Valve unveils Steam Machine pricing

mylesillidge

mylesillidge

Journalist
Joined
Jul 29, 2021
Messages
4,273
Reaction score
4,573
Steam Machine pricing revealed — starting from R17,275

Valve Corp. announced pricing and availability details for the Steam Machine, a cube-shaped video game console that has seen its release pushed back several months due to pricing volatility around memory, solid-state drives and other components.

The Steam Machine will cost $1,049 (R17,275 excl. VAT and duties) for a base model with 512 gigabytes of storage.

[Bloomberg]
 
So in SA, this thing will be over R20K so you can do some 1080P (AAA) couch gaming on >3 year old laptop hardware that struggles to compete with a 6 year old console half it's price on a machine that's just about to launch and is supposed to last for many years to come with 8GB vram... oh and the steam controller isn't bundled.

One of the reasons I've always disliked consoles is because they tend to hold back gaming tech development due to how long they last and how badly the hardware ages, this thing is way worse.

It's also one of the better PC ideas in a long time at what happens to be the worst time.
They should have canceled the release but held onto the idea and kept it going until maybe things normalized a bit.
 
Last edited:
The Zen 4 4c/8t CPU is slower than a Zen+ 2600 in game benchmarks.

Somehow GabeN managed to not only release a lemon, but a rotten lemon.
 
Would have made sense before the RAMpocolypse when they could have made it a viable purchase. Now it's only something for collectors really.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Would have made sense before the RAMpocolypse when they could have made it a viable purchase. Now it's only something for collectors really.
Click to expand...

That's the funny part, I suspect it'll sell like hotcakes and be scalped into oblivion yet be DOA at the same time.
 
Starting at $1049.... So that would make Xbox's Project Helix possibly coming late next year with vastly better specs in the region of.... $1500+? Even more?

Rampokalypse indeed.
 
SeRpEnT said:
Starting at $1049.... So that would make Xbox's Project Helix possibly coming late next year with vastly better specs in the region of.... $1500+? Even more?

Rampokalypse indeed.
Click to expand...
The home console market is now completely broken. The whole idea of the home console was for an affordable device (semi-subsidised) that made gaming accessible to most homes.

Now it's a toy for rich people, collectors and people with large credit card debt.

I wonder what kind of knock-on effect this is going to have on game publishers, do they just continue releasing games for this gen for the next 10 years?

Wouldn't mind if this AI bubble could burst a bit right now.
 
SeRpEnT said:
Starting at $1049.... So that would make Xbox's Project Helix possibly coming late next year with vastly better specs in the region of.... $1500+? Even more?

Rampokalypse indeed.
Click to expand...
That is an unknown. Neither Sony nor MS have historically subsidised their consoles. They are known loss leaders on consoles. Though I am sure they move things around, but the reason they do this is to sell the customer their ecosystem on boarding them as users. MS though have buckled a bit, and lost quite some customers going by recent reports, but they are wholly intent on putting more consoles in homes. The DRAM situation allows them this opportunity. The problem MS has is that Sony is in a better position to advance that vision.

Then Valve... They said that they won't subsidise the Steam Machine. What are their income sources? The Steam Marketplace is a cash cow. I think Valve wants to control the volume, and pricing allows them to do that. Valve does good guy campaigning; their pro-consumer (sorry, customer) attitude allows them that. MS Gaming's new CEO is currently hard copying that attitude.

Anyhow, both MS and Sony have stronger sourcing powers than Valve. Personally, I think Valve made a bad deal with AMD. It is an old-gen low-end SKU. However I am leaning towards Valve wanting to control the volume given how inaccessible electronic goods have become. They want Steam users to buy their hardware, not businesses. Jacking up the price allows Steam diehards access even though it is price gated. It is a niche.

I won't know. All I want to know is whether the price will ever come down. This is where the product may have some relevancy concerns. In 2028 we could see normalisation starting, but then we will also have better products on the market, segmented where the Steam Machine is positioned. By 2030, the Steam Machine... Look, it will do Steam Link and media streaming exceptionally well.
 
Another thing Steam has going for it though, it the amount of available games. I think the Steam Machine will allow a large section of the market that don't want to build their own PC's or even do a little bit of troubleshooting experience the library.

Plus DLC and Mods is just a game changer to have access to on a console like experience.

1782212066823.png
 
ArmatageShanks said:
Another thing Steam has going for it though, it the amount of available games. I think the Steam Machine will allow a large section of the market that don't want to build their own PC's or even do a little bit of troubleshooting experience the library.

Plus DLC and Mods is just a game changer to have access to on a console like experience.

View attachment 1916619
Click to expand...
There are prebuilt PCs at the same price with better specs. Yes, they may or may not come with Windows pre-installed. Windows does now have XBOX mode, and Steam Big Picture mode has long been a thing. You can always install SteamOS.

Steam can be installed on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Then there are handhelds, and though also on the expensive side now, with the latest specs, they provide better value than the Steam Machine.

Steam is not gated to SteamOS.
 
Fulcrum29 said:
There are prebuilt PCs at the same price with better specs. Yes, they may or may not come with Windows pre-installed. Windows does now have XBOX mode, and Steam Big Picture mode has long been a thing. You can always install SteamOS.

Steam can be installed on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Then there are handhelds, and though also on the expensive side now, with the latest specs, they provide better value than the Steam Machine.

Steam is not gated to SteamOS.
Click to expand...
The normies don't like to think about stuff, especially not OS's. They just want click and play, which unfortunately Mac, Windows and especially Linux simply do not provide.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
The home console market is now completely broken. The whole idea of the home console was for an affordable device (semi-subsidised) that made gaming accessible to most homes.

Now it's a toy for rich people, collectors and people with large credit card debt.

I wonder what kind of knock-on effect this is going to have on game publishers, do they just continue releasing games for this gen for the next 10 years?
Click to expand...
None what so ever effect on what titles get released and system requirements, the volume sold, doesn't justify a developer to exclusive cater for the steam machine, it was never intended to be all play all.

Unlike consoles developers aren't obligated to follow and comply with consoles requirements.

White steam stats give developers some idea of what hardware users have, a lot of games don't match the bottom end of the requirements anyways.

It is business as usual on average a game development cycle is 3 - 5 years, so several games have already been in development way before the steam machine was specced and before the AI bubble, it is really only games with a short release cycle that "MIGHT" venture into supporting less ram, but not likely from AAA studios, and more likely from indie studios.



DrJohnZoidberg said:
Wouldn't mind if this AI bubble could burst a bit right now.
Click to expand...
Even if the bubble burst, unlikely it will be an overnight event, it would likely be several weeks for the whole thing to entirely go down. There is likely still be companies that will come out mostly unscathed out the other side, there will be pressure on hardware supply regardless. Memory will also not recover in any meaningful way. It would take several months just to manufacture and redeploy, let alone, restock consumer supply.

By the time it has stabilized, DDR6 will be here, and manufactures will switch over to DDR6, which will short change DDR5 even more and put more pressure on it.

Point is expecting it to be priced close to previous levels, won't happen, best guesstimate will be 50 -70% more than pre AI bubble. The reality is the market won't flood with consumer memory when the bubble goes, but rather ECC memory.

DDR6 release is going to screw over DDR5 regardless, it is going to remain artificially with or without AI bubble, DDR6 is also going to have a gamers tax.
 
ArmatageShanks said:
The normies don't like to think about stuff, especially not OS's. They just want click and play, which unfortunately Mac, Windows and especially Linux simply do not provide.
Click to expand...


It is still a WiP though, but useable. You can do the same with Steam: you make it run at startup and launch in Big Picture Mode. The settings are there to check. Also, SteamOS is a Linux distro. You can exit Big Picture Mode and do 'all' things Linux.

I know what you are saying though. As much as the Steam Machine has Steam in a big picture, it will not be as good as older, well current, gen consoles on a big screen. Again, I don't hate the Steam Machine, and I would really love to have one, but I am not paying +R25000 to get one. To be honest, it will make a great TV box, and more advanced users will in any case use Steam Link to play games that require more compute.
 
If this thing could have given a proper experience with the upcoming GTAVI it could have been an option for people willing to shell out for a console like GTA experience with the benefit of being able to run upcoming mods for it.... but there's no way this crap hardware is going to do that.
 
Fulcrum29 said:
Again, I don't hate the Steam Machine, and I would really love to have one, but I am not paying +R25000 to get one. To be honest, it will make a great TV box, and more advanced users will in any case use Steam Link to play games that require more compute.
Click to expand...

I was hoping for a price range that could make it a great option for a Windows or Linux based work MiniPC that runs nice and quiet and has long term firmware support and the option of playing a game here and there if I wanted to.

At this price it's almost twice as much as I'd be willing to pay for that, so, meh.
Too bad.
 
RaptorSA said:
I was hoping for a price range that could make it a great option for a Windows or Linux based work MiniPC that runs nice and quiet and has long term firmware support and the option of playing a game here and there if I wanted to.

At this price it's almost twice as much as I'd be willing to pay for that, so, meh.
Too bad.
Click to expand...

That is the thing though. Valve didn't intent on making this a work machine, they wanted it to be a gaming machine, and I think that their pricing plays into that. Why should they subsidise business when they want to subsidise gamers? They have positioned it to be accessible to their Steam loyalists. The Steam Machine is likely going to sell out on its initial go-to-market runs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X