Today was a big day for gamers as Valve just introduced three products: the Steam Controller, the Steam Machine, and the Steam Frame. When you add this alongside the Steam Deck, I think it's safe to say that Valve is about to win the next console generation.
I might be way off the mark, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it priced like the OLED Steam Deck. At least at launch.
With a later price increase due to RAM and SSD shortages.
Edit (mid-November): watching more videos, could be north of 600.
It's smart of them to give it a consumer friendly price and it would track with what they did with the steam deck.
Just like the other big names, steam can sell it at a very low margin since they make their money with the store. I wouldn't be surprised if they even sell it at a lost to quickly gain market share.
Loss-leading with new hardware has been a de facto standard for about as long as consoles have existed, so I'd be shocked if a company as consumer-attuned as Valve somehow missed this and priced themselves out of the market.
If it's more expensive than a entry-level gaming laptop, then I doubt the average user would buy a Steam Machine, when a laptop is far more flexible.
It has to be cheaper and more convenient than what's currently available.
Especially because they are literally known for creating things that sell at a loss and learning profound lessons from the thing they sell.
Also, they're the most progressive group to not engage in Patent warfare since Volvo made the 3-point seatbelt.
Valve knows how to help an ecosystem grow and pays attention to it's user base.
Sure pricing hasn't been announced, but people can start speculating about the BOM.
A lot of people are talking about loss-leading, but I think what the Steam Machine needs is a dual purpose.
The best the article seems to mention is using it as a desktop. I don't think that's quite on par with the PS3's blu-ray player and use in scientific workloads.
A lot of people are talking about loss-leading
I don't think it could be a loss-leader for Valve. If the price/performance is good enough, what's stopping companies from buying a lot to use as work stations? No company is going to buy Steam Decks for office software, but they might buy a Steam Machine.
If that happens and every Steam Machine is actually sold at a loss then it'd be a big problem for Valve
If it runs SteamOS by default, I don't think it would be used as an office device unless there's a distro designed for office use on the Steam Machine, which itself would only happen if it gets wide adoption as an office machine. In essence a catch 22.
unless there's a distro designed for office use on the Steam Machine
It's a PC. You can just put any Linux distro or even Windows on it. Some people even did that with the Steam Deck when it released
I got a ps5 as early as i could mainly for 4k blurays so i could watch blade runner 2049 and spiderverse with atmos
It's not the latest and greatest PC hardware, which should drive down the price a ton. I bet they looked at the latest consoles and said "We don't have to innovate at all, we just just have to not be assholes"
It is about as powerful as Minisforum HX100G, except GPU is RDNA3 and CPU is underclocked I guess. Minisforum Neptune series are (were, case try to fucking find a unit now) sold around 800euro. Considering tiny market for miniPCs, price is okay. Valve, on the other hand, will have much bigger market due to brand recognition. And price probably going to be lower since hardware is not exactly fresh new and it going to be mass produced.
My guess, 600euro for 512GB SSD, 650 for 1TB.
Edit: 512, not 256
versions will be 512GB and 2TB
Premature celebration much?
Yes, OP is doing this... To begin with, I can go out to my local Walmart and buy an Xbox, a PS5 or a Switch any day... The Steam Deck can't even be shipped to Mexico even to this day lol (and we are quite close to the USA).
Lol, "quite close"
It was just amusing since we are neighbors. Quite close as in the distance is 0 😁
Nothing wrong with the English, just a funny phrasing.
Whooaaaa, slow down.
It’s going to be awesome, but there’s no way Valve and spin up the production volume of a PlayStation or Xbox that fast. It will probably take a few more Steam Machines to get there.
Given that their system is open-source, other manufacturers will step in, as they did with Steam Deck-style handhelds, further expanding the Steam platform at the expense of XBox, PlayStation and Nintendo,
I mean, we already have Gaming PC OEMs and mini PCs. It’d be awesome if they start shipping SteamOS, but they can’t sell hardware at a near loss + make up for it with Steam sales + guarantee hardware support in software like Valve can.
And most don’t have the volume for “semi custom” AMD SKUs.
EDIT: The only entity I could see doing this is Intel, selling an Arc Steam Machine. That would be awesome, actually.
Good fuck ms with a rusty pipe
4K gaming at 60 FPS with FSR, thanks to a discrete semi-custom AMD desktop class CPU and GPU.
Source: Steam Machine page on Steam
Maybe I'm expecting too much on a small build PC but I'm not too keen on having to use FSR to get decent performance on higher display resolution than 1080p. But we will see how it performs and when reviews are in. I'm cautiously optimistic otherwise.
The key being FSR 3.
If it was FSR 4, that'd much better looking at high res.
They have already stated that it won't be price competitive with consoles. But hopefully a lot of people will realise they will save money in the long run through steam sails and not being locked into a single store.
Yes. LoL.
But if anyone is going to kill the big three, it will be themselves, with:
- The "Switch - It's just more expensive now - 2",
- The "Playstation - by the time you can buy one the hype is over" and the
- The "X Box Series - Call our 900 number to find out which one you should buy"
They’ve entered the ring but we have no idea what pricing will look like and the machine is looking like it will be less powerful than the ps5/xsx, even before console optimizations are taken into account.
We do have some idea based upon the price of all the components in the bill of materials, and the expected markup. If the markup is the same as the Steam Deck, which was 34%, then the Steam Machine will be about $570. That makes it very competitive with the current gen consoles.
I only read about it in a Lemmy comment somewhere, and they mentioned some YouTube channel or something. So, sorry, I don't have a source.
Oh, I think I just found it. I did a quick search on YT and this was the result. That's the name of the channel the comment mentioned.
If it prices comparably to the next Xbox and PlayStation consoles, they may be onto something. I still think it'll just carve Valve a sizeable spot in the market. But who knows, maybe Xbox's business model collapses. There hasn't been much of a reason to buy an Xbox if you already own a PC, and PCs priced like consoles could definitely put a dent in their sales.
a sizable spot is a win no?
For sure, but it's not "winning the console generation"
Fair. I am not sure what that means but probably: Valve PC Sales > Each Separate Console Sale
Yea, that's unlikely but not impossible.
Definitely not impossible. I also think they have a decent chance of killing the Xbox business model, given that there's no real reason to buy an Xbox over a PC other than brand loyalty or wanting a console. The Steam Machine fills that second need, of course.
Anything cheaper than PS5 pro and is as good or better performance-wise -> market gonna have a fun time! No one can claim after that PCs are expensive to build/buy than a console and consoles are better for gaming. The line is going to be completely blurred.
Steam Deck made PC handheld gaming possible. I can only imagine what will be possible with a full fledged machine. And if they will release SteamOS for other hardware - that'll be extreme win for PC Gaming in many years.
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@lemmy.ml
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Issue tracker for Linux version of Steam
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Premature celebration much? They haven't even announced pricing. Steam Machine could be $1200 and DOA for all we know.
save