So, rather than a GabeCube we want a GibboCube ?
*** Valve Steam Machine ***
- Thread starter kakarott
- Start date
The younger generation of gamers all play Roblox or mobile games. An industry built on live service games such as Fortnite, CoD, EA/FIFA etc is doomed in the medium to long term.
Not sure I agree with the ‘doomed’ part but yes, most younger players play games of their generation.
Nothing new there.
The games industry is bigger than it ever has been, there is no pending collapse or gamers ‘aging out’
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So about 40% increase?
First part is correct, the latter isn't. Satya Nadella, and other senior figures in the industry, are on record as saying the likes of Tik Tok, YouTube etc are dragging the younger generation away from gaming.
Its for the people who can afford it. If you cant afford it then you never understand, therefore you are not the target market
The form factor/WAF is definitely a big selling point.
Just quickly specced up the cheapest* mITX system I can on the shop and looking at over £900 without a GPU.
If you're happy to step up in size to mATX then it becomes a bit cheaper at just over £1k for a full system, but then you're looking at something over 4x the size.
Depends on your priorities I guess!
* except the case where I needed to spend a bit more for something slightly WAF friendly!
The same people who would buy this.
When you are spending GPU money on base level ram and storage, the minimum cost of a PC shoot’s up massively.
Its for the people who can afford it. If you cant afford it then you never understand, therefore you are not the target market
But there are simply better options.
You can get an gaming laptop with a 1tb ssd, 16gb ram and a better GPU and CPU than the steam machine. You then have a screen and keyboard/portability too and still in a small form factor!
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2 years ago, yes. Now you be price matching against 2nd parts.
I can go and buy a more powerful gaming laptop with double the storage space right now for barely much more than this costs in percentage terms.
There is no way to spin the price of this thing. It's just a very poor value proposition, whichever way you look at it.
Caporegime
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Yeah but it'll be noisey and ugly under the TV.
I'm not impressed by the Steam Machine but a well engineered SFF PC is very different to a gaming laptop.
This.
I've tried using my gaming laptop under the TV. Once. It was so noisy that I couldn't hear what I was playing. It would be fine (if annoying) during the day, but at night when everyone else is asleep, it's just not an option to have the TV blasting out to drown out the fan noise!
Edit: that was with the lid open as well, so rather than fitting in my media unit, it had to sit on the floor. When I had it closed it was thermal throttling, and the metal parts of the case were too hot to comfortably touch.
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And be a PITA to keep cool during long gaming sessions without sounding like jet engine.
Soldato
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Does anyone else feel that the reviewers who got a Steam Machine were overly lenient on it? Even disregarding the price, it is a machine that is releasing in 2026 that can't outperform a base PS5 from 6 years ago. In the Digital Foundry video not one of the games they benchmarked at 1440p was able to maintain 60FPS. Valve are advertising this as a 4K 60FPS machine. The worst Rich from Digital Foundry had to say was "pretty much runs as expected and that is fine. Technology wise it doesn't shift the needle". That is extremely mild. Steve from Gamers Nexus was only slightly harsher "The main reason to buy this though is that it is fun. I don't know if it is $1350 fun. It is not a good value."
I think if this machine was from any other company the reviewers would be way more harsh. The only folks who seem to be telling it like it is are Hardware Unboxed and for some reason they never got a review unit. The Steam Machine is overpriced, I personally think it looks a bit ugly and some of the faceplates make it look worse, it is under powered, you don't even know what hardware you are getting (1 stick or 2 of RAM), you can't upgrade the components except RAM and SSD and many of the most popular games in the world won't run on it.
I think if this machine was from any other company the reviewers would be way more harsh. The only folks who seem to be telling it like it is are Hardware Unboxed and for some reason they never got a review unit. The Steam Machine is overpriced, I personally think it looks a bit ugly and some of the faceplates make it look worse, it is under powered, you don't even know what hardware you are getting (1 stick or 2 of RAM), you can't upgrade the components except RAM and SSD and many of the most popular games in the world won't run on it.
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Associate
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100% agree. It is a steaming turd of a product in 2026. I was shocked that GN were not going down the ‘waste of sand’ route.
Soldato
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Yes the mildness of Steve's review really shocked me. He is usually very up in arms about nearly everything but then he does have hundreds / thousands of Steam Machine faceplates to sell!