console, it’s a general purpose PC
Uh the same could be said for Sony, Xbox and to a greater extent Nintendo but they’d rather make oodles of noodles money at every interaction.
Here’s a gaming laptop for $700 that I think is similarly powered, except it also has a screen, keyboard, a trackpad and a Windows 11 license that probably represent like $200 of that. I’ll probably pick up a SM if it’s around $500 for the base model, but otherwise, I’ll probably build something instead.
I really would like to upgrade to a steam cube as my current PC is about 15 years old just with upgraded RAM, storage, and graphics but i also only play games that came out over a decade ago too
They can’t sell this at a loss, or at least it would be incredibly risky. This is (intentionally) “just a PC”. It ships with SteamOS but you can of course install whatever you want, including windows. If it is (much) cheaper than a roughly equivalent normal PC, companies might just start buying them in bulk but obviously not generating the supporting sales needed.
I saw in a LTT video that they already claimed they will not be selling this at a loss because they want their hardware division to be self-sustaining.
If they sell it only through Steam as they do with the Steam Deck, companies wouldn’t really be able to buy them in bulk.
I heard at one point in time the fastest super computer in the world was a cluster of 900 ps3. It was cheaper then buying a single computer and in the beginning of the ps3 era you could easily format and run Linux on them.
I certainly remember PS2 consoles being used like that. The cell processor was impressive.
They did it with ps3 also although in research to make sure I was no mis-remembering I found out I was wrong. It was 33rd fastest super computer not #1.
For $1000 I prefer to buy a real PC with a x64 processor
I get the sentiment, but the steam machine will have an x64 processor…
The VR headset won’t, but the PC will…
I’m ready, but Amd is not. I want 4k 120hz on my TV via Amd videocard. But this stupid hdmi forum is blocking this.
Displayport to HDMI 2.1 adapter?
Regardless, fuck HDMI
I tried… it didn’t work…
I have one working from cablematters. It’s slightly finicky (maybe driver issues) but supports HDR, vrr, and 4k@120hz.
Was this an active or passive adapter?
The product description doesn’t mention anything about active or passive. Which makes its very confusing for me now.
It has display port as well, for the picky
Sure, but most TVs don’t, which is the main issue with wanting to connect any Linux AMD build to a TV
I will only consider buying it if it’s half that price. Also I’m in a specific intersect of necessary mobility & content with what I have.
Even if it won’t be that high, it’s definitely gonna cost more than Steam Deck.
Higher RAM price is irrelevant as it acts on the whole market, it’s not a disadvantage specific to the Steam Machine
It may act on the whole market, but it doesn’t have the same impact on every OEM.
It’s a bigger issue for Valve than the console competition, who have established supply chains potentially with fixed prices for certain terms or at least more significant volume discounts, and proprietary compatibility hurdles binding their customers, so they can sell hardware at a loss if they want to.
If Valve sells the computers at a loss they run the risk of people buying them for other uses, without generating corresponding Steam profits.
If this post is intended as discussion material; No, not as long that I have my stationary computer that fills my gaming needs.
I guess if you have a stationary computer that fills your gaming needs you really aren’t the target group regardless of the price.
I have two consoles for the family and casual gaming I’d LOVE to replace.
This ain’t it.
Who is?
There is zero market for an underpowered “PC” console with less VRAM than literally every other current console including switch 2 that is gimped from half of PC games by Linux.
This thing just does not make any sense
Unless they reveal a huge list of exclusives, this is dead in the water.
Who is?
My ex wife for one, who would like to play Steam games but is not experienced enough to build and fiddle with a gaming PC, much less Linux, and just wants a box she can just plug in and turn on without calling all the IT folks in her family.
Don’t forget about our nerd bias. Most people here have a different perspective than 95% of normies. Remember how clueless the average person is about the inner workings of modern tech.
There is zero market for an underpowered “PC” console with less VRAM than literally every other current console including switch 2
The Switch 2 only has 12 GB of LPDDR5X shared memory between CPU/GPU. 3 GB are reserved for the system, that leaves you with about 9 GB shared between CPU and GPU.
The Steam Machine uses GDDR6 and has 8 GB of dedicated VRAM.
Of course there is. I would much rather have this than a gaming console. Don’t have to re buy any game and all the benefits of the PC library of games. Perfect for couch gaming and possibly doubling as a media device.
The list of exclusives you refer to is literally PC games, a library massively larger than any console on the market.
8GB VRAM is enough for upscaled FHD games.
What’s your favorite console?
From everything we have heard… I would be shocked if it wasn’t pretty damned close.
Gamers Nexus touched on the pricing info they were given. Go watch the video to confirm but off the top of my head:
- The Steam Machine will be priced competitively with an entry level computer
- The Steam Frame will be below the price of an Index
So what that translates to is
- The Steam Machine will likely be in the 800-1500 USD range
- The Steam Frame will be up to 1000 USD
Which… sounds about right. The Steam Frame is going to use a comparatively cheap Snapdragon processor but it still needs all the HMD tech. The Facebook Quest 3 is around 500 USD and considering economy of scale… that is probably the price floor for the Steam Frame.
And the Steam Machine? That is rocking a proper Zen 4 with 16 gigs of DDR5 and 8 gigs of DDR6. Considering how expensive RAM already is and how that probably ain’t going down until late 2026 at the earliest… And it is worth noting that people lost their shit over the ROG XBOX ALLY X S 45 WHATEVER being 1k but… spec wise that lines up with similar laptops. The display is a decent chunk of that, which the Steam Machine won’t have, but… yeah.
Computers is expensive. Especially in a Post Liberation Day world. It will be a miracle if the base console price (because you can bet the PS6 is gonna do the same stupid bullshit MS did with the Series S…) is below 900 USD with the “real” price being well over 1k. And the Steam Machine is going to be priced along those lines because Valve (presumably) doesn’t have a bunch of warehouses full of parts from five years ago.
The good news is that if you already have a gaming PC, and don’t need the Valve branding, you can get a pretty solid AMD NUC for 300-600 USD that will run Bazzite perfectly and play a lot of your games locally with the rest streaming over Moonlight or Steam Link. GMKtec pretty much have this market on lock and I personally love my K11 (overkill but also really nice to not have to walk upstairs to wake my desktop for every single game).
You’ll have the same nonsense with HDMI 2.1 as the Steam Machine will (so VRR) and AMD but there are workarounds for that (basically you flash a displayport dongle to be REAL sketchy). And you’ll be able to take advantage of most of the software improvements Valve are pushing for SteamVR, SteamOS, and Steam Link that are going to be coming rapidly for the launch. MUCH less oomph but… people who are expecting proper 4k experiences out of a Steam Machine are lying to themselves.
