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.
$1000 is still less expensive than my next PC I would need to buy after Windows 10 ends.
If it can run the Epic Games Launcher, too, I would use the Steam Machine for gaming, some cheap laptop with Windows 11 for my tax software and everything else that forces you to use Windows, and a Mac for work.
As long as it doesn’t run Win11
No way in hell. For $1,000 I’ll just build one myself.
There are two red flags on the new Steam Machine — the fact that it still includes USB-A ports and the 8GB of VRAM. Anything under 12GB is a major problem in 2025. While there are adapters for USB, I hope they offer a version that includes 12GB or 16GB VRAM.
I was pricing out an entry level gaming PC for one of the grandkids for Christmas and the price of parts has gone mad. It’s even worse if you want to make a smaller ITX build. How does less material and complexity translate to higher costs? And storage and memory are ridiculous. With a few small upgrades, even at $1,000 these would be a steal. It’s a shame they won’t ship before the holidays.
So right now, we’re discussing Steam Decks with some third party docks and accessories so they can be used like a PC. I can’t find anything better.
Moore’s Law Is Dead thinks that Valve basically got a bargain bin deal from AMD, who had a bunch of chips they thought were going to be used in a MSFT tablet, but that tablet got cancelled.
So, Valve did some scrapyard engineering, and got a discount on these things that were otherwise never going to be used for anything.
He estimates a total cost to produce of $425, estimates MSRP between $450 to $600, depending on just how hard Valve wants to fuck MSFT with their own leftovers.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=sJI3qTb2ze8
If this ends up being remotely accurate, it would be basically a corporate demolition of Shakespearian quality.
Gabe… Gabe was once a MSFT employee, you see.
A disgruntled former MSFT employee, you might say.
My biggest complaint about the Steam Deck is that it’s too underpowered, so yes, I would in fact love a $1000 Steam Machine. Can we have a $3000 one too, please? I want a luggable PC that can handle games with RT in 4K 120Hz.
Dude the switch 2 is $500. Having a general purpose computer that hooks just as easily to your TV as a gaming console for double that price is perfectly fine IMO.
It’s likely in everybody’s best interest that this is a wild success. Not only will game developers be incentivized to actually optimize their games for reasonable setups; this will unseat Nvidia’s monopoly over gamers with their ridiculously overpriced graphics cards and also Microsoft’s monopoly of a gamer’s operating system.
Nvidia’s partnership with Palantir is incredibly concerning and any blow to Nvidia is a welcome one. Encourage these developments and hype this all up.
Yes, I’m ready. I’m interested in buying all three new products. Whether I do depends on price. I’m fine with not buying them if I deem them not worth the cost for me.
I kinda doubt Valve would produce and sell a Machine with a 1k USD target price. When watching the announcement video, I was wondering how affordable it would be, whether it would be something like 300 € (not having seen any specs), although the “runs even the big titles” puts that into question to a degree.
There’s no real use in speculating. It’s better to just wait. I didn’t look for or into third party information either. I’m waiting for official information, waiting for the next announcements and/with product page launches.
Well, they already told the press that it will be pricier than normal consoles, because in the end it is a PC and they cannot make good losses with games like Sony and Microsoft do, because it is an open market.
The LTT video on the steam machine is a good watch on this I think
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.
Could you really build something better for less? Not to mention all that plus OS install and stuff is already done so most people will prefer that I think.
No
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.
no way this thing costs more than 800
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
799 and 999 are my best guesses for the two versions
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.
I don’t think most corporations would be interested in buying a computer that doesn’t include a windows license. Unless they intend to use it for like… server stuff, but they’d be way better off buying like… actual server hardware… if only for the operating cost.
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.
Yep reason why people can get some nice Thinkpads for cheap once warranty ends with businesses offloading them.
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.
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.
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.
It has a midrange graphics card, it can’t cost more than 5 or 6 hundred
