Valve have confirmed the Steam Machine's price will be comparable to a custom-built PC with similar performance, rather than subsidised like a console.
I don’t see how Valve can be expected to match that price range.
They don’t have to. Even if the sticker price is $50 more and the console equivalent, for a lot of people that’s a better value because you don’t have to pay >$100 per year for online services.
And if it’s priced the same as a similarly spec’d PC, there’s still wiggle room there. Are they comparing to a custom-built PC? Or are they comparing to a prebuilt?
The way I see it, the people the Steam Machine is meant for are these:
People who are sick of the increasingly predatory nature of console gaming and want to switch to PC, but don’t have the confidence or knowledge to build their own
People who are similarly sick of Windows bullshit and want to try Linux for gaming, but don’t have the confidence or knowledge to do it themselves
People with plenty of cash who fancy an extra gaming PC to put under the TV
Valve fans who will buy anything Valve releases, no matter what
IMO it’s not trying to compete against consoles directly, and especially not on price. It’s trying to be an alternative for people who are already fed up with consoles - with lock-in and subscriptions and price-hikes and being advertised to - which is a certainly small but hopefully impactful market.
Something that I don’t really see people talk about and could be a huge selling point for people is that it’s pretty small. Especially for folks that live in a small studio, saving space can be pretty important. I know mini-PCs are big in China, which itself is a huge market
Absolutely, for real. It’s smol and cute, and that’s a plus.
Of course, it isn’t like you can’t build yourself a small PC if you want to. I’ve got a build in a Fractal Design Terra with a beefy GPU, and that thing is barely bigger than a shoebox.
But building small is even more daunting for newcomers than building large, so IMO it ties into the same angle of people wanting something that is premade and a product that just works, right down to the SteamOS operating system it ships with.
There is some overlap among those, particularly 2-4 and 3-4.
Also, I’ve read a lot of comments from people for whom the Steam Deck was their first experience with Linux and they are overwhelmingly positive. I can see this new device having the same effect.
Valve is insanely profitable and makes money with every game sold on Steam. Selling the Steam Cube at cost would make financial sense for them over the long run.
Aren’t the consoles loss-leaders to lock you into their platform? I don’t see how Valve can be expected to match that price range.
They don’t have to. Even if the sticker price is $50 more and the console equivalent, for a lot of people that’s a better value because you don’t have to pay >$100 per year for online services.
And if it’s priced the same as a similarly spec’d PC, there’s still wiggle room there. Are they comparing to a custom-built PC? Or are they comparing to a prebuilt?
They can’t, and they won’t.
The way I see it, the people the Steam Machine is meant for are these:
People who are sick of the increasingly predatory nature of console gaming and want to switch to PC, but don’t have the confidence or knowledge to build their own
People who are similarly sick of Windows bullshit and want to try Linux for gaming, but don’t have the confidence or knowledge to do it themselves
People with plenty of cash who fancy an extra gaming PC to put under the TV
Valve fans who will buy anything Valve releases, no matter what
IMO it’s not trying to compete against consoles directly, and especially not on price. It’s trying to be an alternative for people who are already fed up with consoles - with lock-in and subscriptions and price-hikes and being advertised to - which is a certainly small but hopefully impactful market.
Something that I don’t really see people talk about and could be a huge selling point for people is that it’s pretty small. Especially for folks that live in a small studio, saving space can be pretty important. I know mini-PCs are big in China, which itself is a huge market
Absolutely, for real. It’s smol and cute, and that’s a plus.
Of course, it isn’t like you can’t build yourself a small PC if you want to. I’ve got a build in a Fractal Design Terra with a beefy GPU, and that thing is barely bigger than a shoebox.
But building small is even more daunting for newcomers than building large, so IMO it ties into the same angle of people wanting something that is premade and a product that just works, right down to the SteamOS operating system it ships with.
There is some overlap among those, particularly 2-4 and 3-4.
Also, I’ve read a lot of comments from people for whom the Steam Deck was their first experience with Linux and they are overwhelmingly positive. I can see this new device having the same effect.
Valve is insanely profitable and makes money with every game sold on Steam. Selling the Steam Cube at cost would make financial sense for them over the long run.
Not anymore. That changed with the Xbox one and PS4.
They probably caught on when people started buying hundreds of xboxes to build supercomputing clusters
Depends on the console and the point in its lifecycle.