Valve unveiled the new Steam Machine earlier this week, and it's cute (if you're into cubes, anyway). But it's not exactly a powerhouse machine: PC Gamer hardware editor Jacob Ridley, who understands this stuff far better than I ever will, called it "fairly underpowered," noting that it rocks just a 200 watt power supply—a fraction of the PSUs in most gaming rigs. A good friend of mine, a longtime PC gamer, asked me, "Why the hell would I ever want something like this?" My answer, simply, was, "You wouldn't."
But that, according to Larian director of publishing Michael Douse (and I agree wholeheartedly on this) is entirely the point. Valve isn't coming for committed PC gamers who know what they're doing and want the lights to dim when they fire up their tabletop fusion reactors. It's gunning for people who want Steam games on the TV without any dicking around.
"Valve are probably betting on the fact that anyone who wants more demanding PC hardware on their TV is part of the audience who know how to turn any PC into a Steam Machine," Douse, always quick with a well-considered opinion, wrote on X. "Genuinely no point making a high-spec Steam Machine
So is this just ignoring the existence of high spec prebuilts already on the market and thriving? This obviously isn't true. PC building is a hobby that heavily overlaps with PC gaming, but that venn diagram isn't a complete circle. Some people just want to buy a rig that performs well without having to select and build every component.
Then we run into a pricing issue. If the price tag for this is lower or at MSRP compared to the console competition, that would be a big win for entry level (or casual) gamers who want to take advantage of the PC ecosystem, sales, and versatility.
Granted, if this thing is priced like a high-spec prebuilt, all bets are off. If this is $600 or lower, this will sell very well and have an invested community.
True. I do feel like valve has at least a little bit of consumer goodwill that is working in their favor, also. I'd be much more likely to buy a steam machine over a similarly spec'd iBuyPower or something.