this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
239 points (99.6% liked)
Steam Hardware
22167 readers
69 users here now
A place to discuss and support all Steam Hardware, including Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and SteamOS in general.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Deck] - Steam Deck related.
[Controller] - Steam Controller related.
[Machine] - Steam Machine related.
[Frame] - Steam Frame related.
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
If your post is only relevant to one hardware device (Deck/Machine/Frame/etc) please specify which one as part of the title or by using a device flair.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to Steam Hardware or Steam OS in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
At this point, I am doubting the Steam Machine will actually launch. Even on reveal, the value proposition was very questionable and entirely dependent on having an unrealistically low price. I expect Valve will announce "Yeah, never mind. We are just not going to launch the Steam Machine. It doesn't make sense anymore in this new economic climate".
One can just use off-the-shelf components to build their own small form factor (SFF) PC that has basically the same specs as a Steam Machine. Conversely, that is not something anyone can do for the Steam Frame, Steam Deck, or really even the Steam Controller. Even if most Steam hardware is priced absurdly high, someone could justify the price to themselves because the direct competition is just not there. But anyone can build a SFF PC that is equivalent to a Steam Machine. The only people who could justify an absurdly high price for a Steam Machine are the people who NEED a plug-and-play console-like system and can afford a high price. And that is just not a big market.
I share your skepticism, because Valve is definitely in a damned if you do/don't situation. But...
I'm not sure it was ever a large market. Like I don't think based on Valve's comments during the launch that they were thinking "bigger than the Steam Deck". It really felt like "for the subset of Deck users who want this too, and maybe it'll surprise us." The commentary around price has ALWAYS been "it's going to be too expensive", from the second it was announced, so it's hard to know how much the price will actually impact sales, because so many people want to talk about how they'd buy a thing if not for this one factor who were never ever going to buy the thing.
The pricing is definitely going to be a problem now, there is no way around that. But because I'm the person you are describing, I will say... I'm just over building PCs and the inherent compromises (nevermind that the component prices are crushing that market too). The guy who did the video a few months back was a) in Canada, b) buying shit in parking lots from FB marketplace, c) doing this 6 months ago, before the war. I'm not convinced it could be done reasonably today at some remarkably lower price than whatever you or I think the Steam Machine will cost.
I don't want the ecosystem lock-in of consoles, I already own tons of PC games. I want exactly what Valve is cooking, and not really anything else. Even if it's an alleged better value.
The Steam Machine was always going to have a relatively small market, and that market is only going to get smaller and smaller as the potential price increases.
What is SFF ?
Small form factor