*** Valve Steam Machine ***

I think you're going to be disappointed if you think that you'll be buying one of these for £500 or less.

Even if they wanted to sell it at cost and make up for it from their cut of Steam game sales, it's fundamentally just a PC. With a a high quality sold at cost small form factor PC, they would immediately be contending with the stock being bought up in bulk and used for non-gaming 'PC' things where they get zero post-purchase sales cut.
 
andshrew said:
I think you're going to be disappointed if you think that you'll be buying one of these for £500 or less.

Even if they wanted to sell it at cost and make up for it from their cut of Steam game sales, it's fundamentally just a PC. With a a high quality sold at cost small form factor PC, they would immediately be contending with the stock being bought up in bulk and used for non-gaming 'PC' things where they get zero post-purchase sales cut.
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They could easily stop organizations from buying up tons of Steam Machines by simply setting a one per customer limit in addition to requiring the Steam account being a certain age. I believe they have done this with the Steam Deck.

If they want to sell it at cost then they could do so if they really wanted to.

I do expect to be disappointed by the price though. For me and my use case it isn't worth more than a PS5 Pro. It's barely worth more than a standard PS5 (no disc drive version) if you consider gaming performance.
 
When it first got announced my initial thought was that it would cost less than £500. But now, no chance. It's gonna be closer to £1000 than £500 imo. And it will suffer because of that. Such is life.
 
lovelyhead said:
I do expect to be disappointed by the price though.
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Yes, you've said several times now that your measure of a good price is if Valve's computer competes with the cost of making a computer with used hardware.

Save a bit of time if you get building that DIY second hand parts computer today.
 
Hotwired said:
Yes, you've said several times now that your measure of a good price is if Valve's computer competes with the cost of making a computer with used hardware.

Save a bit of time if you get building that DIY second hand parts computer today.
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Weirdly aggressive post. I hope your mood improves and you have a good day.
 
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Hotwired said:
You don't seem to notice how weird your standard is.
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If you go back and read the post where I talked about the second hand parts you will see that I was trying to gauge peoples opinions on what they were willing to pay and that I built a theoretical PC using a mixture of used and new parts to try and work out how much I was personally willing to pay. It is clear I wasn't suggesting everyone go out and build PC's using second hand parts instead of a Steam Machine.

I am not sure why you are being so aggressive towards me? But as I say, I hope you feel better soon!
 
lovelyhead said:
If you go back and read the post where I talked about the second hand parts you will see that I was trying to gauge peoples opinions on what they were willing to pay and that I built a theoretical PC using a mixture of used and new parts to try and work out how much I was personally willing to pay. It is clear I wasn't suggesting everyone go out and build PC's using second hand parts instead of a Steam Machine.

I am not sure why you are being so aggressive towards me? But as I say, I hope you feel better soon!
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It's my personal opinion you will save time if a second hand parts computer will do the job for the budget you have set.

There was an account who spent a lot of posts talking about their personal limit and justification of £200 for a new AMD product which was well above £200. Probably a cpu.

It must have been so many years til reality allowed the price to get down to what they said was right because they were weirdly out of touch.
 
Vinno said:
When it first got announced my initial thought was that it would cost less than £500. But now, no chance. It's gonna be closer to £1000 than £500 imo. And it will suffer because of that. Such is life.
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I have a few console owning friends that are interested in the Steam PC as they want access to a bigger catalogue of games. £1k will not put any of them off buying one, especially as its the higher price of gaming PC's that's put them off all these years so far. Of course these guys have more disposable income than the average younger console owner though.
 
Hotwired said:
It's my personal opinion you will save time if a second hand parts computer will do the job for the budget you have set.

There was an account who spent a lot of posts talking about their personal limit and justification of £200 for a new AMD product which was well above £200. Probably a cpu.

It must have been so many years til reality allowed the price to get down to what they said was right because they were weirdly out of touch.
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Your post makes sense if the price of the Steam Machine was already known.

Also I am not sure how the person you are talking about was out of touch for not wanting to spend more on a product than they felt it was worth. The price eventually then did come down to the price they felt it was worth so they weren't wrong to feel it was overpriced.
 
cadmunkey said:
I have a few console owning friends that are interested in the Steam PC as they want access to a bigger catalogue of games. £1k will not put any of them off buying one, especially as its the higher price of gaming PC's that's put them off all these years so far. Of course these guys have more disposable income than the average younger console owner though.
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Would your friends not be better off buying a prebuilt PC right now? A £1000 prebuilt will be more powerful than the Steam Machine I would have thought?
 
lovelyhead said:
Your post makes sense if the price of the Steam Machine was already known.

Also I am not sure how the person you are talking about was out of touch for not wanting to spend more on a product than they felt it was worth. The price eventually then did come down to the price they felt it was worth so they weren't wrong to feel it was overpriced.
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The steam deck is subsidised, consoles are subsidised.

The steam machine is not going to be subsidised and will have normal pc pricing.

But you'll be disappointed if it's not competitive with second hand and console pricing...

The only way you're getting it for £500 is second hand and/or with assistance from depreciation and that's to be expected based on what is known.
 
Hotwired said:
The steam deck is subsidised, consoles are subsidised.

The steam machine is not going to be subsidised and will have normal pc pricing.

But you'll be disappointed if it's not competitive with second hand and console pricing...

The only way you're getting it for £500 is second hand and/or with assistance from depreciation and that's to be expected based on what is known.
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You speak with authority but you know no more than me or anyone else regarding the price of the Steam Machine.

The only thing we know for 100% certain regarding price is this:

"We intend for it to be positioned closer to the entry level of the PC space, but to be very competitive with a PC you could build yourself from parts,"

So you saying the Steam Machine won't be subsidised is speculation on your part. It could be the case that when Valve made that statement they were basing the price on hardware costs at that point in time. Now that memory costs have skyrocketed, Valve may decide that the price they had in mind a couple of months ago is still the price they want to launch at and by the time the Steam Machine launches the Steam Machine will actually be cheaper than it costs to build an entry level PC at that point in time. This isn't an unrealistic scenario if Valve have pre - ordered all the RAM they need for the next couple of years for instance. But again this is all 100% speculation on my part.

You seem to be getting very angry at me for some reason just for trying to work out what a fair value would be for me personally.

Sunday is the day of rest so maybe chill a little. It will be good for your blood pressure.
 
lovelyhead said:
You speak with authority but you know no more than me or anyone else regarding the price of the Steam Machine.

The only thing we know for 100% certain regarding price is this:

"We intend for it to be positioned closer to the entry level of the PC space, but to be very competitive with a PC you could build yourself from parts,"

So you saying the Steam Machine won't be subsidised is speculation on your part. It could be the case that when Valve made that statement they were basing the price on hardware costs at that point in time. Now that memory costs have skyrocketed, Valve may decide that the price they had in mind a couple of months ago is still the price they want to launch at and by the time the Steam Machine launches the Steam Machine will actually be cheaper than it costs to build an entry level PC at that point in time. This isn't an unrealistic scenario if Valve have pre - ordered all the RAM they need for the next couple of years for instance. But again this is all 100% speculation on my part.

You seem to be getting very angry at me for some reason just for trying to work out what a fair value would be for me personally.

Sunday is the day of rest so maybe chill a little. It will be good for your blood pressure.
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Should I give relaxation advice and and do emotes and be wrong like you.

wccftech.com

The Steam Machine Isn't Going to Be Subsidized, Valve Confirms - Prepare for High Price

Valve has now confirmed unequivocally that the Steam Machine will not be subsidized. As such, its pricing might be far steeper than a console
wccftech.com wccftech.com
 
Hotwired said:
Should I give relaxation advice and and do emotes and be wrong like you.

wccftech.com

The Steam Machine Isn't Going to Be Subsidized, Valve Confirms - Prepare for High Price

Valve has now confirmed unequivocally that the Steam Machine will not be subsidized. As such, its pricing might be far steeper than a console
wccftech.com wccftech.com
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Skill up: But it's not going to be a sort of subsidized device, like, Valve is not going into this thinking we're going to eat a big loss on this so that we can grow market share or category or anything like that, correct?

Valve: Pierre-Loup Griffais: No, it's more in line with what you might expect from the current PC market. Obviously, our goal is for it to be a good deal at that level of performance. And then you have features that are actually really hard to build if you are making your own gaming PC from parts. Things like the small form factor, the noise level that we achieved, or lack thereof, is really impressive and we are excited that people are going to find out how quiet this thing is. But also some integration features like HDMI CEC. The Bluetooth and wireless work that we've done, the four antennas, the very deliberate design so that you can have a great experience with four Bluetooth controllers.

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All that article you linked to proves is that Valve won't be taking a loss on each machine. They could sell them at cost price. Plus that article is a month old so plans might have changed.

Nobody except Valve knows what the price will be.

You need to chill, it is all just harmless speculating and discussing what might the final price be. Telling someone they are wrong to imagine there is a possibility that the Steam Machine might not be as expensive as people fear is a bit weird to be honest.
 
Valve said they weren't subsidising the Steam Deck back in 2022. We (sort of) know they did now.

The only question worth asking at this point is how much Valve want to push SteamOS as a gaming platform?

IMHO they won't have a better chance of "dethroning" Windows/DirectX as the default PC gaming platform than now & the RAM price spikes will actually help them do that if they have enough ambition.

The basics are simple - Vulkan/Proton are under active development; DirectX has been on the back burner since 2020 - with a few tweaks for console ports & AI (the recent blog is self-serving slop). DirectX games run via Proton are often/usually faster than when run natively.

MS is all-in on AI, they've bet the farm on it. Gaming isn't even on the radar. Their partners make hand-held devices which are 10-20% slower for games under Windows than SteamOS manages on the same hardware. Remember Proton is a translation/emulation layer and its STILL faster than a "tuned" version of Win11.

Its an open goal given the vast Steam library which runs pretty much everything under SteamOS apart from the "anti-cheats" specifically targeting Linux/Proton.

IMHO Valve won't commit to that, which is a shame but this is more to do with s/w than h/w so I think they're going to have to eat the losses on h/w to reap the future benefits.
 
Vestas said:
Valve said they weren't subsidising the Steam Deck back in 2022. We (sort of) know they did now.

The only question worth asking at this point is how much Valve want to push SteamOS as a gaming platform?

IMHO they won't have a better chance of "dethroning" Windows/DirectX as the default PC gaming platform than now & the RAM price spikes will actually help them do that if they have enough ambition.

The basics are simple - Vulkan/Proton are under active development; DirectX has been on the back burner since 2020 - with a few tweaks for console ports & AI (the recent blog is self-serving slop). DirectX games run via Proton are often/usually faster than when run natively.

MS is all-in on AI, they've bet the farm on it. Gaming isn't even on the radar. Their partners make hand-held devices which are 10-20% slower for games under Windows than SteamOS manages on the same hardware. Remember Proton is a translation/emulation layer and its STILL faster than a "tuned" version of Win11.

Its an open goal given the vast Steam library which runs pretty much everything under SteamOS apart from the "anti-cheats" specifically targeting Linux/Proton.

IMHO Valve won't commit to that, which is a shame but this is more to do with s/w than h/w so I think they're going to have to eat the losses on h/w to reap the future benefits.
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It really is a golden opportunity for Valve. It would be such a miss for them if they price it too high.

I've said it before but unless the Steam Machine is just a pet project for a group within Valve, you have to assume that it is a big push to win over console gamers and to increase the Steam user base as well as get people off of Windows. The low end specs of the machine lend credence to the idea that Valve want to ship large volumes of the Steam Machine. An expensive price just doesn't make sense in meeting those goals.

If they do make it expensive you have to wonder what their goals are for the machine because I can't imagine it will be a big seller.
 
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I definitely want to get one!! Even though I have a good PC. I like the idea of being able to pause games, I have having to get to save points!
 
lovelyhead said:
Skill up: But it's not going to be a sort of subsidized device, like, Valve is not going into this thinking we're going to eat a big loss on this so that we can grow market share or category or anything like that, correct?

Valve: Pierre-Loup Griffais: No, it's more in line with what you might expect from the current PC market. Obviously, our goal is for it to be a good deal at that level of performance. And then you have features that are actually really hard to build if you are making your own gaming PC from parts. Things like the small form factor, the noise level that we achieved, or lack thereof, is really impressive and we are excited that people are going to find out how quiet this thing is. But also some integration features like HDMI CEC. The Bluetooth and wireless work that we've done, the four antennas, the very deliberate design so that you can have a great experience with four Bluetooth controllers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All that article you linked to proves is that Valve won't be taking a loss on each machine. They could sell them at cost price. Plus that article is a month old so plans might have changed.

Nobody except Valve knows what the price will be.

You need to chill, it is all just harmless speculating and discussing what might the final price be. Telling someone they are wrong to imagine there is a possibility that the Steam Machine might not be as expensive as people fear is a bit weird to be honest.
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Are you not learning new information about the steam machine and what valve has actually said? It's relevant to your expectations of price that you've been setting with used hardware and subsidised hardware pricing.

The article quotes a direct question from a youtube interview about whether the steam machine would be subsidised.

First word in the reply is, no.

The rest sets the expectations that it will have comparable pricing to the current pc market, which has been going up.

Anything can be grasped at, might win the lotto right.

But it is known that the jackpot odds are about 1 in 40 million and it is known valve has said it will be priced normally and not subsidised. That's more real than uninformed hope.
 
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