Fair enough.
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
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Yeah they did so much for the open source community already, no one should expect them to operate at a loss.
I think it’s the right call. If they locked it down so it would only run Steam, it would be no different from every other console.
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This is something people should consider when they compare prices between game consoles and PC. A game console might cost, say, 500, which might sound cheap in comparison. But, if you want to play online, you need a subscription. Let’s say 100 per year, and assume 7 year lifetime for console, cost you another 700. If you buy games as digital copies, they’ll be about 60 to 80 each, and they are rarely discounted. And when they are, it’s probably -10%. Assume you buy 10 games for the console, and it’s another 600 or so. Total price for the “cheap” console is thus about 1800.
Steam Machine costs about 1000, but as there are no subscriptions, the remaining 800 can go to games. But, for PC there are numerous places to get games. Also discounts are frequent and can be up to -100%. You can turn that 800 into a game library far larger than 10 games.
And then there’s compatibility. Games and accessories you buy for one console might not be compatible with the next console you buy. Games and (some of the) accessories you purchase for one PC, on the other hand, are compatible with the next PC you purchase, regardless if it’s a desktop, laptop, media PC or handheld.
Just one note that i learned on ltt the other day.
Consoles do have discounts on games, apparently there recently was a small internet drama when the ps store had no active discount for a short while.
Personally, i still think consoles suck and not owning your own hardware to do whatever makes no sense, but misinformation is misinformation.
Are they anywhere near as big as steam sales are? Steam regularly has themed sales for specific genres and then has major sales 4 times a year where nearly every game has some kind of discount.
The days of steam having wild deals on newer stuff are over. IMO. It’s all more measured and regimented now. The sales are part of the whole business plan these days, and likely planned out from the start.
I’m sure there are exceptions, but I don’t get the impression that sales are as exciting these days. Everything has adapted to consumers expecting sales.
Are they anywhere near as big as steam sales are?
They are. Consoles also have big seasonal and holiday sales, a lot of big games can often be nabbed for $5 like Steam.
I wouldn’t know this from personal experience. Nothing compares to a pc for me.
But according to ltt it is comparable and having done a quick search online for current deals.
Fallout 4 anniversary edition has the same full price on both platforms but ps has a discount making it cheaper atm.
One of em Call of duties (cold war) has a much cheaper full price on steam but the current ps discount makes it almost half of steam’s current offer.
I doubt the comparisons are fair because sony is definitely looking at current steam prices to respond with their own deals. But technically steam is not always cheaper.
Of course if you look at little past the steam platform and recognise that it’s a full fledged pc able to obtain games from many different types of sources there is only one clear winner.
Steam frequently has deals though, look at the price history on fallout 4 (don't have one for anniversary upgrade unfortunately)
It has dropped to below $10 8 times in the past year alone
It varies by publisher; some have parity, such as Control Ultimate Edition being $4 on both PS5 and Steam. But on average, Steam's prices are cheaper. Although piracy is where the true value lies...
I'd say mods is where the true value lies, I've extended my Bethesda gametime significantly because I can install modpacks and get complete overhauls in various flavors.
I know there are mods on PS/Xbox but it's much more limited and most require payment on consoles AFAIK.
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When I last had an Xbox many years ago they had decent sales, but not as frequent. Nintendo is the only one who never does sales.
My steam library, if you'd count each game at full price, would easily be worth five figures, while in reality I'll have spent somewhere in the low four digits, spread over 15 years.
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The only reason I am considering one is because it is open. If it just became another shitty locked down console, I don't think I'd buy one at any price they'd ever consider selling it at.
A higher upfront cost has always been the price you pay for an open system and paying less for games and online play. But just knowing how the cost has been artificially inflated makes it a no-go for me. Not Valve's fault, just the shitty reality of the world we live in.
It would be more correct to claim the demand is artificial, in that the hardware is probably going to sit in a warehouse, depreciating for years before the data centers and power infrastructure are brought on line to use it.
But, I get where you're going with it.
Speculative bubbles are gonna speculate.
Some may even suspect a deliberate motive to kill personal computing to force cloud adoption, but hey... What would they know.
I guess uh.. how so is it artificial? Like, the inflation of the price is real. You do have to pay more now than a year or two ago.
It's artificial because the components have been made scarce due to manufacturers choosing not to sell to consumers (or consumer products) any more, not because the components cost more to make or anything like that.
The cost of the component to be manufactured has almost never represented the price you pay for a good. A bag of peanuts costs fuck all to manufacture. It's price is based mostly on what companies think you are willing to pay.
The point is that the inflation isn't artificial:that parts real It's the demand that's artificial, at least allegedly.
Semantics. There is an artificial element in the process that results in them costing more than they did previously.
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Meh. I was willing to buy one (or more, we have 4 steam decks in our house) for $700. Sadly, that's probably about what they would have been prior to all the AI bullshittery.
Probably closer to $800, but I feel ya. These price crunches are hitting everyone.
I dont think its a good value even at the originally desired price, but it definitely would have been easier for people to swallow for what they get than what they're paying now.
They hold back the hardware significantly for thermals and to stay within the paltry power supplies 300w limit, and uses FSR to pick up the slack. This is not a steam machine, its an FSR machine. Its basically a updated non-portable steamdeck.
And that was fine for a steamdeck. People accept limitations and concessions for a battery powered handheld, but if these concessions get accepted for a desktop PC, its just going to ultimately be another thing that damages PC gaming.
I said during the shortages that every idiot and their mother paying 2000 dollars for shitty scalped cards was going to show nvidia/amd how stupid consumers are and its gonna lead to skyrocketing prices.. and thats exactly what happened. nvidia and AMD both doubled their prices as soon as stock stabilized.. and as expected, idiots kept buying them in droves, driving prices higher. scalping them for even higher.
Letting the steam machine prove to developers that FSR is acceptable even for 1080p is just gonna lead to shittier games, that play worse, and even at 1080p wont be usable without resolution scaling. . . Which is bullshit. We're at the point in time now where native 1080p gaming should be crushed by almost any modern card, but as FSR/DLSS becomes more popular, that crutch is going to become increasingly used to avoid optimization and efficiency.
I certainly think it was a good value for someone who has neither the time nor the expertise to price out individual components and build their own machine.
I don’t know about the calculus for all of that now, because I haven’t been looking around at components. But I imagine it still within the ballpark of value for people who don’t want to go through all of that or simply don’t have the know how.
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Valve does seem to be one of the rare companies that can learn from other companies mistakes and this was an expensive lesson Sony learned. The original PS3 was sold with the ability to run Linux as a selling point and was sold at a loss to get it and Blu-ray players into households. Unfortunately, the US Government realized they could build a super computer by connecting a bunch of PS3s together and it was the cheapest way to do so. Obviously the government super computer wasn't buying Grand Theft Auto so subsequent PS3s were shipped without that ability
In a world where components are being purchased a year before they're built I don't fault Valve for trying to avoid getting fleeced
I don't know why they don't find a better way to subsidize it. Like once purchased and played for x amount of hours $200 of steam credit is put on the account.
Or they get 30% off 5 games they buy in steam with the account that activated the console.
There's already monopoly lawsuits going on right now. Subsidizing the Steam Machine could easily be used against them in those cases as evidence of monopolistic behavior
God forbid the one decent company succeed
These lawsuits are an excuse to force Valve to enshittify. Because being decent to your consumers is unfair competition now
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I mean that just makes me wonder why there’s multiple monopoly lawsuits/investigations against Valve but nothing against Sony, MS, or Nintendo.
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That would make them look like jerks though. And Valve is basically just a storefront which is very generic. The only thing that keeps Valve successful against its many competitors is not looking like a jerk.
Considering these awful price increases, I’m a little surprised that it wasn’t even more expensive.
I'm fine with paying a little more for an open system. I'd also be fine with paying more if it included half-life 3.
No I want to pay a little less and have it be a government AI spying machine and tied to only meta's software and ecosystem./s
Hell yeah, sign me up! Especially if it's a headset with like a dozen cameras and other sensors! (Please I want the steam frame so bad)
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Ok, but $1,100 for the base Steam Machine. Sure it's a decent PC but what am I saving or gaining by buying it? Where's the value?
I can build an equivalent or better small PC or buy an equivalent laptop for about the same price. Why would I buy a Steam Machine?
If it was priced under $800, done, take my money.
I'm guessing it's for the people who like the form factor and don't really care for building their own pc and managing their own OS on it? Honestly if I hadn't already built a decent PC just recently I might have been interested in the Steam Machine, even at the current price point. Just seems like a pretty easy way to get into Gaming on Linux
What you are gaining is that you can recommend it to your friends rather then building them a pc with unpaid work-hours, becoming the scapegoat and tech support the moment there is any complication.
Also brings them over to linux as a bonus.
They put it together and guarantees that it works. Valve also now has a tech stack in case their presence on Windows is threatened.
Valve is perfectly happy if you build your own machine and install SteamOS on it.
It was, but then a cabal of secret powerful pedophiles caused a whole mess of problems trying to stay out of prison (with the help of AI techbros).
Well, first of all it's not that much more expensive than building a system yourself, I think in GN's video they calculated about a $70 difference from similarly spec custom build, so you're paying $70 for:
- Smaller form factor
- CEC
- Console experience (without losing system access)
- Idle mode with almost no power consumption and fast wake
- Resume/suspend functionality like on the Deck
- Quieter system
And the downsides are:
- Slightly worse performance
- Less upgradability
At the end of the day it's a personal choice, I won't be buying one at that price since my desktop has already become a console like system. But if I didn't have one I think it's a fair value considering how much parts are now, and the features it provides vs a custom made are worth it for me.
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The value is in the form factor, thermals, lower power draw, support, and novelty.
Those may not be valuable to you, but they will be enough to sell out this production run.
The paper specs are very close to DIY builds, but smaller, quieter, and cooler.
The performance specs are not equivalent, you're paying a performance tax for the aforementioned qualities.
Epdt: The SSD upgrade is overpriced, by any measure, and only be justified if you desperately want one and are willing to pay a few hundred more bucks to increase your odds of getting one now.
Well, unless you have no extra storage, and speculate that SSD prices will continue to increase by the time you need >512.
It was originally to be sold for a price around $750 then some idiot with AI decided to hoard all the RAM and now prices of RAM and SSD are 200% higher
Anyway, the main sellin point is that it's plug and play, low power and silent, all packed in a 15 cm³ (~6 inch³) form factor
Mmm yesss, don't sign up.... You don't want to...
Understandable.
Imagine a full pc that's just cheaper than a pc. Everyone would buy it for any use.
Well yeah, who would expect it from any other PC builder.
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