this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026

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The Steam Machine is actually a great prospect — we're just looking at it wrong (www.xda-developers.com)

submitted 1 month ago by Kraiden@piefed.social to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It might not be for you and me, but it justifies its existence pretty well

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[–] Kraiden@piefed.social 36 points 1 month ago (5 children)

So I read this article and a lot of people are saying it's likely to be priced out of competitiveness in the console space due to the parts shortages.

I understand why they couldn't sell it at a loss. It's a general purpose computing device, and it would be too easy for a call centre somewhere to buy 100 of them, which would lead to 0 game sales for Valve...

But why couldn't they release it at the stupid $900 price point, but then offer a $100 - $200 Steam voucher along with it? It sidesteps the call centre issue because the hardware is still full price, but they recoup (some) of their costs for those that ACTUALLY want is as a games console

[–] Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz 28 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

but then offer a $100 - $200 Steam voucher along with it?

Then the same thing would occur—buyers not interested in using Steam would sell the vouchers or the accounts those vouchers are tied to.

[–] Kraiden@piefed.social 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

And? The problem is steam not being able to sell the console at a loss. The hypothetical call centre is welcome to sell the vouchers. They've still paid full price for the machine. This makes it a much more enticing prospect for people that actually want to game on it though, and so long as the bundled voucher eventually gets used, why would it matter that it's not the person that bought the hardware?

ETA: Also, if the voucher doesn't get used at all, Valve win entirely

[–] Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Because Valve would have to pay out 70% the value of the vouchers to developers in game redemptions; the break even point would therefore need to account for that amount being subtracted first (i.e. for $900 including a $200 voucher, $760).

At that point, Valve would likely have higher sales if they didn't include the voucher and reduced the price by the 70% in voucher value it would have cost them otherwise.

[–] Kraiden@piefed.social 4 points 1 month ago

Yes, they would.

This is about competing in the console space though, where eating some of the cost of the hardware is a common practice on the gamble that the more consoles you sell, the more you make in game sales.

The problem for Valve is that they're selling something that could be used as a general computing device which means that there's no guarantee that they'd recoup the cost in game sales.

This is a sort of middle ground. I understand what I think you're saying, that if someone buys the console, and sells the voucher, Valve only stand to recoup $60 with no further game sales...

But on the flip side, that's a lot of extra bs for a call centre IT department to have go through to list and sell a hundred plus vouchers, if they even manage to sell them. It could happen, but it's far less appealing than a nice cheap workstation for $700. Any they can't sell before the vouchers expire is a machine they've paid full price for. It makes it a much riskier and more burdensome prospect.

On the consumer side, someone weighing up a $500 playstation and a $900 steam machine is more likely to seriously consider the steam machine if they get $200 of that back in games

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

The hypothetical call center would be selling Steam Accounts, with... $100 in their Steam Wallets, or w/e.

Which is ... well, against Steam policy, though enforcement is spotty.

Or I guess... physical Steam Gift cards?

But that leads into the other part of this:

The call center would have to be making basically fake individual Steam Accounts for each purchased Steam Machine.

And then probably routing them to different addresses. Different home addresses.

Valve sells its hardware directly through Steam.

They ship it to you.

No stores.

Sure, secondary markets always exist, but it is at least kind of hard to like, buy 100 Steam Machines or 100 Steam Decks on one legit Steam Account, they can easily just say uh no, you get a max of 5 or 2 or whatever.

So yeah a call center could pull off buying a bunch of them, in the sense of them being a scam call center that specializes in fraud and identity theft, yeah, they'd be able to figure it out, but it would probably be decently illegal.

[–] mushroomman_toad@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The Index came with a free copy of Alyx

[–] Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz 5 points 4 weeks ago

Beyond initial development costs, it didn't cost Valve anything to ship the Index with Alyx though. Bundling in a $200 voucher would be increasing the system price by $160 in direct cost to Valve for no reason, as consumers are likely to spend that after purchasing the system, but might be dissuaded by a high initial purchase price.

A more apt comparison in that scenario would be Valve bundling their entire software library with the Steam Machine, or developing a new game to bundle with it as a means of adding value.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Little late reply here... It just occured to me, that there could be a solution to this voucher selling problem. If you purchase the Steam Machine on the Steam page with your Steam account, then you could get the money onto your account. So selling it wouldn't be possible. However, they could buy and sell items from the Steam item shop...

[–] Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The problem with that solution, from Valve's perspective, is both the cost of providing the voucher (they would have to pay developers at least 70% of the voucher value) and the risk that an end-consumer that doesn't intend to use Steam simply converts it to money by selling Steam gifts, replacing a sale they would have otherwise had while not generating additional sales from the Steam Machine user.

The ideal means of doing it to diminish that risk would be to make the voucher not usable for gifts, though Valve would still need to price the system to account for the cost of providing the voucher.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 weeks ago

But that is still preferable over no vouchers. The point is, that the machine gets more expensive because of the vouchers, so that Valve does not pay from their own pocket. This way the system gets more expensive for those who don't want to use it for gaming and have less incentive of buying it. And for the gamer, they would buy games anyway, so its not a big deal.

The only problem with that is, that the system gets more expensive and that is bad.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

A $900 price tag would make it cheaper than a ps5 pro after 2 years due to needing ps+. It's likely very attractive vs a next gen console with tiny library as well.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Plus it will be able to play any game I already own on steam on day one!

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't think people buying consoles are doing that kind of long term thinking

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Free multiplayer is a pretty good selling point either way.

[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So I read this article and a lot of people are saying it's likely to be priced out of competitiveness in the console space due to the parts shortages.

Meh. The parts shortages that everyone is experiencing?

I think this is more a case of what do you consider "competition"? Rivian doesn't compete with Ford - and Valve doesn't compete with Microsoft/Sony who outsell Valve 20 to 1.

Perhaps the new Xbox is a signal that Microsoft is scared of Valve and Valve is on to something, but I dont think the Steam Machine needs to be competitive in price to the Xbox to be a success.

"Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games. Looking forward to chatting about this more with partners and studios at my first GDC next week!"

[–] Kraiden@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Valve doesn’t compete with Microsoft/Sony

That's exactly what the article is suggesting they're doing though, and it certainly makes more sense to compete in that space than in the PC gaming market.

Not to mention there's speculation that this is why Sony are pulling out of the PC market. Because Steam Machine is aimed at living rooms, which is their domain. Obviously, no idea if there's any truth to that, but it's an interesting thought

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

But why couldn’t they release it at the stupid $900 price point, but then offer a $100 - $200 Steam voucher along with it?

~~I didn't think about this; actually a good idea to "force" people into buying Steam and getting into the eco system. Really good point.~~

Edit: I just read another reply with a really good point. They could just sell the vouchers, even with a slight discount. So a really good point is beaten by another really good point. :D

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 weeks ago

I understand why they couldn't sell it at a loss. It's a general purpose computing device, and it would be too easy for a call centre somewhere to buy 100 of them, which would lead to 0 game sales for Valve...

I'm not saying they will, but I hear people repeat this as if it's fact, and it's pretty nieve. They've had other products people wanted to scalp, or whatever, before. They have a system for it. You have to have a Steam account older than a set date before you can purchase, and your number of purchases is limited.

That's even assuming it makes sense. Yeah, the price could be low for the hardware compared to average consumer products, but does that mean it's lower than the, comperatively, cheap hardware used by offices? Almost certainly not. They probably don't even have a GPU. They have to compete with gaming hardware prices, not office computers. A low gaming hardware price is still going to be expensive for an office. It's also going to be expensive for the product for a data center. They have specialty hardware they use that's purpose-built for the task. Sure, once upon a time the PS was used for a supercomputer. That was a much different time for hardware.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I feel like folks are antsy, because it doesn't look revolutionarily different from the original Steam Machines, which flopped back then.
But yeah, there actually is a revolutionary difference, which is that the vast majority of games now do run on the new Steam Machines. This has also already been proven to the public with the Steam Deck.

And I do think there is a market of folks looking at a Steam Deck and thinking they don't need it to be a handheld and would rather have more bang for their buck.

I guess, we will have to see, but I could also imagine the cornered memory market playing into the hands of the Steam Machine, as the better memory efficiency of Linux will let you do more for less.

[–] The_Che_Banana@beehaw.org 6 points 1 month ago

This checks all the boxes for me as a PC, and as a gaming PC. I am currently using the Steam Deck as a console, and with this I can swap out it and my Laptop (that I use for the business).

The deck will be sent to a good home (my son's, lol)

[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 month ago

The real problem is that it has been released in an AI bubble that's driving its costs up, with no regulation from global governments and with the hidden purpose of forcing people towards cloud computing that runs counter to the intent of something like the GabeCube.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Most people don't own flagship GPUs

Spec sheet culture has warped our expectations

We've somehow convinced ourselves that everyone and their dog owns bleeding-edge hardware when they really don't. Only a tiny percentage of users run cards like an RTX 4070 Ti Super or above. The overwhelming majority are on midrange builds with similar VRAM and system memory to what the Steam machine is going to ship with.

Repeating this, because it needs to be repeated.

It is extremely not normal to own a high powered GPU.

Very, extremely, not normal.

Further, you can make a lot of good arguments that nobody fucking bothers optimizing anything anymore, that gameplay, story, writing, art design trump pure graphical realism power.

Real time ray tracing is still a ludicrous, unsustainable, elitist, exclusionary paradigm, from every way you look at it.

Beyond that, ... I'm looking at a potential Steam Machine buy... because there will probably be a way to plug an oculink adapter into one of its M.2 ports, figure out where to cut a hole in the case and snake it out, and then you can just attach an eGPU of some kind, with its own PSU, to it, if you want to crank up the gfx even harder.

Then, your next upgrade path is along that paradigm: A superior mobo+cpu combo.

Somebody on github I saw already mocked out how you could get close-ish to M.2 long term storage transfer speeds out of the Machine's fancier USB port, or you could just run it all off of an SD card if that doesn't sound like its worth the trouble.

Oh, also, a default Steam Machine?

Way less power draw than a comparable PC, more like a beefed up laptop.

If you're worried about either sustainability, or just the power bill going up... worth considering.

[–] doomhauer@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 weeks ago

who's this "we"? I am psyched for it. sure it's gonna be expensive, go compare it to a gaming PC price and make your choice. yeah the component costs are going to hurt, but it's all relative because mid-high end stuff will be even more nuts.

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca -2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I hate to be that guy but I think steam machine is canceled. If it ever does, I'm a day one buyer, but I don't think it's happening anymore

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 weeks ago

It's on "Valve Time". It'll arrive...when it arrives.