Comment on Steam Machine pricing announced (from $1049-$1428 USD), reservation lists open
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Well, guess I’m sticking with an old laptop and console for the foreeable future.
I wonder how all the people I know are gonna take this, considering they’ve been rubbing “pc specs at console price” for who knows how long…
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Valve has said from the beginning that the Steam Machine would not have a console price. Did they all miss it?
potustheplant@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
It doesn’t even have a pc price. It’s more expensive than diy (or even prebuilt in some cases) and the 2tb ssd is way more expensive that just buying the 512gb model and upgrading it. It also has a lot of proprietary hw. That’s pretty shitty imo. Who’s the target demographic for this?
Simon_Shitewood@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I don’t know if you’ve seen prices recently but it’s seems pretty on par for a zen 4 CPU, RDNA 3 GPU and 16gb DDR5. SSD prices seem high but apparently the supply’s about to get heavily throttled so it may be accounting for that.
potustheplant@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
“Accounting for” ssd prices going up before they actually seems kinda like price gouging. Also, watch Gamer Nexus’ video. A comparable pc performs better than this. The steam machine cpu even loses against a ryzen 2600.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Slightly more, like $70 from what I’ve seen, and they doesn’t take into account the small form factor. The target demographic is fans of Valve with money to burn, and I’m sure there’s enough of those out there to more than buy every unity Valve makes.
blah3166@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I’m not even a hug Valve fan, but happy to support them for all the work they’ve done to bring Linux gaming to the masses. I can play most my games without issue on Debian, happy to keep throwing money at them and kick windows to the curb.
potustheplant@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
While it’s pretty close, the diy route leaves you with a device that can be completely upgraded and that also outperforms the steam machine. The performance sucks bad. In cpu tasks it even loses agains a ryzen 2600 in some cases.
The only reason “valve fans” will probably buy all of the units Valve makes is because they make fre of them, and they’re not available in every country. I have a steam deck, which is supposedly a huge success for valve, and literally everyone that sees it asks what it is.
These are niche products with an even more niche demographic.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
This is you ;)
potustheplant@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
I think you’re looking in the mirror. I regularly go to what’s colloquially known as the “real world” and the vast majority of people don’t even know what a Steam Deck is, and that was a successful and cheaper product for Valve. This thing makes no sense. They kind of got dealt a bad hand due to timing but the machine itself is also kinda crap. 8gb of vram in 2026? Yikes.
Kaligalis@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s a console-like device for people who want the full PC gaming experience without the large PC form factor. It comes with Steam OS preinstalled and 1080p60 on medium settings should be fine for the people who play on the couch with the large TV two to three meters away.
But I guess, it’s mainly sold to tiny form factor fetishists because it’s definitely not cheap, and you probably can just slap Steam OS on a used gaming PC.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Your guess is as good as mine. I assumed it would be similarly priced to my pre-built laptop cost, which was around 1300-1400.
I’m mildly surprised it hasn’t rise more in the last 2-3 months, but I assume that’s part of why v/ram is a little on the low side. From my understanding, most of the games that would be playable on it don’t need tons of ram, since they’re better optimized on Linux.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
I think it has literally only risen with cost of parts.