Steam Machine Drama

Everyone's talking about the Steam Machine and soiling their britches, speculating on what the price might be. And it's been a big conversation in the gaming space that I want to weigh in on a little bit here. For those that don't know, the Steam Machine is Valve's latest device. Their foray into console gaming. They recently had the Steam Deck come out to great success. And now the Steam Machine is their latest. It is apparently a pretty beefy piece of

hardware aiming to deliver six times the power of the Steam Deck capable of running games at 4k 60fps. Linus also recently made a video covering the Steam Machine going over a lot of its capabilities and pretty much everything

about it. It is very interesting and the community's already started calling it the Valve Gabe Cube which i think is adorable. Don't know if the name's gonna stick or not but I do fuck with that one. But even though this does seem really

exciting people are pretty concerned with what the price on it might be. Especially because apparently Valve has said to expect the pricing to be like a PC not a console. Which is pretty vague but it paints a picture that it's probably going to be a little more expensive than

what you're expecting when it comes to like PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo pricing. Because PC prices can vary drastically. There is a lot of wiggle room there for what the price might be. I got your fucking nose you loser. Point is people are a little worried that this might be like a $1,500 piece of hardware or something like that. Which has led to a lot of debate in the community because that is much higher than traditional console prices to the point where why would you even bother

you could just get like a full-fledged PC as opposed to getting the Steam machine instead. And a lot of things that people were speculating is that maybe it would be subsidized because they have the Steam storefront like the Steam Deck for example. The Steam Deck is the price that it is because they are able to take a bit of loss on the hardware itself because they make up for it with the Steam storefront obviously. That however is not apparently going to be applicable

to the Steam Machine. According to Linus' video, they won't be following that same model where they're going to be, you know, able to get the price of the Steam Machine lower because of the storefront or anything like that, subsidizing through that. Instead, it is just going to be priced like a PC.

A major question mark, though, is of course price. Valve wasn't able to give any specific numbers due to rapidly evolving market conditions, but they will obviously have it nailed down when the Steam Machine launches in Q1 2026 alongside the new Steam Controller. They did give me one hint though. They said that while they expect it to be very competitively priced with a PC, that it will be priced like a PC rather than like a console with games subsidizing the upfront hardware purchase.

For a lot of people this has been the biggest alarm bell, this has been the biggest red flag, this has been the poop in the soup here that a lot of people are concerned about because if it's not going to be subsidized through like the storefront game sales or anything like that it is just going to be a very expensive piece of hardware. What that price looks like, we don't know, but a lot of people are saying it's kind of dead on arrival just because of that, because based on the specs and everything here, it will probably be a very expensive console.

Plus, it already feels kind of niche because console gamers, they might not really be interested in just having a PC console. They would probably, if they want to do that and make that switch they probably just invest in like a full PC rig and PC gamers already have a PC so why would they want a PC gaming console so it's been like this weird back and forth and we don't really have definitive answers on a lot of this speculation or anything the only definitive answer we do have is that the

best PCs in the universe come from Star Forge so if you're looking to get a better PC yourself go to Starforge and check out the options see if it feels right for you But when it comes to the Steam Machine itself, it feels like It's going to be made or broken by its price 100% more so than most things I would say now Now before I give my, you know, Cro-Magnon ass thoughts on this whole thing, I want to give you Linus explaining why he believes that they're probably not being subsidized through the Steam storefront this time around to get the price on the hardware lower.

They wouldn't say why, but if I had to guess I'd say it's partially to avoid stepping on the margin opportunities of their potential partners for Steam games and Steam software, but also because they recognize that the Steam machine is a full-fledged PC capable of being used as a full-fledged PC. There's no guarantee then that, say, a corporate purchase of 10,000 of these things would result in a single game sale.

So they really do need to protect the sustainability of their hardware business.

That last theory there, that game theory from Linus, was very interesting to me and something that didn't cross my noodle, naturally, because I'm a fucking moron, about, you know, there might not be game sales for a big bulk order. Like if a corporation orders a bunch of these puppies here, that's probably not going to lead to them buying any games through the storefront thus it's kind of moot to be subsidized through it in that case so they're looking to protect the hardware investment itself but counterpoint to that if a corporation is looking to buy 10,000 of these why wouldn't they just

buy 10,000 cheaper MacBooks because there are some Macs that are priced in like the six to seven hundred dollar ballpark to my understanding at least from what I can find online which is around the price of some of the consoles out there right now where this is not going to be priced at that this will most likely be more expensive than that so why would they choose this over those options I like I feel like this might not be the go-to

for corporations so even though the thought process isn't wrong like if corporations do buy this they're probably not going to be buying a fucking bunch of games out the wazoo here but I also feel like in that case they probably wouldn't just be buying the Steam Machine in the first place for those needs they'd probably look for other already established corporate norms of like max or something. So to me I feel like the main target audience for the steam machine would be steam deck owners. I feel like that'd be the primary demographic here that would be interested in purchasing it. But if

the steam machine is north of a thousand clams, who in their right mind, save for those that maybe had just recently got a lobotomy, would actually want to pay that much money for the Steam Machine when you could instead just spend that money on a more powerful PC? Like, yes, this is a pretty powerful piece of hardware, but the options in this price range, if it actually is like a thousand plus, like a lot of doom and gloom people are saying it's going to be,

the options in that range are more powerful than what you would get from the Steam machine in the first place. So if it is in that ballpark, why would anyone be buying it? You know what I mean? And I do agree with the sentiment from a lot of people that it lives in a confusing limbo where it's a little unclear, a little muddy who the actual customer is supposed to be. Because if you are already a PC gamer, this doesn't really offer anything that you'd want. You probably already have a rig far more powerful than this in the first place.

How would you justify spending what could be a thousand plus dollars on basically a tiny pre-built PC? And if you are a console only gamer, you don't have any Steam games, you bah humbug Steam, want nothing to do with it, you don't engage in the PC gaming market, well then you'd probably write this off as dead on arrival, rolling your eyes at the price point if it is like a thousand dollars. Like that probably wouldn't be enticing for someone to make this foray into PC gaming through

the Steam machine. It would need to be priced much lower lower priced at like a competitive console point for a console only gamer to consider at least I would think so so it is in this very weird gray area then I think it is going to be purely dependent on what the price actually is whether or not this is going to be like mass-market adoption or something like that but maybe that's not even the goal here maybe that's not even what valves aiming. Maybe they're content just delivering a really niche piece of hardware. I don't really know. I'm also not convinced it is going

to be a thousand plus dollars. I don't subscribe to that idea. I truly believe that the Steam Machine will be sub a thousand. On stream I was speculating maybe up to like 800. Maybe 800 and some change change but I really don't see a world where this gets to a thousand or over a thousand I would be shocked if it did because I think it'd be very obvious to anybody out there that that is just too much for most people to want to spend on what the steam machine is offering at

least I would think so I say that but then again fucking Apple has the iPhone pocket which is like $250 sock to put your iPhone in and that sold out so there really is just the chance for anything to be extremely successful regardless of the price and regardless of the offering and it's not like the Steam Machine is a bad product here but I just think it is going to be really really dependent on the price point here whether or not this is something that

Gamers will be flocking to to pick up and I am just very curious to learn more information about how it will be priced It releases relatively soon. So hopefully we'll know in the next, you know month or so. That'd be really nice Yeah, it's been a very interesting conversation surrounding the Steam Machine. Like I said personally, I don't think it's getting to a thousand dollars or more I really think it's gonna live in like an $800 ballpark Which is still very expensive and that's still going to be a very tough decision for consumers to make on if that is something They want to pay so I guess we'll see I

Think time will tell Think time will tell Hopefully pretty soon. We'll know anyway, that's really about it. See ya