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- cross-posted to:
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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.
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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’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…
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.
I would pay 700 for the 2TB bundled with the new controller.
I’d pay that much as I need a non-windows PC for the grandkids to play when they are over.
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.
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 have a desktop, but would buy it for the bespoke compact hardware to fit in the TV console. The dedicated antennas are a clear sell as well.
Right now I Steam Link via Shield, but I need wired or a better router to do any low latency play.
I mean I have a pretty decent laptop i can plug that into my TV with out needing steam to provide gaming hardware…
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
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.
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 bought a fancy desktop PC recently so I’m not in the market. Otherwise I would consider it, but only if the desktop environment was usable for general computing. I believe it is, but I’m not sure if its version of Linux would be best for like software development.
Best? Depending on what you do, probably not. That being said I have a friend with whom I code from time to time, and he uses the desktop mode for that. He uses nix packages to setup his development environments and seems happy with it.
This is more work than I’d personally like (I am lazy) but it does not sound so bad.
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.
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.
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.
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’m ready, but Amd is not. I want 4k 120hz on my TV via Amd videocard. But this stupid hdmi forum is blocking this.
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
Displayport to HDMI 2.1 adapter?
Regardless, fuck HDMI
I tried… it didn’t work…
Whatever the price, I most likely will buy it.
Higher RAM price is irrelevant as it acts on the whole market, it’s not a disadvantage specific to the Steam Machine
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.
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.
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.
What’s your favorite console?
8GB VRAM is enough for upscaled FHD games.
