I'm kinda surprised they don't just sell it at cost. We knew they couldn't subsidize the price with game sales, as anyone could buy this and install a different OS without ever buying a single steam game, but I kinda figured they'd bank on most people not doing that, hence selling at cost.

Maybe it's just ~$71 margin for component costs to inflate further without the need for them to change the price.

It doesn’t really matter how much profit they’re making on it, it’s a bad deal because every other comparable low end pc is upgradable whereas the steam machine isn’t.

There’s just no reason for a locked-hardware low-end device like the steam machine to exist. Why would anyone want a non-upgradable PC, when the reason people play on PC is for the upgradability?