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Valve confirms Steam Machine will be priced ‘like a PC with the same level of performance’
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
At that rate why not just build your own pc?
this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2025
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I agree with you but for the sake of answering why the average consumer might go the GabeCube route: convenience and a warranty.
I’d say more important is the fact that a community will exist around it. For the SteamDeck you have no idea how much easier it is to find answers to very specific problems simply because the exact same hardware is being run by millions of people.
Also for similar reasons, some developers will optimize for the hardware.
I actually have a Steam Deck so I definitely understand that. The amount of cool tools built for it almost overnight was amazing.
Sadly NCIX went out of business, which was my go to recommendation for this, but they used to build your PC, install an OS, stress test it, and provide a 3 year warranty for like $150 (Canadian). I’m sure there are computer places like that out there still…
Microcenter with their PowerSpec lineup, for example. I think this one has made the rounds as an example of what the Steam Machine would have to compete with.
Drivers, optimised OS experience, attractive packaging, maybe some slight improvements over trying to purchase parts individually.
Nobody really does prebuilts for running linux with gaming in mind. I have built many a PC over the years but long gone are the times of (aud) 5 dollar ram sticks and 300 dollar last gen GPUs. Even peripherals have gotten stupid, monitors chasing ridiculous resolutions and refresh rates or having displays not well optimised for video games.
You can hunt around, and if prices settle a bit I might try and build a microatx for couch gaming but I'd be surprised if I could beat their price without spending some serious time bargain hunting.
Having a hardware software combination that was actually tested by the vendor is nice.
I feel like 95% of PCs, probably even gaming PCs, are bought prebuilt anyway.
building your own sucks and it's a million times worse if you have to go through a vendor RMA process. A lot of services now let you spec yours and they'll build and test (at least make sure it boots) for you and I much prefer it at this point
its a device not for everyone.
i personally see it as a device thats easy to point to. if soneone doesnt know pc gaming well, its an okay box to point at at the surface level without needing to look up prebuilt prices.
Should have subsidised it as a loss leader. Valve could have sold the console for fuck all then made all their money with game sales. The console market is bigger than the PC market, they could effectively triple the size of their existing Steam sales just by taking over the market.
Very poor strategy tbh
Because it's just a linux PC if they did that they would have to stop people buying them to use for general computing.
It's not locked down like a PlayStation or whatever. A lot of the appeal of a steam deck is that it's just a computer with a convenient UI and peripherals, locking it down might have lost them more sales unless they really tried to become full on console providers, but then you're cut off from a lot of the OSS they use and in an arms race with hackers /shrug
Even PlayStation consoles have been used for mass general computing because it's cheaper hardware sold at a loss.
On March 28, 2010, Sony announced it would be disabling the PS3's OtherOS feature, with the v3.21 update, due to security concerns.
This caused the end of the PS3's common use for clustered computing
Even when closed-source lets you do fun stuff, they soon stop you 
Wow cool! I didn't know about that!
Yeah, and that's bad strategy too.
unless they really tried to become full on console providers
Yes, that's what they should be doing.
Nothing else matters in this industry, market share is everything. They need to cut into the market first, then they can chill out once established. Valve is not special in the eyes of console gamers, they do not have a brand outside of PC market.
This is just a random ass box with no brand recognition, with no exclusives, with a high price for a console, and no selling points to the average person.
It's not a serious competitor to Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft.
PC owners will make it look like it's going to be big because they'll talk about it on the internet a lot, but those very PC owners talking about it have no reason to buy it. Meanwhile it offers nothing to the console market and isn't coming in with a business strategy designed to carve out market share or establish a brand that is unknown to this audience.
Idk and I don't really care but more locked down platforms that destroy customer rights and charge you for the privilege of using the internet connection you are charged for is like the last thing that anyone who enjoys video gaming needs.
The steamdeck seems to have printed them money, they extract huge rents from almost everyone who wants to sell video games, l'm sure their money printer will continue to go brrrr buying more stupid vanity yatchs for a billionaire.
I'm not saying it would be a good thing. I'm saying it would be a successful thing.
This will not put a noticeable dent into the console market with this strategy. I don't even think it's intended to. The entire idea that they're even trying to compete with Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft with this looks like nonsense to me. I don't think they're trying to do that at all. Seems more like it's targeted at the PC market for people that want a living room system and already have a steam library.
Seems more like it's targeted at the PC market for people that want a living room system and already have a steam library.
I thought that was obvious? That's definitely how they've presented it, it's also how the steamdeck was presented. I mean the whole thing of the steamdeck was like "do you have a giant backlog of stuff you don't play because the big noisy lightbox is inconvenient and isolating?"
Sony alone is so deeply entrenched in Japan it may as well be a branch of the government. PC gaming is increasingly expensive and fringe with mobile gaming being the largest and most profitable area. The steam cube thing seems pretty clearly positioned as "Just plug it in and turn it on, congrats all your games now work with a controller on the couch" box.
Yeah but half the internet, including some things posted to Hexbear, seems to think it's a real competitor. People are saying that this is good and will harken real competition back into the console market. That's not what this is at all.
The entire gaming industry right now is just Microsoft, gambling you can't win targetted at children, and Sony/Nintendo + developers joined at the hip.
Like how the steamdeck inspired copycats it might breath some life into PC hardware, and reduce microsoft's stranglehold a bit/lifeboat some people fleeing windows but it's not like this will magically let you run sony/nintendo exclusives + your back catalogue, provide the game gamepass integration as xbox/windows, or move your friends and gamerbro expensive pixels.
If anyone thinks that they probably don't grok how entrenched the big 3 are, they're part of people's identities and have like geopolitical influence lol.
Oh I suppose also I think you might be underestimating how much they'd have to hire to go full console. Like the scale of manufacturing and the lack of tolerance for bugs and jank would conflict heavily with their style of frequent experimental software updates and developing compatibility layers.
If the controls of some game on steamdeck are weird a PC gamer goes "yeah I'm playing a 2015 indie game on a handheld, let me see what I can tweak". A console gamer gets angry at being lied to (since consoles are supposed to be a polished experience).
Most companies don't really survive massive hiring, given how much money they currently extract and the lack of public trading requiring infinite growth I can see why they might want to avoid that.
They could calculate how many people would realistically change their operating system and not use steam after buying the steam machine. I'm sure a lot of people would not do that.
They could get a lot more steam sales just by enabling more people to have steam compatible devices.
It's more businesses buying lots to use as a compute platform or to part and use in their own builds
If they sold it as a "loss leader" with any kind of descent video card it would be hoarded by crypto mining or so.
Disappointing mostly because this was the perfect time for valve to eat all 3 console maker's lunch
Honestly could sell them at a modest loss to make the price competitive with consoles then just rake in mountains of cash with game sales
They're afraid of a company doing what happened to the PS3 when it allowed you to install whichever OS you wanted. Companies bought 1000s of them and turned them into cheap supercomputer clusters, never buying a single game. That would be even easier to do with the steam machine since it's just a computer. Think of all the AI startups.
they could do something like give you back $120 of steam bucks rather than directly cutting the retail price
That's an idea. Even $60 in your account, and maybe it comes with all the valve games preinstalled or something like that. I'd love that course because you would be getting all these new PC users with no steam games, and every one of them would have a base set of games they could play together. That would give them a baseline network effect, which is what was keeping them on xbox/playstation in the first place.
I get the impression though that valve likes to keep the value proposition of their products as simple and straightforward as possible, with a minimum of whizbang extras. I imagine they do it because in a market full of scammy microtransactions, it feels more "honest" to the customer.
Iirc, when they released the knuckles/index they gave away copies of Half Life Alyx. So free shit isn't necessarily out of the equation.
Yeah that makes too much sense
TRUE! fuck the techbros, keep those prices reasonable.
It doesn't seem all that great for that with its specs anyways - 8GB VRAM, 16GB RAM doesn't sound terribly appealing unless it's well under 1k for that when you're probably getting less VRAM per dollar than buying a Mac Studio at like 4k (96GB)
not subsidised to reach lower price points, as is often the case with PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
Consoles have not been subsidized in a meaningful way since the Playstation 3 and that was almost 20 years ago.
I wonder how much RAM prices have thrown a wrench in things. Prices of some units have doubled even in the past few weeks.
That makes sense. Sony has a monopoly on PS5s and games. Nintendo has a monopoly on Switches (though they sell at a profit). Valve, of their own volition, has no monopoly over the steam machines so they get no boost from subsidizing to increase game sales. But a homogenized PC market helps valve as a store and helps all game devs, including valve, have a target for game optimization.
Someone in one of these video (might have been Linus Tech Tips) made the point that if they subsidized that thing people might just buy them as office PCs or otherwise unrelated to gaming, which would be a problem because they'd be losing money and presumably supplies are limited. Still think it would be smart to sell it at cost just to fuck the competition, it's not like this makes any dent in their profits, which are ridiculous.
Might still sell okay at 700-800$, there's probably some people that need an upgrade or some console gamers that want to get into PC gaming, and it's cuter and easier than building your own PC.
They could have an initial period where they lock it to one Steam Machine per active Steam account with a history of game purchases on it like I recall them doing with the Steam Deck in the early days, or as Nintendo did with their accounts for Switch 2 preorders.
Any estimates on what that price might look like?
I saw someone price out similar components around ~500-600 USD, so thats my guess.
That's prett competitive for console prices these days
Yeah, I think people are really blowing this out of proportion. PCs aren't that expensive (yes I know its a luxury good, and out of reach of lots of people), especially entry level, and there are a lot of good options near this price/form factor. If its priced as high as half the estimates I've seen people would just DIY it for the same price without the valve branding.
I would pay extra to avoid the hassle of pc-building. I can do it but I don't enjoy it
I think it will be 650.
let's see how it launches before we call it DOA alright folks? their target demo is kinda muddy right now. i think the full launch should clear up who the the target demo actually is. right now the most likely option is the current steam deck owners which i think will wait for steam deck 2 instead, but we'll see.
Some small PC builders in Australia sell gaming PCs on almost no margin for around $750. It would be neato if they could get close to that as it still puts it in PS5 range.
I just saw the optical disk version of the PS5 on sale for the equivalent of ~US$380 at a nearby store. Presumably the digital-only version is even less. The Steam Machine has a slightly shittier GPU but is going to cost 2-3x the price, isn’t it? Why bother with the fucking thing if that’s the case.
I certainly don't see it, but I guess they are confident enough that there's a market for people who want access to the gigantic Steam library but also don't want to build their own PCs? Maybe it's going to run very smoothly, but that would also be dependent on the optimization of each individual game.
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