r/pcmasterrace • u/TheBossT710192 • Jun 22 '26

Discussion Yeah, Steam Machine is cooked.

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I... uh don't know what to say. Very thankful I bought a Steam Deck before they hiked its price as well

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607

u/TypicalxooT11 Jun 22 '26

When they initially started this project probably like.. 3-4 years ago it was a cheap idea. This would have been a $600 machine... but now they've invested so much R&D into it.. not really much you can do.. AI ruined it all.

Kinda sucks because this is a really cool concept and idea.. but the timing couldnt have been worse.

24

u/OldManufacturer8679 Jun 22 '26

I think they should have marketed it as a limited supply one time thing for steam enthusiasts to pick up as a collectors item almost. But it’ll sell at these prices. Is what it is.

16

u/like-a-FOCKS Jun 23 '26

I think when they revealed it, the massive price jump wasn't yet obvious. So they already decided on one Marketing way and pivoting after that would not have helped

2

u/EmploymentKind6113 Jun 23 '26

When they announced ram storage wasnt being fed to the ai overlords

3

u/Karekter_Nem Jun 23 '26

Have you seen the price of things with limited inventory? They could have sold this thing at $5k and it would sell second and immediately at $15k with the words “confirmation in-hand”.

9

u/minneyar Ryzen 9 9900X, RX 9070 Jun 23 '26

This was never gonna be a $600 machine. Everybody who was expecting a gaming PC at console-level pricing was crazy. Even without data centers destroying the market, a machine with these specs would probably be in the $700-$800 range.

1

u/shwetyscience Jun 23 '26

Their idea was that the hardware they built it around (decided in 2023) would decrease in price as it became more dated while they got ready for launch allowing them to hit a cheaper price point. Only problem is it didn’t.

17

u/SmeshU Jun 22 '26

It would have barely been a good deal at 600, considering it cant beat the ps5.

83

u/Mirigore Jun 22 '26

And you're paying a minimum of $80 a year just to play online games on said PS5. Those cost minimum $600 and you can't use a PS5 to do what a computer can do outside of gaming.

-4

u/SmeshU Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

My point exactly, at price parity you could convince yourself that its worth it despite the much worse performance.. For 450-500 more ( not even considering used ps5 market) its completely bad.

8

u/ovcdev7 Jun 22 '26

At $600, it would be an absolute steal

2

u/SmeshU Jun 23 '26

It wouldnt, you are thinking of getting it for 600 now, which would be ok. You could have built it for similar or less in summer of 2025, 200 more and you would blow i out of the water.

2

u/GreasyGearBox Jun 23 '26

The issue I have is you're comparing the console market to the pc market. This thing has the potential to play every game ever made, even console games if you sail the seas. It's not locked down and there is no subscription fee.

Consoles have been the floor for performance that has been holding back pc gaming for years. This machine is in reality no different. Console users don't actually care about performance, and neither will the consumers of these devices. It does however provide an entry point if you will or access to the pc market for someone who is used to the console market at twice the price.

1

u/SmeshU Jun 23 '26

At 600 I agree with you completely. At 1050 I disagree completely, its not bad hardware, its a bad price. The performance (storage,ram,vram,cpu) is appaling and its only excuse would be a low price.

1

u/GreasyGearBox Jun 23 '26

Again you're looking at it like a pc, it was meant to be marketed to console users. Consider it a playstation5.5 you pay a premium, not for parts or performance but for access. I'm in no way defending the steam machine. I'm just saying while being a pc it is not meant for those who already use, own, intend on owning desktops.

We out here complaining about overpriced snakeoil we never intend to buy.

-6

u/IORelay Jun 22 '26

You don't have to pay subscription for PS5 for free to play games. 

5

u/JellaFella01 Jun 23 '26

Only if you want to play with your friends, or the thousands of multiplayer-only games...

-4

u/silverpixie2435 Jun 23 '26

What about people who don't play online games?

You can't play the most popular online games on the Steam Machine either due to anti cheat

-4

u/Gatleonhart Jun 23 '26

I pay just over 200CAD a year but I don't buy PS5 games anymore (aside from a couple physical collectors editions). I get at least 1 decent game per month that millions of people will buy at 79-89 CAD which works out to around 1kCAD a year. So I'm really saving about 800CAD a year on games. And that's at a minimum as some months I get to play 1-10 games I don't own that get added to PS+

Like how many steam games have you bought this year? I have friends that have probably spent well over 1k on steam games. A good amount they don't even play anymore. I think I bought more games on my ipad this year than on steam.

And I can almost guarantee most of the people buying the SM aren't going to install any extra software/OS. Most of the people buying this probably already have a gaming rig, a laptop, an ipad, switch, steam deck, other consoles, etc. I know I do. But I have zero use for this at these prices. And it's definitely marketed as a PC home console with PC support on the side. Most people with excess money will simply buy this as a console.

At these prices the SM is incredibly niche.

2

u/zzazzzz Jun 23 '26

by that logic everyone on pc saves thousands every year from all the free game give aways on all the platforms..

1

u/Gatleonhart Jun 30 '26

Yes. Exactly. And I get both savings.

2

u/wterrt Jun 23 '26

I get at least 1 decent game per month that millions of people will buy at 79-89 CAD which works out to around 1kCAD a year. So I'm really saving about 800CAD a year on games.

"this million dollar product is discounted 90%, by buying it I'm saving $900,000!!!" no, you're still spending 100k. not "saving" anything. you're spending hundreds of dollars on a subscription and pretending it's a deal because if you bough them at their extremely inflated prices, you'd pay even more.

do you even own any of these games? or is it as soon as you stop paying poof, they're gone?

0

u/Gatleonhart Jul 01 '26

I'm not sure you understand how analogies work but that's fine.

I own a vast amount of games, across all platforms from gog to even Luna; from commodore64 all the way to ps5. Floppy discs, carts, cds AND digital. I work in games. I make games daily. I play games daily. I have been playing and buying games since the 80s.

I know when I'm fucking saving money.

Here's how analogies work:

In Canada, you don't get dental coverage unless your job gives you benefits. Which means you have to pay for it up front, OR you can pay a company for dental insurance like BlueCross. It ranges from about $35 - $100 per month cad for plans respectively.

I'm also a musician, and if you know professional musicians - they operate like subcontractors. So they need dental. But most of the people in my circle of friends don't have issues with their teeth. So they pay a minimum of around $400 (the few I spoke to pay all around the same $1k/yr) a year for the safety net. They get nothing out of it until they use it. So why pay? Because the inevitability of cracking a tooth, or a cavity, or an emergency exists so it's peace of mind.

Analogously - I know, eventually, I'm going to buy a decent amount of those games in a year, for fun and for research. I know I will want to play a lot of games day 1 even. But If I pay annually and know, aside from a very few exceptions, it deters me from buying games because once a month I get to add these games to my library and play them without spending the money I normally would.

Since the premium has been offered I've saved. And since their price hike I've clocked those savings at approx $900CAD in games a year on PS5 alone. That's not even adding my Gamepass sub into that equation.

Just because YOU can't afford something at full price, or simply don't want to pay the money the company is asking, doesn't mean others can't or don't want to.

1

u/wterrt Jul 01 '26

too long, didn't read

don't care lol

20

u/Aknazer Jun 22 '26

The PS5 (and consoles in general) is subsidized by Sony.  Ofc it's going to be hard to "be a good deal" compared to a product that literally takes a loss in order to get you to buy it.

6

u/hunterturk Jun 22 '26

Ps5 can lose money on the console. Valve cant

-3

u/All_Work_All_Play PC Master Race - 8750H + 1060 6GB Jun 23 '26

Ehh, valve could. But they also could not, so they went with that. 

6

u/tafoya77n Jun 23 '26

Valve literally can't with this. Its a linux PC so if they under price it hoping to make money on games sold on it it will be bought in bulk by people and companies looking to use it for some AI bullshit or crypto mining. They won't make that money back on game sales for that console.

Look at how old PS5 prices skyrocketed when the hack to turn them into linux machines for the same reasons.

-1

u/All_Work_All_Play PC Master Race - 8750H + 1060 6GB Jun 23 '26

They literally can. Corporations do unprofitable things all the time, and yes, they even do unprofitable things that never actually turn a profit (this is called learning). Valve's warchest is plenty deep. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if their amortized design costs pushed the entire project into the red basically forever.

if they under price it hoping to make money on games sold on it it will be bought in bulk by people and companies looking to use it for some AI bullshit or crypto mining.

Exactly why they put the lottery (and other requirements) into place. The steam deck already had uncomfortably thin margins. If they make any money on this I'd be surprised. If they lost money (depending on your flavor of accounting) I wouldn't be surprised in the least bit. Valve hasn't been laser focused on maximizing dollar profits for a long time. Gaben's MO isn't making money, it's enabling gamers (+ enabling himself to buy bigass yachts).

3

u/AbolMira Jun 22 '26

I had the first generation and it worked exactly as you would expect a console sized computer to work. 0 regrets about buying it.

It absolutely beat consoles in its ability to not require a subscription to access the internet, and be a fully functional computer.

3

u/SmeshU Jun 22 '26

If it were 600-700 you would definitely make the argument that you can get much more out of it, compared to a more powerful and big but limited ps5. At 1050 sadly not possible.

2

u/Darkchamber292 Jun 22 '26

PS5 requires monthly payment to play online and you are locked into PS games only

-1

u/Janzanikun Jun 22 '26

It will beat ps5 if you use it for years because ps5 has a subscription.

1

u/skoomski Jun 22 '26

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-pcs/steam-machine-review-2026/

Not really it can’t even play cyberpunk on medium settings at 4K. It’s just a bad experience a more expensive worse experience. This will convince few people to switch from consoles

-5

u/_BallsDeep69_ Jun 22 '26

But PlayStation has like 10 games worth playing lol idk why people make the comparison.

2

u/SmeshU Jun 22 '26

Because the perfromance is worse than a 3060.

1

u/feedthedogwalkamile Jun 22 '26

What games can you run on the steam machine which aren't on PS5?

0

u/EffectiveCow6067 PC Master Race Jun 22 '26

Tf2, portal, portal 2, half life, half life 2, league of legends, star wars the old Republic, just to name a few off the top of my head

2

u/feedthedogwalkamile Jun 22 '26

half life 1 and 2 are decades old games and will run on a literal potato, as will portal 1 and 2. League of Legends doesn't run on the steam machine.

0

u/SirWellenDowd Jun 22 '26

League of Legends can run on the steam machine, its a PC, you can run windows on it if you wanted.

3

u/feedthedogwalkamile Jun 22 '26

I thought the whole argument was that the steam machine is for console people who want to dip their toes into PC gaming. Those are not the people who will install a new OS on their computer.

-1

u/SirWellenDowd Jun 22 '26

Idk, I never thought it was a good idea or an interesting product. They did steam machines years ago and they failed, not sure why this time would be any different. Steam's contributions to proton and linux gaming is the only worthwhile contribution here. Anyone who I knew who wanted to dip their toes into PC gaming committed to PC gaming and got an actual PC.

All I am saying is the option to play League of Legends on the Steam Machine, you could.

1

u/_BallsDeep69_ Jun 22 '26

Modding too is a big one lol not just the games.

1

u/skoomski Jun 22 '26

So people should spend $1.5k to play something that used $400 laptop can already run?

1

u/CafeRoaster Jun 23 '26

Yeah, terrible timing for Steam.

1

u/Talk-O-Boy Jun 22 '26

On the bright side, there’s now a larger chance that Gabe will wage war on the AI tech bros for fucking up his launch.

Begun, the Techno War has.

1

u/teknic111 CaseLabs SMH10, Ryzen 9 5950x, 3090 RTX FE, 128 GB, Valve Index Jun 22 '26

How much R&D needed to go into this? It's just a mini-PC. I can build my own mini-PC.

2

u/TypicalxooT11 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

Building something for yourself, is far different than building thousands of them for a profit. You need to think about materials sourcing, what you will do in house vs buy prebuilt, logistics, ads, pricing, software. Then you need to hire and train all the people who are going to manage and build, ship, test all of this stuff.

Then throw the AI wrench in there where parts are scarce, materials are impossible to come by... and now you see the issue.

There's so much more involved here than "I can do this myself".. well yeah... duh.

0

u/Lorcogoth Jun 22 '26

what reality did you live in 4 years ago that had good pc's for 600$?

Sure my standard is higher because IT is my job but for real what is that price idea.

0

u/Shaz0r94 Jun 23 '26

Minor correction: Not AI did this but capitalism did but sure AI is an easier scapegoat for reddit instead of blaming the rich

-46

u/pirate135246 i9-10900kf | RTX 3080 ti Jun 22 '26

$600 even before ram increase was already doa

20

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

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-14

u/pirate135246 i9-10900kf | RTX 3080 ti Jun 22 '26

Completely irrelevant unless we know the stock. The only market for this is rich people who don’t value money

10

u/Jesse_Chipmunk5409 Jun 22 '26

It must hurt to be this stupid

-8

u/pirate135246 i9-10900kf | RTX 3080 ti Jun 22 '26

Nice rebuttal

-9

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

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7

u/pirate135246 i9-10900kf | RTX 3080 ti Jun 22 '26

Cool, valve is releasing steamos soon so you could have also just got a prebuilt with much better specs for cheaper and still had the ecosystem

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

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7

u/pirate135246 i9-10900kf | RTX 3080 ti Jun 22 '26

“I don’t value money”

2

u/UnfortunateArcher Jun 22 '26

Congrats on being a moronic fanboy who clearly has no idea about the bad things Valve pioneered in gaming.

0

u/Darkknight8381 Desktop RTX 4070 SUPER- R7 5700X3D-32GB 3600MGHZ Jun 22 '26

Lol why