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.
That’s the feel good warm marketing Sony spun for the thing. The PS3 sold around 88 million units. It flopped at first because it didn’t have any games for it. The Linux thing was a quirky fun but ultimately useless feature. You had to code custom software for the thing, it had no commercial software for Linux on a PS3. Its sales ballooned after it became the cheapest bluray on the market, and it was after the removal of otherOS support.
Less than 10 thousand were used for distributed computation clusters. The famous navy supercomputer only had 1.7 thousand units or so. Against the global sales numbers it was barely a rounding error.
Edit: replied to the wrong comment but I think it is still relevant. The risk of companies snatching steam machines in bulk is null, stop listening to LTT.
Unlikely.
Businesses generally aren’t that stoked about anything other than desktops or servers.
To the extent they have desktop grade equipment, it’s either:
- Some kiosk grade stuff already cheaper than a game console
- Workstation grade stuff that they will demand nVidia or otherwise just don’t even bother
On servers, the steam machine isn’t that attractive since it’s not designed to either be slapped in a closet and ignored on slotted in a datacenter.
Putting all this aside, businesses love simplicity in their procurement. They aren’t big on adding a vendor for a specific niche when they can use an existing vendor, even if in theory they could shave a few dollars in cost. The logistical burden of adding Steam Machine would likely offset any imagined savings. Especially if they had to own re-imaging and licensing when they are accustomed to product keys embedded in the firmware when they do vendor preloads today.
Maybe you could worry a bit more about the consumer market, where you have people micro-managing costs and will be more willing to invest their own time, but even then the market for non-laptop home systems that don’t think they need nVidia but still need something better than integrated GPUs is so small that it shouldn’t be a worry either.
That’s a tradition with gaming systems, see the Navy’s playstation supercomputer!
That’s a bit different IIRC, they purchased them directly from Sony and they didn’t have any of the OtherOS hardware lockouts like retail consoles did.
At launch and for a good while PS3 came with a boot to Linux enabled by default, some universities around the globe bought some “from the shelf” to make some server farm and such.
Retail units couldn’t access most of the RSX in OtherOS for Sony reasons, Geohot fixing that was why they killed OtherOS.
Apparently the DOD units never had any lockouts on the GPU.
That’s the feel good warm marketing Sony spun for the thing. The PS3 sold around 88 million units. It flopped at first because it didn’t have any games for it. The Linux thing was a quirky fun but ultimately useless feature. You had to code custom software for the thing, it had no commercial software for Linux on a PS3. Its sales ballooned after it became the cheapest bluray on the market, and it was after the removal of otherOS support.
Less than 10 thousand were used for distributed computation clusters. The famous navy supercomputer only had 1.7 thousand units or so. Against the global sales numbers it was barely a rounding error.
I’m sorry, I’m not sure what your point is - yes it was a broadly impractical thing to do, that’s not in dispute.
I think it’s a response to the sentiment that Sony somehow got bit by selling PS3 at a loss because it triggered some huge supercomputing purchases of the systems that Sony wouldn’t have liked, and that if Valve got too close to that then suddenly a lot of businesses would tank it by buying too much and never buying any games.
Sony loved the exposure and used it as marketing fodder that their game consoles were “supercomputer” class. Just like they talked up folding@home on them…
Fairly easy fix, there, given this is Valve who own the marketplace:
- Only initially sold via Steam
- Require a Steam account to buy, and the amount must be unrestricted (have bought some amount of games, I think is the way they do that)
- Optional: restrict sales to 1 per account initially, maybe open that up later
D O A
O
AMy gaming PC from 2019 might be technically barely faster than this (2070S in it) but I’m still inclined to buy one.
What’s convinced me is my steam deck. I couldn’t be happier with a piece of hardware as this. And if this is just a more powerful non-handheld variant that does all the same shit, I’d be open to it for sure.
Over, under
$500 USD?
Definitely over 500$. Considering the statement it sounds like it will be at least 800 dollars.
Yeah, I’ve been guessing $800-1000. That’s a decent deal on a prebuilt with this performance.
IIRC from an earlier article, they’re still looking at factors and don’t yet know for sure (I suspect that it might be that Trump tariffs and whether they will stand is an input).
I think if it is over $600 most people aren’t even going to consider it as an option.
That’s the thing I find amusing in this thread. Consoles are a known quantity and it needs to either compete or undercut them. I have a Steam Deck that I paid £320 for (brought up to £400 by the SSD I added). I would most definitely not pay more than £450 for a Steam Box. It may well cost more than that but it is a luxury and I would seriously struggle to justify more than that.
It’s $2,400 – 6 Steam Decks – the end.
deleted by creator
Sell your csgo skins
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
You have two kidneys, don’t you?
Think i’ll just plug my existing gaming laptop into my TV and save my money thx…
Could have saved this comment too, but here we both are
You need to realize that you’re not always going to be the target audience.
Here is my point 1200 CDN 850 USD why would you bother with a console at this point???
Because it has desktop hardware in it, and it just works off the shelf like a console.
Just because you can’t find a use case that fits your needs doesn’t mean it won’t fit anyone’s needs.
It’s not a console though. It’s basically an ssf rebuilt using linux.
You’re comparing an $800 apple vs an $800 orange
ewww win 11
Why would anyone want it then? Just install Steam on your machine and use it…
There are people who exist between “I build, format and otherwise manage my own gaming rig,” and “I don’t need a PC for games.”
My partner is a perfect example. She has my old PC shell, with some $500 of GPU, internal memory, and accessories, hooked up to the TV. She uses it daily, almost exclusively for Steam games and streaming services that she finds more comfortable to navigate with a keyboard and mouse. A smaller, quieter, streamlined, “this more or less will do the things you want to do straight out of the box” product would have saved both her (and I, because that thing has has some troubleshooting) a lot of headache, while looking far more presentable to boot.
Maybe she’s the odd one out and the target audience is more niche than my bias’ recognize, but I guess we’ll see for sure when this thing releases.
People without gaming rigs that don’t wanna spend almost as much for a console
I don’t understand. Why pay the same for the same power just to get a less maintainable machine that is barely usable outside gaming?
Why is it barely usable outside of gaming?
How is it barely usable outside gaming? Its a fully functional Linux desktop computer
I used Linux for regular desktop stuff before I installed Steam on it. Steam got me back into gaming.
Almost same, I use Linux on my laptop for regular stuff and just have a console.
Now suddenly valve has made steam and almost all gaming Linux native! I definitely want one lol
“on your machine” requires you to have a machine. This isn’t for people with computers already. This is for people who are already looking for a new machine, and this becomes the “ready out of the box” option.
I mean, it’s fine to do so, as long as you have PC hardware that meets your needs. Valve would be fine with it too. As long as it can run Steam, all good. For Valve, I expect that the Steam Machine is to provide an easy-to-set-up option a la consoles that let them move into the living room for people who have an issue with that. If you can already use/configure a PC and have one, then that option is gonna work too.
At least for me, a Steam Machine would be the ideal use case for my brother, since the literal ONLY game he plays is CS2. He used to play Fortnite, but he hasn’t done that in years… and even then if he wanted we could just swap places between my current real computer and the Steam Machine. It’s also really small so it wouldn’t occupy much space on the other room of the house.
As it says in the article, it’ll be smaller and quieter, so less offensive for most people’s living rooms than a full-size desktop. It’s not meant to replace your existing PC if you have one, unless it was getting old and you were about to replace it anyway. If you don’t have a PC, or don’t have one in the living room, then it might be a better option than anyone else’s prebuilt.
And, as with any standardized hardware, it’s a lot easier to ensure games and services (like Proton) perform reliably.
Time will tell if this sells enough, but it could become the new standard for industry benchmarking/testing.
it could become the new standard for industry benchmarking/testing
Exactly. We are already seeing game companies specifically mention the Steam Deck in patch notes. This will give them a standard item to validate compatibility against. Any game company that wants to make sure their game works well will have a Steam Machine on-hand to QA with.
And I fully agree with you on benchmarking. It will be a very standardized system to point to in game reviews.
People do occasionally buy new computers, and this one looks likely to be a better choice than most of what’s on the market.
That’s a lot for someone who doesn’t understand computers beyond Windows and MacOS. People also don’t realise that since the PS4 and the Xbox One every console is just a X86-64 machine. So, I think it’s a good move from Valve. Also it will be easier to manage and optimise for Valve if all their hardware is the same, a bit like Apple.
If its a decent price I’ll want it. I love the freedom PC gaming allows but sometimes I do miss the convenience of a console. It would be great for my kid as well. No fidling with the display, having the PC not wake properly from sleep, controllers not connecting, etc. It would just work. Our current setup inevitably something doesnt work right first try.
The biggest advantages it has over other PCs is CEC and Wake on USB(controller) enabled out of the box. Those are the two features I miss the most on my HTPC.
Other major advantages are the form factor and standardized design making it smaller and most likely more reliable than a comparable PC.
Standardized design, sure. I would argue you could get something more powerful at a comparable size for not too much more. My HTPC is about the size of a shoe box yet has a R7 7700X and a RX 6900 XT.
Ok
Thanks all the same Valve. For 900 or more, you can keep it. We’re good. 👍
I’m curious to see how the price will be affected as consumer PCs get stronger every year. Will they update the Steam Machine every couple of years, or will they decrease the price? I have to assume they are targeting a neutral price because their primary goal is to assemble a linux box with as little margin as possible and put it in front of you for an actual fair price, but “fair price” is a moving target.
Personally, I’m all for getting what I pay for. People who sell to you at a loss are up to something.
Ofcourse it will. Anyone expecting any less are just optimists
A PC of similar performance is about $550 so I don’t get what they’re saying about it not been priced like a console. That’s about exactly what a Series S would cost.
A PC of similar performance is about $550
where did you get that? With the price increases of pc components in recent months, it’s more like $750+.
I didn’t use prices from last week I used prices from last year because that’s when Steam would have actually made their devices. Manufacturing of the steam machine and the steam frame is rumoured to have occurred around 2023-2024, should the Trump shenanigans shouldn’t have affected things too much.
That’s not to say that somehow much the devices will cost it’s just how much it would have cost to build. How much profit they’re going to try and make on them is an unknown. With the steam deck they aim for $100 profit margin, but who knows with this device. The steam frame is also an unknown because it’s a weird configuration.
Used market prices, probably. An 8GB VRAM video card and an appropriate CPU that wouldn’t bottleneck performance could easily fit under $500. I guess nowadays the RAM would be the hangup lol.
I don’t know why people keep insisting that the current prices are relevant. These products have been manufactured for months now, so we need to be looking at old prices not current market value.
Remember, an Xbox series X now costs $600 for digital edition ($800 for 2tb + disk drive)
…and those are just flying off the shelves!
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.
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.
YouTube channel Moore’s law is dead priced it out at $425 including controller. For cost not price.
“better off just buying a PC”.
It is a PC.
2x8 GB RAM for 130 dollars? What the fuck? I knew theyve gotten more expensive recently but that stings.
My guess is that maybe Valve was able to get a bunch of RAM before the price hikes.
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.
The 2x48GB kit (CMK96GX5M2B6000Z30) I bought in August for $300 is currently going for $1175, and it’s likely not getting better any time soon.
Yeah, the AI (manufactured) hype has caused RAM prices to skyrocket thanks to them buying out ALL the fucking RAM for those servers.
“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.
That’s almost the Apple fee
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…
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…
A friend of mine just dropped $700 on 2x64Gb for his upcoming editing rig. Most expensive part of the build.
That’s insanity lol
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.
It would cost me about a grand to make a pc that still not up to par with a ps5 where I live.
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.
Smaller makes it more expensive. I hope it’ll be under $1000, but I think I wouldn’t be surprised if it were $1200.
Is this anounced to boost the sales of a yet-to-be-revealed steam link 2 ?
Steam Link 2 is just a Google TV or similar device with the Steam Link app installed. They never stopped the project, just shifted focus.
Maybe we will all benefit if the 14 year old kids gets a steam machine, instead of some cheap pos with loads of errors, slowness etc = extra rage in games.
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 $800. They don’t have to have it cost console prices, but it does need to be at least somewhat within spitting distance. If the price is the cost of an Xbox or Playstation plus, say…a year of their online service subscription, I think that could be marketable.
If it’s closer to a grand, it’ll be a flop like the first Steam Machines.
Technically i believe that as long as it’s less expensive than the top consoles, it’ll have it’s market share, no?
I know speculation is fun, but
Then you can stop right there. This is just people having fun talking about announced tech.
No reason to over meta analyze it.
Even at 1000$ 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.
