If they subsidized it, wouldn’t that risk businesses buying it as a cheap-for-its-specs option for their office computers? It’s not locked to being a gaming machine like consoles. You can just install windows on it.
The discourse around this confuses the fuck out of me. Did people actually expect this to be <$500?
I think the problem is Valve lost control of the messaging, which led to bad expectations.
At least in the US, a computer hooked up to a TV to play games means it’s a “console” and not a computer. Maybe we can blame Nintendo back in the 80s for going out of their way to avoid calling the NES a computer (despite it’s name in Japan being Famicom, Family Computer), but the distinction exists today despite technologically no real difference. You know this, I know this, Valve knows this. So Valve wants to make a computer you hook up to your TV so they can get you to use
their money printing machineSteam in the living room too.If you read Valve’s marketing material on the Steam Machine, they don’t use the word “console” once. It’s always either by name or the terms PC, computer, or system. They likely don’t mention the word “console” because to date, video game consoles follow a different business model, one where the model subsidizes the shit out of the hardware and then make money on the back end with game sales/licensing.
Current “console” hardware starts in the <$500 price bracket, and with so much third party media marketing calling the Steam Machine a console, that got people’s mind set on pricing expectations of that market.
That’s the confusing part for me because statements from the design team said they had the very optimistic goal of running most games at 4k 60fps, which is more like $1000 entry level imo.
Sure, if it’s not as modular as actual PC.
Otherwise they’re just selling a “default spec” PC that developers can target for benchmarks.
Prediction:
$999.99
I can build a mini PC for a lot less. Even with the joke retail RAM prices. I expect $650-800.
Also they buy parts in huge quantities, it’s not the price you pay for single part, with packaging and all.
If you go to CyberPower (nothing special about them, it’s just the first system integrator that popped into my head). You can find a prebuilt with a RX6700 (which is anywhere from 50 to 70 percent faster than the “custom” GPU on the Steam Machine*) for $1049. It would be monumentally stupid to price the cube anywhere near $1000.
*I’m using an RX7600M to estimate the performance for the Steam Machine since it has exactly the same specs.
Plus those Cyberpower PC’s have to factor in a Windows license into the cost.
Honestly, the Steam Machine needs to be less than $800 to be viable.
A PS5 Pro, which is more powerful, is $750. If it’s not below that it’s too damn much.
Cheaper games at a higher upfront cost
Also once you buy it they’ve locked you to their platform and make their Monday back on games.
Not really, you can install any other Linux like on any other AMD PC, as happened with the Steam Deck
And is actually usable as a desktop being able to run things like blender, krita, gimp, obs, etc.
I hope they release the price soon, the discourse on this has become incredibly tiring.
I doubt they will. The market for NAND and ram is insane at the moment, RAM has gone up 100% in the last 3 months. Announcing a price too early could lead to having embarrassingly increase price shortly before or after launch, or take a loss on the products.
$500 or bust
$299.99 feels like it should be the ceiling for a console.
Fair prices are fair, the existence of billionaires is not. Tax Gabe Newell and the rest of 'em too.
Didn’t he buy a massive yacht on the same day steam announced these products? It can’t be easy to sneak a superyacht under the publicity radar, but he seems to have pretty much managed it.
I think he’s earned it. I will accept. 😅.
He’s one rich guy I feel isn’t a piece of shit and has good ideas.
There is no such thing as an ethical billionaire, don’t kid yourself.
They’re letting us discuss this ad nauseam just to understand what prices people consider acceptable for these devices
I doubt it. I think they understand that the hardware market is volatile and what might cost $800 might be $1000 in a few months.
Anything more than $500 and we riot!
You’ll have to deal with a cult that will defend their lord Gabe’s every move.
Get ready to riot because there’s no way it’s that cheap. My money is on $800-1000.
This is absolutely where it’s going to be.
If it is priced higher than $600 they won’t sell enough to justify their existence. It will just be a repeat of last time.
This is perfect for people wanting a new console with a large games library, but Valve seems to be trying to force the square block in the round hole by placing it in the PC market space.
That’s a bad take. Look at PC prices. What equivalent PC could you build for $1000? This is going to be 800+ and still the best value in the PC market. Until they get steam OS on arm and you can put it in a 600 Mac mini.
Why? Look at how many people here say they want Steam OS, and Lemmy skews heavy toward Linux users. This is that, but OOTB.
I don’t think it’ll sell anywhere near as well as the Steam Deck, but it’s also a less exciting form factor. I do think it’ll sell a fair number of units though.
The cheapest equivalent prebuilt I can find with similar specs (RX 7600 is slightly better than the Steam Machine) is $850, and a DIY build is more like $900 (lots of corners cut), so there’s probably not much margin on the prebuilt. Valve is probably saving some cash with their custom CPU, and they’re probably shipping it with a Steam Controller, hence the $800 target. If component prices rise significantly before launch, I could see $1k.
100%
But that’s not a terrible thing, I suppose.
Absolutely. I think 80$ for the full package seems fair.
$70 if you hand deliver it to me. It’s my final offer.
$60? why do they want $50 for something that’s clearly $10?
Fair pricing means a reasonable profit on the base cost. Trying to gauge what people are willing to pay means that you want to maximise your profit at all costs, consumers be damned.
I understand that’s what Americans consider “fair”, but I don’t fully agree.
Fair pricing means a reasonable profit on the base cost.
Under many circumstances, this is true. However, console makers have historically sold consoles either at or slightly below cost, expecting to make their real profits on game sales, online store sales, etc… In the business world, it’s called a loss leader. Meaning it’s something popular that the company takes a loss on, while expecting it to encourage more sales elsewhere.
The classic grocery store example is a rotisserie chicken. You can go get a whole rotisserie chicken from the grocery store deli for like $3. It’s so cheap because the store is selling it at a loss. It’s a loss leader. Very few people will simply buy the chicken by itself. Instead, they’ll buy a tub of potato salad, some roasted corn, a can of green beans, and a gallon jug of sweet tea to go along with it. By selling that chicken at a slight loss, they were able to get the customer to buy all of those other things at a profit.
That being said, Valve has already stated that they’re not planning on having the Machine be a loss leader. Which is why people expect it to cost as much as a prebuilt with similar specs.
In most cases, yes. But you have to remember, this is Valve and not some ordinary company. They have extremely deep wallets and a lot of responsibility and expectations on their shoulders. If they charged what it cost for hardware and what it cost them to do r&d, it would likely not be in consumers favor.
They’re buying the parts directly from the manufacturers though, so cutting out the retailer middle-man could offset the R&D costs.
It’s a good idea, tout the market before doing anything controversial
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The top end Steam Deck was like $750 at release. Replace the screen with better CPU and GPU, and there’s your baseline for the Machine. Since it’s “6x” performance, price will probably be a bit higher. People thinking way less are smoking crack.
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How many of you have actually had a Linux PC connected to your living room TV? I built one about 13 years ago (and upgraded the guts occasionally) and it’s been awesome. With a regular web browser you can watch YouTube (with uBlock of course), Plex/Jellyfin, or any streaming service, in addition to gaming. Plus I’ve done stuff like vacation planning with my partner, where we can easily bring up maps and hotel listings from our couch without hunching over a laptop or tablet.
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While Linux hardware support is quite good these days, there’s still something to be said for buying a machine that you know is fully supported and targeted by game devs.
- Personally don’t think it’s as easy to compare the deck to a box. It’s harder to stuff the power of a steam deck into such a small package. I’ve seen the compute of the machine be related to about 600$ if you purchased parts on your own to build the pc, but considering Valve have economies of scale, custom deals for customized chips with amd and having priced “painfully” in the past, there’s a good chance it’s less than 750$. All the Steam decks had the same performance too, the expensive ones just came with more storage and a case (so using the top end price in your example seems unjust?).
- Very true, those keyboard/mouse combo things that resemble a gamepad are the best!
The new Steam Machine is very compact for a gaming PC of its caliber. That took some real engineering to find the right combination of component size, TDP, thermals and noise for such a small box. There’s obviously no screen and battery but otherwise it’s similar design work as on the Deck.
Makes sense, I haven’t seen dimensions, but the space for pure compute has definitely increased greatly.
It is still very small, but the deck (in comparison) is quite thin which I assume made it much harder to engineer. I’m sure a lot of knowledge has transferred over though and i’m not gonna act like i’d know anyways lol
If you look at a teardown of the Machine, it’s almost all heatsink inside. The remaining space isn’t really a lot bigger than a deck. But the components run much higher wattage (not constrained by battery) and put out a lot more heat, hence the need for the sink.
- Yeah, I’m guessing $800-1000, and they’ll probably throw in a Steam Controller. That’s about how much a comparable PC would cost
- I’ve been debating it, but it needs to be something my 5yo can use.
- And that’s Valve’s target market here, those unwilling to DIY.
I’ve got a Linux machine attached to my TV right now. It’s basically a Steam, Kodi and Firefox box.
The majority of the steam deck SKUs were produced prior to the AI memory crunch.
These steam machines are being produced in a market where memory is 3 or 4 times more expensive.
This box will be more than a steam deck. Probably 1000 bucks or so.
I had a PC connected to my tv for a while, main issue was I didn’t want to use a mouse or keyboard to interact with it. I tried desperately to get more ways of starting via controller or other lite interface devices, but nothing convenient. It was an old machine, so eventually I gave it away.
That’s a tough one. The new Steam Controller will probably let you use the trackpads with an onscreen keyboard (as long as you’re running the Steam app), just like the Deck. But personally I can’t get used to that.
You generally need some kind of keyboard with a PC. I have a little handheld Rii i4 with a thumb keyboard, maybe that would be better for you?
I use a Logitech K400 to control the PC connected to my PC and I generally find it to be much more convenient and responsive than using the remote on a smart TV or the controller for a console when over at someone else’s place. To each their own though.
Yep. Trying to type with anything but a keyboard sucks. I love my k400. I’ve had it for years and years. Not sure how old it is but I think I got it during the PS3/360 era for PC TV use and it is still works. And batteries last so long on it.
Typing anything like a website for the apple TV is the most excruciatingly annoying thing ever, it could only be described as torture. I would punch the executives that approved the design.
The shitty iOS input via annoying notification prompts when anyone in the house uses the TV are not a solution either, since they get so annoying you have yo disable them.
- Ooh! Me! My TV has been a Linux box since 2016, and I’m NEVER going back
Same, but I’m much more recent. Got a rpi 5 running Arch. Been happy with it for 2-3 years now
I’m happily running an Intel NUC as TV computer since 2013, and it’s awesome for exactly the reasons you state. I invested in it when I realized how fully crap the “smart” features of my Samsung TV are. The ultimate controller for it is a combo keyboard and touchpad, I have the Logitech K400r.
The NUC is starting to show it’s age now with its 4th gen i5, and I’m in the process of replacing it with a mini PC with an Intel N100.
Looks at my setup with Samsung tv, NUC, and wireless touchpad-keyboard combo… Huh? How about that!
It is a killer combo!
Just set this up after the whole windows 10 support drop thing, and holy shit!!! This is awesome! Not only no ads but I can Strawhat everything! Just got a figure out how to do this for my phone now
Had a Windows PC hooked up to my TV in I think 2008, before streaming boxes and mass adoption of Netflix. Then it was dualboot for a while starting in I think 2015, originally with Ubuntu. Now it’s full time CachyOS Linux as of 2023.
It’s always been great. Wireless keyboard with the built in trackpad, plus originally 360 controllers but now 8BitDo Ultimate controllers. Plus I use it for homelab tinkering.
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I went to PCPartPicker and tried to assemble a similarly spec’d PC, not with the absolute cheapest components, but definitely from the lower end sorted by price, it came out close to $800.
I guess if Valve can price it at that and be smaller it might have a market, but if much more than that people are better off just buying a PC.
“better off just buying a PC”.
It is a PC.
I’ve seen estimates put the materials cost somewhere around the $425 - 500 USD range because of the specific, semi-custom hardware that they’re using. It’s also good to note that Valve will be able to get a better deal than any of us will because they can get bulk discounts and aren’t buying each part at a market rate profit from retail vendors.
Some people seem to be of the mind that it will be somewhere around the $500 - 800 USD range if tariffs and the RAM situation don’t screw with the price, and that it will probably price out the Xbox with Microsoft’s 30% profit demand and be slightly more expensive than the PS5 while having comparable but not quite as much power.
Most gamers don’t want to get involved with PC building and just want something as convenient as a console to play their Steam games with good performance on a big screen. This can be priced quite above what a nerd would be able to build by himself with PCPartPicker.
2x8 GB RAM for 130 dollars? What the fuck? I knew theyve gotten more expensive recently but that stings.
The 2x48GB kit I bought in August for $300 is currently going for $1175, and it’s likely not getting better any time soon.
PCPartPicker has a general price tracker where you can see how much RAM has spiked in such a short time. It really emphasizes how crazy things have gotten
In the past decade, PC hobbyists have been the victims of the latest group of regards “getting the bag”. Crypto 1.0, 2.0 and now AI. It’s the biggest fool theory doing its thing. I fucking hate tech bros and crypto bros. They are the huma race’s macro analogy for cancer cells.
“more expensive” really is underselling it. It’s out of control. Some kits have tripled.
Yep. Everthing had at least doubled in the past ~ two months, because Nvidia’s AI bubble must not be allowed to pop.
Brother it’s so bad. I’ve been trying to help a friend do one recently, or at least plan it, and I’ve watched my previously $85 2x16 sticks of GSkill DDR5 (like the cheapest option I had) shoot up to like $260 in under a month has been insane. It’s not even good ram…
I recently (a few months ago) built a new high-end server for my homelab, and bought 512GB of DDR4 ECC RAM for around $510. I just looked it up, and those exact same modules are around $2.5k to $3.5k for the same amount. That’s more than I paid for the entire machine.
A friend of mine just dropped $700 on 2x64Gb for his upcoming editing rig. Most expensive part of the build.
That’s insanity lol
In the same boat actually. Helping a friend with a build and RAM is ridiculous right now. crappy slower 2x16 kits costing $350 and far beyond. Their desired upper end CPU is less than most RAM kits. I was trying to find a middle ground for them with 2x24 but I can’t even find those kits anymore. Doesn’t help that these days 32 is recommended for some games, let alone aminimum for productivity software. I got lucky when I built. Prices were bad (~150 for 2x24!!) but shot up not even days after I built last month and my kit hasn’t even been in stock since I got it.
This bubble can’t burst soon enough…
Yeah, the AI (manufactured) hype has caused RAM prices to skyrocket thanks to them buying out ALL the fucking RAM for those servers.
My guess is that maybe Valve was able to get a bunch of RAM before the price hikes.
That’s almost the Apple fee
It would cost me about a grand to make a pc that still not up to par with a ps5 where I live.
Smaller makes it more expensive. I hope it’ll be under $1000, but I think I wouldn’t be surprised if it were $1200.
YouTube channel Moore’s law is dead priced it out at $425 including controller. For cost not price.
I know speculation is fun, but until we know the price officially, all of this is moot. Wait until next year when they announce actual pricing and judge it then for its value.
I, personally, don’t think it’ll be a successful product if it isn’t less than $800. They don’t have to have it cost console prices, but it does need to be at least somewhat within spitting distance. If the price is the cost of an Xbox or Playstation plus, say…a year of their online service subscription, I think that could be marketable.
If it’s closer to a grand, it’ll be a flop like the first Steam Machines.
Even at 1000$ it will most likely outperform any 1000$ prebuilt you can buy. If they market it like this it can absolutely work at that price point.
Technically i believe that as long as it’s less expensive than the top consoles, it’ll have it’s market share, no?
It’s $2,400 – 6 Steam Decks – the end.
Where am I supposed to be able to get $3,600 to buy this?
SLPT: Drug dealing. You can make a lot of money in a short amount of time
And its recession proof!
That’s ULPT, not SLPT, because there is a profit to be madm
Sell your csgo skins
You have two kidneys, don’t you?
If olot really Is going to be priced like that then why? Like you Can Build a PC and Its even fun. You cant make a Powerfull PC that small easly but like…idk
Eh, I don’t particularly enjoy building PCs, but I do it because it’s cheaper, esp. for upgrades. I’m really not the target market for this.
That said, this is the right product for a lot of people. Many don’t want to mess with their gaming system, they want it to just work. That’s why consoles are popular, and the Steam Machine being a bit more expensive than a console and get access to Steam’s catalog is very attractive to a lot of people, especially if it otherwise works like a console.
I’m guessing the same reason people don’t always reroof their own house, or replace their own home electrical, or build their own bike. Sometimes it’s worth spending money to avoid doing a thing you either don’t want to or don’t know how to do. As I’ve gotten older and more financially secure that’s definitely been the case with me at least
People out there replacing their homes electrical?
Plus, they may be able to come in slightly cheaper on volume discounts on components.
I’ve always built my on PCs, but there are times when the whims of the market have made pre-builts cheaper.
If you want a smaller form factor it actually costs you more than a normal tower. This is actually not a bad way to get a small form factor computer (if it’s priced like a normal sized PC)
Especially with the fucked up RAM prices recently.
There were some pieces mentioned on waveform about its set up being out of box ready to be turned on by tv remote and those few console like bits that people like me wouldnt know how to do if we built.
As long as I can buy it with one Troy ounce of pure gold and not more, it’s a good price.
No its gonna be 0.5674392 Troy ounces of pure Gold
Acceptable price
That’s a rip off, it’ll be more like 1/4 troy ounce, if that
Remember, an Xbox series X now costs $600 for digital edition ($800 for 2tb + disk drive)
…and those are just flying off the shelves!
