Steam Machine

Valve

The gaming industry has been waiting for Valve’s fabled Steam Machine quasi-console for a while now, and its price has finally been announced. While many predicted it would be high, Valve has gone above and beyond, and the Steam Machine, even the base model, costs an eye-watering amount. Valve, however, has explained why customers will just have to deal with it.

The price list for the different models is as follows:

• 512 GB - $1,049
• 512 GB with Steam Controller - $1,128
• 2 TB - $1,349
• 2 TB with Steam Controller - $1,428

Even in an era where prices of traditional consoles have been double-hiked recently over five years into their lifespan, this is well beyond the cost of a PS5 ($600), an Xbox Series X ($650-$800), and even the PS5 Pro ($900). This also doesn’t come with any enormously improved technical capabilities, as testing reveals it’s more or less on par with a standard PS5. And a 512 GB hard drive is probably enough to hold 3-4 modern AAA games, at best.

Why would Valve price it this high? Well, they have a specific reason for that, even if it’s not exactly going to satisfy potential buyers. Namely, they are pricing the console without subsidizing it like other brands, and combined with enormously expensive component costs in 2026, here we are:

“Steam Machine, like our other hardware products, is made up of many components that we source from manufacturers around the world. The price at which we sell our hardware is a direct result of the cost of these components…”

“…Over the past year or so, [prices have] changed quickly and significantly, most visibly for RAM and storage components. There are a variety of reasons, all of which are affecting hardware products everywhere. The overall effect is that our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable. So the prices we're sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing; or, more accurately, it reflects the price of the components as we've secured them over the past 6 months.”

It’s not clear what the original price of the Steam Machine was meant to be when components were originally being sourced for it in 2023, but it was surely going to be more competitive than what we see here. Recently, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma explained that certain Xbox component costs had doubled since this past fall, and had become 5x more expensive from two years earlier, raising questions about the upcoming cost of its next-gen PC hybrid Helix console. With recent hikes and now what we’re seeing from a newly priced console like the Steam Machine, the assumption is that other next-gen consoles are going to arrive at over $1,000, barring any sort of significant global economy/AI tech demand changes.

The question being asked now is “Who is a Steam Machine for?” Most PC-focused gamers already have a gaming PC and may feel no need to spend $1,000+ for a box like this. Console players are being asked to purchase a box at that price that performs like a 2020 PS5. That said, given how anticipated this console has previously been, endless devotion to Valve, and what may be a rather low supply given the above issues, it’s still probably going to sell out. We’ll have to see when it arrives on June 29.

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