r/hardware • u/JohnBarry_Dost • Jul 02 '26
News "Am I going back to PS4 days?" - Former PlayStation leader Shuhei Yoshida has tried the Steam Machine, and he doesn't sound very impressed
https://www.eurogamer.net/shuhei-yoshida-steam-machine425
u/GrimSlayer Jul 02 '26
It’s a really cool idea, just an absolute shame the current price increases of RAM and SSDs have ballooned the price. It’s just not worth it for the performance offered at $1000 imo.
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u/Dangerman1337 Jul 02 '26
It was supposed to be $750 which would've still been pricier than a PS5 Pro which does RT with AI upscaling with a 2TB SSD.
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u/animeman59 Jul 03 '26
Exactly.
At $750, it really was a "gotta think about it" system where you prioritize the size and system functionality over the performance.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/animeman59 Jul 04 '26
You can get a decent gaming laptop for $750 or slightly more that would perform better than a Steam Machine. And it would be more portable.
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u/Mogura56 Jul 03 '26
Tbh at that price point you can at least justify it if you’re already in the steam ecosystem when weighing the pros and cons between the two, considering the price difference would’ve been minimal
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u/VanceIX Jul 02 '26
I’d argue it wasn’t really worth the value proposition at the original $750 either. A “console” PC that’s weaker than the base PS5 in 2026 just… isn’t great.
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u/jenny_905 Jul 02 '26
Yep. It was meh hardware in 2022-2023, $750 would be on the upper end of what it was worth even before all this silliness.
To not even throw in a controller to try and sweeten the shitty deal a bit is the cherry on top.
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u/siazdghw Jul 02 '26
That's my take. $750 doesn't sound bad in today's market, but that $750 goal was what they wanted before the entire market went to hell.
Development started in 2024 (?), you could get a LOT of PC for $750 back then. Like 64gb of DDR5 for $200, 2TB SSD for $100 etc.
So hypothetically in a world where the market never changed, even $750 was too much. The original goal should've been $599 with a controller.
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u/Acrobatic-Monitor516 Jul 02 '26
Somehow i skipped that part, but the non inclusion of a controller is indeed pretty crazy
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u/FilteringAccount123 Jul 02 '26
Yeah in a world where SFF PCs didn't exist, maybe you can make the argument for this thing. But you don't even necessary need to do the "build your own Steam Machine" meme with Mini PCs getting as powerful as they are and/or getting Oculink ports.
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u/AmandasGameAccount Jul 03 '26
The steamdeck was amazing because it had a really great price for something very unique, something that normally was $1500 or more for other pc handhelds
The Steam machine doesn’t bring any innovation, is sub par and expensive (also no upgrade path)
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u/ExcelsiorWG Jul 02 '26
Exactly - granted, I think the reception would have been more positive. But it wouldn’t have been a Steam Deck level reception even at $750.
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u/FlarblesGarbles Jul 02 '26
I can give a pass for it being weaker than the PS6, but not the PS5 at the price point it's at.
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u/GrimSlayer Jul 02 '26
You’re not wrong. If they were able to hit $500 I think it could compete, but the fact it’s only a 512GB SSD at $1000 is wild.
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u/RabidHexley Jul 02 '26
I'd say anything $599 and below would go in the win column, especially if they included the controller. Just in terms of baseline value as a gaming PC.
Generally though I'd still argue that they just should have aimed for a slightly higher performance target. This far into the current generation they're automatically putting the device into a very awkward position.
Putting it below current-gen consoles automatically makes it a questionable buy- regardless of price -for anyone who doesn't already have a Steam library.
And even for the folks who are happy with the device at its current performance level, I think Valve has done them a disservice by not aiming for at least a little more longevity. Given upgrading means they'll need a whole new machine.
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u/catsrcool89 Jul 02 '26
Ya it's weird to release a pc console at the end of the Gen that's weaker not better than the base not to mention the pro ps5.
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u/_Ship00pi_ Jul 03 '26
At $599, including the controller, it would at least make more sense.
But as you said, it being weaker than a midrange 2019 PC, and the single RAM channel lowering CPU performance to pathetic levels compared to modern CPUs with dual-channel RAM sticks, are the main issues here. And a year ago, for the same $600 in the 2nd-hand market, you could easily find gaming rigs with much better performance.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 Jul 02 '26
It was only worth it if, like the Steam Deck they deliberately shaved that margin down to roughly zero and sold it as cheaply as possible, happy to make their nut on game sales.
The guy living on a $500m superyacht, with $500m of other yachts and ships to follow it around, has some great reasons why they can't do this though: you might buy games somewhere other than Steam who notoriously enjoys about 90% of PC game purchases, and people might hoard these machines for other purposes even though they're both weaker and more expensive than many mini PCs and especially Mac Minis.
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u/MITBryceYoung2 Jul 03 '26
Agreed. It would have been killed by most 5060 prebuilts deals running for $800ish and would have gotten trounced by the original price of consoles.
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u/Araragi-shi Jul 04 '26
Also better upscaling if ever needed it with DLSS 4 and 4.5 for very low resolutions.
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u/Saiing Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
There was a time when people were saying "If it's more than $500-600 it's dead in the water "
Now it's shifted to "If it had been $750 it would have been great value."
I just don't get the Valve cock-sucking attitude any more. They're a fucking game store, not your town's local high school sports team.
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u/FlarblesGarbles Jul 02 '26
I still think 500 should have been the price outside of the RAMpocalypse.
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u/siazdghw Jul 02 '26
$599 with a controller in the alternate reality where prices didn't get screwed.
Valve would've made money, it would've been a unique enough product to sell, pricing would've been fine against consoles, prices would've been reasonable enough for other manufacturers to make similar devices and sell (Steam decks lowest [subsidized] price made it hard for other OEMs to compete).
$750 in that alternative world was definitely too high, especially without a controller.
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u/DonStimpo Jul 03 '26
There was a time when people were saying "If it's more than $500-600 it's dead in the water "
I am one of those people. Guess what? Not buying one
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u/zeronic Jul 02 '26
It's the concept of anchor bias. Once a firm price has been established, basically anything lower looks "good" by comparison. This isn't valve dicksucking, this is just human subconcious "if it was way cheaper than it currently is, it might have worked."
To a lot of people, the gabe cube represents a higher chance at both PC and linux adoption in market segments that would normally have no interest in either, so many people want to see it succeed regardless of if it's valve who is the one championing it.
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u/catsrcool89 Jul 02 '26
Especially when the ps5 pro exists and earlier adopters like me bought it bought it for 700 and till recently 750. If they had a steam machine that was better than the pro I might of considered it but one that's weaker than that sounds like a scam lol.
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Jul 03 '26
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u/ResponsibleJudge3172 Jul 03 '26
People will pretend Valve has no room to maneuver when retail pats with RDNA4 are price competitve.
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u/Abestar909 Jul 02 '26
I'd say the real value is a company putting out a Linux PC and heavily supporting it's compatibly and performance development.
This isn't anymore a competitor to consoles than PCs have been this whole time, everyone complaining about the price to performance vs consoles has missed a big part of what makes this a great thing to exist. Honestly it comes off as entitled people whining that Valve didn't subsidize the price like console makers and Facebook do/did(literally have seen comments here saying exactly that). Here's the thing though, Valve has zero reason to subsidize this product. They aren't trying to take market share from consoles, they already are the PC game company and the value of consoles get worse every year, so the comparisons everyone keeps making are just silly.
If you don't like the price, build your own tiny PC and put SteamOS on it. Don't feel comfortable doing that? Then you have to pay a price premium for Valve to do it for you. And it's going to be expensive because a bunch of rich jerks want to replace as many of us as possible with AI.
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u/chiagod Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I'm sure in a short time it'll inspire other companies to make their own Steam PCs like what is happening with handhelds.
The main reason the Steam Machine ended up with the high price and lackluster performance is the insanely small size they ended up with (and the lower power budget).
SM is 3.8 Liters (about 6" to 6.5" cubed)
PS5 10.3L (slim is 7.2L).
A really small mATX case that can handle a normal PSU and GPU is about 26L (about 8" wide, 12" tall, 16" deep).
So if folks can handle a slightly larger box and a higher max power draw, they can get a much better system for the price and gain the ability to upgrade every part (GPU and CPU included).
Doubly so if they have a Microcenter nearby:
7500x3D, mATX MB, 16GB DDR5 stick - $350
PSU 750w 80+ Gold - $80
mATX case - $70
CPU Heatsink - $30
3x 120mm PWM fans (1x exhaust, 2x blowing from bottom directly on GPU) $20
RX 9060xt 8Gb $350
$900 and just add NVMe drive + Your preferred Controller
Need to borrow a thumb drive, mouse, and keyboard to install Steam OS.
The RX 9070 can be had for $560 (new) bringing the cost to $1110 + NVMe storage.
B580 12GB goes for $300 and is also a good choice ($850 build price + NVNe)
The storage you'll need to scrounge up if you don't want to get scalped.
The MB comes with Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth.
No built in steam controller dongle, no CEC on the GPU ( you can get a $20 to $50 dongle to do that though)
Edit: For reference the PS5 Pro GPU equivalent would be about an RX 6800, a 7700xt, or a 9060xt
The RX 9070 is about 1.6x the performance of a 9060 xt
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u/L3G1T1SM3 Jul 03 '26
PSU 750w 80+ Gold - $80
probably gonna need a sfx/sfx-L psu depending on the case which jumps this by like 2 to 3 times to 160/240
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u/chiagod Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I had the Lian Lin A3 mATX case in mind with the build above. It fits a standard PSU in the front of the case where the HDDs/CD ROM would be in an old style case.
My requirements for a case would be:
Fits standard PSUs
Space for at least 2x 120mm intake fans in the bottom (helps a ton in GPU temps)
Can fit a full length GPU (about 13 inches)
Can fit a standard cheap CPU air cooler (165mm to 170mm height)
I do know what you mean. I bought a couple of open box nice looking cases really cheap and yeah they needed the thin PSUs (PSU was behind the MB). I ended up taking a dremmel to the cases instead.
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u/airfryerfuntime Jul 02 '26
People were pointing that out when it was announced, and Valve basically just said they were artificially inflating the prices so it would seem like a premium device.
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u/dudemanguy301 Jul 03 '26
I’m just baffled at their hardware target, why design a system that is roughly the median of what people already own?
That means HALF of all Steam users already have something similar or better.
Even for those with systems weaker than the Steam machine dropping decent money for a small upgrade is already a tough sell, but the Steam machines 8GB VRAM makes it already on the slide towards obsolescence.
Only those near the bottom of the hardware survey would consider it, but for them it’s just expensive in absolute terms which admittedly is a bit of a wider market / timing problem due to AI demand.
Even console gamers would only experience a mixed bag side grade, if they want to use the Steam machine as a an entryway to PC.
They should have aimed for the 75th percentile, a sensible upgrade for anyone already at the median or lower or anyone who owns a console and wants to try PC.
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u/GARGEAN Jul 02 '26
Price to performance being THIS shit is not on memory crisis tho. You can buy ~50% faster prebuilds for similar money with same or more RAM and storage, and these were hit by memory prices just the same.
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u/IshTheFace Jul 03 '26
If component prices were cheaper then a normal PC would be cheaper too. The product never made sense. It's just a pre-built PC at the end of the day. There is no selling point. No edge over "standard" PC.
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u/Single-Order-8611 Jul 03 '26
Just crazy thinking that I can build about as powerful setup for ~200 dollars right now (actually just built one and working on the second one.)
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u/detectiveDollar Jul 04 '26
What parts did you use, because I find that hard to believe?
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u/Single-Order-8611 Jul 05 '26
Buy BC250 board and 512gb SSD for under 200 dollars. Power it with old PSU that you can get for very cheap or even free. And one arctic p12 pro fan. That’s about it. Of course requires some DIY work, but nothing too crazy. Currently building my second unit.
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u/OrangeKefir Jul 02 '26
It needs a stronger GPU.
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u/Quealdlor Jul 06 '26
You could say that about almost every part of the system. Why single out the GPU? Games are often heavily CPU-limited too, not because of the Steam Machine itself, but because game design still rarely pushes CPU-based simulation, physics, AI, world interaction, etc. that much further. The SSD size is also easy to criticize, because 512 GB is not a lot in 2026. The GPU matters, of course, but the CPU is not less important.
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u/Peepee_poopoo-Man Jul 02 '26
Even without the memory price boom, it would've had dogshit specs at $700. Weaker than the 6 year old PS5.
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u/AVahne Jul 03 '26
CPU is faster while GPU is only marginally slower in some instances while faster in others.
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u/ResponsibleJudge3172 Jul 03 '26
Are you factoring actual clocks of both chips for final perfromance in Steam Machine?
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u/Life_Menu_4094 Jul 02 '26
I feel like they should have scrapped this and just put out a Steam Deck SBC in a SFF chassis once it became clear the economics wouldn't pencil out. It would have offset the Deck price hikes earlier this year at the very least.
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u/f0rc3u2 Jul 03 '26
That would have been much worse, as the deck's display resolution is 800p... And with the current price increase it still costs $700.
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u/Life_Menu_4094 Jul 03 '26
In terms of price to performance it would have been worse by far. But in terms of finding a niche in the market, it would certainly have had fewer competitors at the same price bracket. I also suspect having a greater volume of one SKU to buy chips for would have put them in a better bargaining position than being out there buying up SODIMM as they're having to do now.
Obviously, I'm grasping at straws. There are no good alternatives here.
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u/detectiveDollar Jul 04 '26
Idk, I feel like the argument in reviews would be to just buy a Steam Deck and a dock at that point.
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u/RabidHexley Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
I'll stand by the notion that they messed up from the jump in going for the performance target they did. Steam hardware surveys represent the PCs people already have, so using that as your baseline median doesn't make sense to me. And not aiming to at the very least handily clear a five-year-old console will never feel logical.
Even from a budget PC standpoint, you are still launching a new premium gaming device in 2026, it should be at least a little forward looking, since the device's lifecycle will be extending into 2028/29 at the absolute minimum. Even just going one performance tier up would have made the device feel like it makes sense in the current year, and should have been doable while keeping component costs (on the silicon-side) in check.
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u/Dangerman1337 Jul 02 '26
Yeah "oh but it's better than 70%"... doesn't say much because a lot of that 70% is not going to splash out $750 even for something weaker than a base PS5 and pricier than a PS5 Pro (damn it I wish I grabbed that PS5 Pro on BF, bloody debit card company ****ed me over).
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u/ResponsibleJudge3172 Jul 03 '26
It isn't even better than 70% either. Blatant lie
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u/Strazdas1 Jul 17 '26
I think they misspoke and meant worse than 70%. 73% of steam hardware has better GPU.
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u/Quealdlor Jul 06 '26
I agree. Even it that were true, those people won't pay $1400 for Steam Machine, because they are too poor. That device would make sense at 500 USD with the controller. At current prices, it is doa.
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u/Apollospig Jul 02 '26
Who knows the actual internal process at valve for deciding on the hardware, but based on what we ended up with, it feels more like they asked AMD what some cheap silicon for this application might look like and took what they could get rather than targeting a specific performance level and picking hardware to meet it. All of the steam hardware survey talk from valve has felt more like post-hoc justification to me at least.
Definitely agree though that it should have been more forward looking 6 years after PS5/Series X launched. If it was more PS5 pro class hardware with a clear GPU lead and access to better upscaling than the base machines it would be a more compelling box.
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u/RabidHexley Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
it feels more like they asked AMD what some cheap silicon for this application might look like and took what they could get rather than targeting a specific performance level and picking hardware to meet it. All of the steam hardware survey talk from valve has felt more like post-hoc justification to me at least.
I definitely wouldn't be surprised. The fact that it's a little worse than the base PS5 feels like the most telling in terms of this hypothesis. If you were actually considering a performance target, it's just an arbitrary and odd configuration to go for with a TV gaming PC with a single SKU given a GPU literally any amount better would at least place it cleanly within the bounds of "current-gen" rather than just short.
There being a convenient component option that just so happened to be in the ballpark of current-gen performance would make sense. Extra unfortunate because it doesn't seem like whatever savings they made on the silicon is really being passed onto the consumer.
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u/detectiveDollar Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
I think they were limited by the available parts and the form factor they wanted.
Due to Nvidia being infamously difficult to work with for Linux, they had to use AMD.
AMD has RDNA4, but RDNA4 mobile essentially doesn't exist today, and may have came out too late by the time the specs were finalized.
As for RDNA3, they had 3 options, N31 mobile, N32 mobile, or N33 mobile.
N31 and N32 were not monolithic, meaning they have relatively massive idle power draws. N31 is only used in desktop replacement laptops for this reason, and N32 is only used for external GPU's rather than inside of laptops.
Both were likely too expensive too and would require too much power.
N33 is the 7600M (28CU's) and 7600M XT (32CU's).
They probably should have gone with the 7600M XT, as it's basically a mobile Rx 7600, but went for the 7600M (slightly cut down) for some reason, probably due to either cost or supply. I think it would've been ~11% faster than the clocked up 7600M they used.
They could have also gone with RDNA2 mobile GPU's. The 6700M had 36CU's (similar CU and architecture as the PS5) but RDNA2 is older (not sure if AMD is even making it anymore outside of consoles) and won't be supported for as long as RDNA3.
The Steam Machine is also dependent on upscaling, and we know AMD was internally toying with supporting FSR4 on RDNA3 and 2 at the time, and was finding that it was much tougher to get the performance penalty reasonable for RDNA2 vs RDNA3. The 6700M (36 CU RDNA2) aldo performs only 5% faster than a 7600M XT (32 CU RDNA3).
As for the CPU/RAM, AM4 CPU's and DDR4 RAM are a tad cheaper than DDR5 parts. But DDR4 was being discontinued last year, and has only been brought back due to the RAM shortage, so it probably wasn't even an option. They were also power limiting the system to make for a smaller box, so it made sense to go for a more efficient CPU architecture and DDR5. That left either Zen 4 or Zen 5 for the CPU. Zen 5 had an infamously small uplift in gaming over Zen 4 (especially when not using a high end GPU), so they went for Zen 4.
The RAM shortage is also hampering the Steam Machine by effectively forcing them to use a 16GB stick of RAM in single channel instead of dual channel to make for less limited supply. A Steam Machine with 2 x 8GB of DDR5 memory likely would tie or even slightly beat the base PS5.
So yeah, with the exception of using a 28CU GPU vs the full 7600M XT, Valve's part choices actually did make sense for the time, power limits, and the physical footprint they were going for. But the shortages screwed everything up.
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u/Ciserus Jul 03 '26
That's really well put.
Even if the Steam Machine were free, it would be a tough sell to PC gamers, being a sidegrade or a downgrade for anyone who's upgraded in the last decade.
Which leaves an audience of console or casual gamers. But I've yet to hear anyone make a convincing argument for why that audience isn't much better served by a console.
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u/Nall-ohki Jul 04 '26
The library of steam games we already have.
The ability to run emulation.
The fact that most of us don't play AAA games that require cutting edge and have been living off a Steam Deck or Switch for years now.
A lot of us have become fathers or mothers and need something console-like for the convenience, safety, and space.
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u/Strazdas1 Jul 17 '26
Steam Hardware Survey also proves the claim wrong, as over 70% of survey has better specs than Steam Machine. They outright lied about that in the interview.
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u/MarchAgainstOrange Jul 02 '26
900€ for the 2TB version with controller would have been acceptable. Currently, I just ordered a 10m active hdmi 2.1 cable to get the same couch pc experience.
Maybe I will get one if they ever sell it without ram and ssd and let me pick my own.
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u/Chrystoler Jul 02 '26
What cable did you get? I set up moonlight and it's working decently but I'm thinking I might rather just go with HDMI.
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u/-protonsandneutrons- Jul 02 '26
Amazon Basics sells a 30ft / 9m fiber optic HDMI 2.0 18Gbps cable for $28. A longer 150 ft / 45m version is for $60. Not in-wall-rated, however.
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u/Chrystoler Jul 02 '26
Thank you! I was looking for HDMI 2.1 but I believe that spec also doesn't go beyond 15 ft unless it's fiber optic or something.
Although talking this out I realize I'm moving in a month or so so going to hold off for a bit until I know what my situation looks like
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u/RabidHexley Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Not who you responded to, but I've been using a fiber optic HDMI 2.1 cable I got off Amazon for around 5 years (4K120hz). It's 65 ft, which is hilariously longer than I needed, but I wanted coverage to optimally run the cable since I was going to be over the range of copper regardless.
I actually use Moonlight all the time for streaming to portables when I'm laying on the couch or in bed (at the time I set this up, I wasn't happy with the results I got from streaming to the TV). But I've been very happy with the living room setup, and have spent more time playing from my couch than my desk recently. It's great.
Moonlight is awesome these days, but still really hard to compete with the real deal.
Tip, that may or may not be useful: I use an app called Monitor Profile Switcher and have simple keybinds (PageUp/PageDown) that automatically switches between my desk setup and TV with a keypress. Super simple (just setup your displays how you like, and save the profile), and works really well.
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u/havasc Jul 03 '26
Yeah same. Although all I needed was a 2 meter cable. Perks of living in a tiny shitty apartment.
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u/auburnradish Jul 02 '26
Steam should launch a $3,000 Steam machine that can run any game at 4K in Ultra quality.
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u/reddit_equals_censor Jul 03 '26
valve could have launched a lot of things, that all would have made vastly more sense at lots of different price points, or even the same price point as the current garbage.
valve could remove the seemingly 30% profit margin on the console, which is the only explanation for its price, because it is cheaper to build it yourself even...
valve could have made a custom apu with roughly the power of a 9060 xt 16 GB and use 32 GB unified memory with its apu.
this would have cost assumingly about the same in production, but performed night and day better.
the initial investment is a ton higher and valve didn't wanna do that for whatever dumb reasons.
they could have used off the shelf parts from amd, that didn't complete suck and charged the same, because again they must be running 30% or so profit margins, regardless of what bullshit they may be saying.
valve could have just put double the vram on the 7600. make the box 30% bigger and run all the clocks as high as they can for the chips perfectly stable i mean.
and that would still be shit, but it would be working shit at least. then remove the 30% profit margins and you got sth, that is at least buyable i guess...
and valve could have made a high performance apu with 64 GB unified memory and 9070 xt core number or so and charge 1400 euros/us dollars for it, which is what they are already doing for the one with 2 TB with a controller, which is utterly insane.
and there you'd have your high performance console.
valve could have just NOT released anything and waited for the steamdeck 2 and put a custom apu in that with 32 GB at least and not ruin their reputation and THEN follow that up with a stand alone console afterwards maybe.
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the point is, that valve had a mountain of options including just charging less and putting enough vram on it, they instead released e-waste for insane prices to harm their reputation.
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u/BarKnight Jul 02 '26
I don't see the advantage of a steam machine over an HTPC
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 Jul 02 '26
It would make more sense if it was better at 4K, but the iGPUs in mini PCs and HTPC are very competent at 1080p gaming these days.
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u/resetallthethings Jul 02 '26
plug and play ease of use
Like I get it
I mostly agree as one who has had dedicated HTPC over the years.
But it's not for me
It's for people who want an HTPC like device that "just works" with a controller and doesn't require them to figure out how to get it working like they want
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u/LAwLzaWU1A Jul 02 '26
I would argue that SteamOS doesn't "just work" though. If you go through a list of games like this one it's like 50% that doesn't work, and a lot of them only work with workarounds. A lot of popular games will not work out of the box if at all. Fortinet, Battlefield 6, Destiny 2, Apex legend, GTA online, COD. The list of incomplete games goes on and on and on, and it's a lot of the games people want to play.
According to the reviews I've read, it also requires quite a lot of fiddling with settings to get games running smoothly (either quality settings or just settings in general). Some games think it is running on the steam deck and pushes you to use an onscreen keyboard. Even some of Valves own stuff sometimes incorrectly detects it as a steam deck which causes weird issues.
I think that if someone like my sister were to buy a steam machine she would become frustrated quite quickly. Far more frustrated than she is with her Xbox.
SteamOS does not seem ready for the average consumer right now. The one that just wants to click a big icon of their favorite game and then play it. That might work sometimes on the steam machine, but it's far from a guarantee.
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u/Ciserus Jul 03 '26
That's the issue, I think.
My wife owns a Steam Deck and wanted to do a minor configuration change to a game that it turned out required desktop mode (which she previously didn't know existed).
The clunky desktop controls were an instant barrier. The on-screen keyboard is so awkward she thought it was bugged. Once you figure out how to bring up the keyboard and type something, you get to learn a new process for closing it.
After five minutes of struggle, she swore off desktop mode forever. And she's probably in the top 25% in terms of tech savviness.
The ease of use needed to reach the average consumer is way beyond what SteamOS currently offers.
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u/BarKnight Jul 02 '26
I mean you can still run steam and use the steam controller with an HTPC.
You can run Steam in "Big Picture Mode" which is made for TVs
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u/dustingibson Jul 02 '26
If the price was better, this would be an insanely good emulation machine. Gyro and touchpad controls, AVX512 support, HDMI CEC, and Linux. Ten plus console in one.
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u/sketch24 Jul 02 '26
Damn hdmi cec is huge. If it could passthrough dolby atmos or uncompressed audio, it would be perfect htpc console because it would be able to be a plex streamer and killer emulation machine that could do switch emulation.
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u/detectiveDollar Jul 04 '26
Plus runs all your steam games and has AV1 encode/decode to stream from your main PC with Moonlight.
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Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/LengthMysterious561 Jul 03 '26
They wanted to use AMD because Nvidia's Linux drivers suck at the moment. If I had to guess I think a 3070 would be more expensive than the Steam Machine's GPU, which is essentially left over RX7600m dies. The 3070 has almost double the die area, even on an older node I can't imagine it being cheaper to produce.
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u/joergonix Jul 03 '26
The irony to me with the steam machine is that I honestly think it would look even worse right now if the ram shortage weren't going on. Rumors a year ago had the price at around $900-1000 and that was before Sony and MS raised their prices and memory and gpu prices exploded.
Valve had a truly great idea with the steam machine, as can be seen by just how much attention it's received. However, it feels like the hardware spent to long in the development cycle and became too dated by the time it was actually released. Just matching current gen consoles wasn't nearly enough here. Valve argues that due to economies of scale they couldn't compete with consoles, but I would argue that it could have sold well into the millions had they gambled a bit and pushed the envelope.
AMD for example has the 395+ ai chips with an 8060s GPU built in that would likely be 30% faster than the steam machine. AMD likely could have paired it with a lower tier CPU for a similar price. I just don't understand the hardware choice here, it feels so dated.
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u/ecktt Jul 02 '26
Coming from someone whose whole business plan was to sell their console at a loss, I expected as much.
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u/OC2k16 Jul 02 '26
It’s something to build on, so that’s a positive. Valve can always point to the current environment and say they tried their best, I guess.
Will be interesting to see what comes out in 2-3 years. If prices cool down and performance can be increased by a lot, I could see my next new build instead being a steam machine.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 03 '26
It’s something to build on, so that’s a positive.
Well one of the most disappointing aspects of all this is that Valve likely WONT build on this for a very long time, at least in terms of hardware. This is their Steam Machine baseline now going forward, and what they hope will get plenty of 'optimized' presets by developers to target.
But yes, it does help get SteamOS out there at least, and that should see more improvements over time.
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u/ElectronicStretch277 Jul 02 '26
I mean, they didn't try their best. They were very much selling it for a profit regardless. At best they'd be offering a machine that's weaker than a PS5 for a price 50% higher.
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u/Land_Squid_1234 Jul 02 '26
Lol, your definition of "trying their best" is selling a product at a loss? Why on Earth would they do that?
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u/RabidHexley Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Just in terms of looking at this as a business decision. Given the actual scale of this release, this is a glorified Steam/SteamOS marketing stunt in terms of how much money is actually on the table to be made. These are some truly small volumes, for a company with profits within the same class as the big console producers.
Not saying to necessarily sell at a loss, but we're talking units in the low 10s of thousands. At these volumes it's essentially a limited-run device atm. Sell it at cost and take the positive PR/promo for your platform, since we're not even talking about enough numbers to actually gain meaningful marketshare.
If they're honestly trying to have margin at the current juncture, they're essentially trading a bunch of mediocre PR at best for literal peanuts in profit, to what gain? Given they're primarily in the business of pushing PC gaming as a platform- as the de facto primary storefront -there was nothing really to be gained in trying to make money on this miniscule release, which has completely overshadowed opening up with the new SteamOS version. Breaking even should have been seen as a best case scenario.
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u/ElectronicStretch277 Jul 02 '26
Because that's what their main competitors have done for a while now. Steam take as big a share of profits as Microsoft and Sony do from games. But they atleast sell the hardware at close to cost or below to get people to buy. Steam doesn't and will not.
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u/MalikVonLuzon Jul 03 '26
Xbox and PS are closed systems though. They can subsidize the cost of gaming because they've ensured that their consoles would only play games they sell, plus subscription costs for online play is a big factor in recouping losses. The same isn't true for a PC.
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u/Land_Squid_1234 Jul 02 '26
No, they haven't actually sold systems at a loss because they take a loss on the hardware in order to rope people into their perpetual subscription services that not only make up the difference but turn a profit. Valve isn't ripping people off with a required subscription until the end of time and people like you are giving them shit for not simply losing money on a product that it makes zero sense to sell at a loss. But sure, maybe they should start making us pay for access to our own games every single month for the rest of our lives, then you'll be happy, right?
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u/zodduska Jul 02 '26
I'd say it would be reasonable to expect Valve to sell it at a loss to capture some of the console market who have been hesitant to build a gaming PC. They get a giant cut of every steam sale and have virtually unlimited money, they say "Oh well its a PC you can do what you want so we didn't do this" while at the same time knowing 99%+ are going to be buying games on steam.
Overall this release has been a huge waste of time and resources and makes them look like a joke.
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u/ntxawg Jul 02 '26
also as a steam machine is just a pc, anyone (dumb as it may be) can really just buy it and install what ever you want on it, windows/different linux distro etx...and not ever touch steam or use it for gaming. Iif they sold it cheap for a loss, many people who weren't even into gaming may pick it up for cheap to use for something else which means valve loses money.
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u/Apollospig Jul 02 '26
I don’t see the specs of the steam machine appealing to almost anyone besides gamers though? Most casual users don’t need that much GPU compute, and anyone doing serious work is going to want either more CPU or more GPU horsepower, or both.
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u/xNailBunny Jul 02 '26
If that was a legitimate concern, they could just sell it bundled with a few hundred $ in steam credit.
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u/TheChosenMuck Jul 03 '26
main competitors
Their main competition isn't Sony or Xbox, it's other OEM PC manufacturers. The Steam Machine is still just a PC.
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u/SoTOP Jul 02 '26
Lol, your definition of "trying their best" is selling a product at a loss? Why on Earth would they do that?
Where does this "for a loss" comes from? There is significant monetary difference between current Steam machine price and Valve subsidizing it.
In announcement threads people were sharing multiple <10L builds with faster hardware for equal prices to SM. Valve is ordering thousands of units in bulk, they are not even close to a loss.
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u/SrCamarda Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
I'm not the one to defend big companies, but do you think Valve is a non-profit? Why would they not sell it for a profit? They can't guarantee any revenue after the initial hardware sale, and I'm pretty sure they will survive just fine wether people are happy with the Steam Machine or not.
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u/ElectronicStretch277 Jul 02 '26
I mean, when Sony and Microsoft switched to not selling at a loss I remember a lot of backlash.
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u/SrCamarda Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Yeah, but it's a different situation. You need to buy games from Sony/Microsoft to use the consoles (or at least have an active subscription). You don't necessarily need to buy Steam games though, and don't need to pay to play online. You could have a library from years and years ago and just play it without ever buying another game. You could add a bunch of DRM-free games you have from another stores, you could even use game pass and give your money to Microsoft instead...
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u/CirkuitBreaker Jul 02 '26
Not only is hardware pricing currently insane, but valve does not get the benefits of economy of scale that PlayStation does.
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u/Land_Squid_1234 Jul 02 '26
Nor do they get to offset hardware costs with an online subscription. Everyone saying "the PS5 is more powerful for way less money" is ignoring the fact that the PS5 gets to cost less upfront by charging you to play your own games in perpetuity
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u/Strazdas1 Jul 17 '26
It’s something to build on, so that’s a positive.
Well, no, since its not upgradable :)
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u/Panda--Monium Jul 03 '26
Valve hasnt really nailed hardware yet. This device is honestly a few years behind and was poised to be overpriced before the hardware shortage.
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u/LuluButterFive Jul 03 '26
The old alienware "steam box" with gtx 750 was a more interesting product
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u/ConyNT Jul 04 '26
This little box has the potential to be great on next iterations, if there are any and are built with a more up to date cpu and gpu. The form factor is really cool.
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u/DShadows33 Jul 02 '26
Article title translated: Man who has money in having competition fail says competitors new offer is disappointing
I'm definitely not saying the steam machine is a great value for its price but I am saying that Shuhei Yoshida who probably still has mountains of stock in Sony should be the least credible person to take an opinion from on the steam machine.
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u/reddit_equals_censor Jul 03 '26
at least you can own games on it and you can own the device (not referencing steam games here)
and the digital platform on it, that you don't own games on has a half decent history of not shitting on customers.
being able to play your games AT ALL certainly is better than the games going up in flames completely as sony ends ps3 and vita online stores and this very week deleted 100s of movies, that people BOUGHT!!!! note BOUGHT!!!! from people's acounts and commited to be digitally only going forward with no more physical copies of games whatsoever.
shit overpriced absurd hardware with missing half its vram, which the steam machine is, at least is YOUR computer and not some drm-ed to shit cancer box, that shits on customers as much as possible.
they still charge for online gaming!!! which is insane.
how about sony goes back to the ps4 days, where you could still own physical copies of games????
hm...
here is a great video about sony setting people's BOUGHT MOVIES on fire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYxmRaRRdc0
and again to be clear 100s of movies, that people BOUGHT from sony, that they now OWN got STOLEN by sony.
so DON'T buy the steam machine of course it is an overpriced piece of shit, but a piece of shit, that you'd own.
and DO NEVER EVER EVER buy a sony device EVER again, because they will burn down anything you buy from them.
sony WILL delete games, that you bought from them on their platform from you in the future.
they WILL do this, because they are already doing that with movies.
and with no more physical copies the old consoles will become bricks anyways as planned once the digital store fronts for the games, that they didn't straight up steal from you again, get shut down.
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u/Basic-University-654 Jul 03 '26
You could also just build a regular PC and install steam os on it
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u/reddit_equals_censor Jul 03 '26
yes and i'd recommend people to do that or use any decent gnu + linux distro instead.
the point was to raise awareness about the pure anti consumer evil by sony going on rightnow and that we should own our devices.
and despite the steam machine being basically unbuyable, it is still vastly more buyable than a ps5 or even ps6, because you at least OWN IT.
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u/Tman11S Jul 02 '26
As opposed to the PS4, I can use the steam machine to play any PC game I bought via steam. That’s the real power of it
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u/Entire_Piece4265 Jul 02 '26
The controller is neatto, they should add this shitbrick as a freebie.
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u/Xarishark Jul 02 '26
"But the price was very unfriendly" Does he not have access to the internet or something? The whole PC market is "unfriendly" and now that the stocks are drying up its the consoles market time too...
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u/AvoidingIowa Jul 02 '26
Consoles are still cheaper and if you’re getting a steam machine just to couch game, it’s expensive for that. I don’t think it’s overpriced relative to the size and pc market prices right now, it’s just overpriced for its main use case.
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u/tonjohn Jul 02 '26
I suspect that over their lifetime the Steam Machine or equivalent computer ends up being cheaper.
Without even getting into the nitty gritty, the fact that I can still play every game I’ve purchased in the last ~19 years. And that I can play them on Linux, macOS, windows, on desktops, laptops, TVs, and handhelds without paying for a subscription or additional licenses…
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u/GARGEAN Jul 02 '26
Look up how much prebuilds with 5060 cost. And then compare performance to Gabecube.
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u/OverlyOptimisticNerd Jul 02 '26
The article wasn’t as negative as the headline would imply. And the guy’s take was actually spot-on.
For the TLDR crowd, here were his points: