Topher
Identifies as young
What about $600 with a controller and HL3 packed in.
Man I'm setting myself up for disappointment.
Oof.....that's so damn tempting. I'm going to have to practice my temper tantrum
Predict the Steam Machine starting price
- Thread starter Topher
- Start date
Oof.....that's so damn tempting. I'm going to have to practice my temper tantrum
kat_on_the_roof
Member
499€ Controller included would be a sweet spot. I have a gut feeling that valve will not aim for the sweet spot. (Still voted that way)
reinking
Gold Member
I am not sure where the no controller is coming from. Maybe since it doesn't specify on the Wishlist page? At minimum I would expect it in a bundle.
RJMacready73
Simps for Amouranth
I imagine the vast majority of those people gaming at that level won't have the disposable income to buy one of these premium units imo, this thing needs to sell at PS4 prices $399 or under but I can't see it, it'll be a premium unit and priced probably around the PS5 Pro range again imo
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Yeah, I am thinking for base model it needs to be $500-550, as $600 would be pushing it. And if it's $500-550 for base, they can get away with $650 2TB model, maybe with a different face plate (for greater "value").
Folks who don't mind upgrading themselves can always get the base and call it a day.
If rising RAM and flash memory cost force Valve to jack up pricing, it's going to be DoA.
Topher
Identifies as young
People can have plenty of disposable income and also be very frugal with it. I went out to Best Buy and found the cheapest PC available. This is one I walk into the store and pick up right now.
R5 5500
RX 6700 XT 4GB
16GB DDR4
1 TB SSD
$780
Topher
Identifies as young
I'd think offering a SKU with controller and one without would make sense as a lot of folks can just use the controller they already have.
Topher
Identifies as young
Valve could have been really shitty about this and not made the SSD upgradeable. I'm kind of surprised they let you upgrade the RAM.
Ramiro_Rodriguez
Member
499 $ for the base Steam Machine, but controller included and 599 € (tax included) in europe.
Seems like a reasonable price, when i look at the prices for similar pc parts.
Seems like a reasonable price, when i look at the prices for similar pc parts.
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Crayon
Member
Finally voted at at 499. Here's why.
First of all, the thing could hardly be any cheaper and still be functional. So that is clearly a top priority.
Then there is valve's way of strategy. It's long-term, low risk moves that don't always have the clearest reward. I'm on record saying that the original steam machines (that didn't really exist) were not a failure at all, but an information-gathering early step in what turned out to be a ten year project. That steam universe concept was to erode the walls around pc gaming. And to do so slowly.
Idk why people keep forgetting how cheap the deck was compared to what else was on the market at the time. It didn't come off as super low-spec, though. That's because the perception and expectations around handhelds was/is different.
I think there is this wall that needs to be broken down around pc-gaming. A real bad one. Maybe valve agrees. PC gamers are pretty loud and evangelistic, and can sometimes hurt their own cause. One way they do that is their perceptions of what hardware is low, mid, or high spec. My pc cost like $1200 and a lot of people call it mid-tier. In my book, for the diminishing returns of what you actually see on screen, the performance is straight up excessive. But to the outsider forming their perceptions of pc gaming second-hand, it's "mid".
"The best version is on pc" essentially means the best version is on 5090. The bad advice upselling parts to potential budget builders, the trashing of prebuilds as bad deals. The stealth bragging. Dear lord the stealth bragging.
MY advice for the pc-curious console gamer has for a long time been this: Plug whatever controller you already have into whatever laptop you already have and open a steam account for free. You'll need to save up $0, of course. Shop for a few indies or old games on sale. Play them. See how you like it as a companion device. This gets met with pc gamers saying this is going to be a horrible experience. Presumably because the console player is allowed to still be more invested in their console.
Steam machine probably won't sell a bunch, but like the steam deck, it will get an outsized amount of attention, and will be the de-facto ambassador of living-room pc gaming. And it's going to be slower than a base ps5. Good. The pc gaming world might find out that raw performance is about the last reason a normal person would pick a pc over console. Among the top reasons would be multi-purpose capability, flexibility, selection of games, and steam as a home-base platform.
So the low spec combined with a low price could be a sort of statement and proof of concept. That a gaming pc does not have to bury a console in performance to be great.
First of all, the thing could hardly be any cheaper and still be functional. So that is clearly a top priority.
Then there is valve's way of strategy. It's long-term, low risk moves that don't always have the clearest reward. I'm on record saying that the original steam machines (that didn't really exist) were not a failure at all, but an information-gathering early step in what turned out to be a ten year project. That steam universe concept was to erode the walls around pc gaming. And to do so slowly.
Idk why people keep forgetting how cheap the deck was compared to what else was on the market at the time. It didn't come off as super low-spec, though. That's because the perception and expectations around handhelds was/is different.
I think there is this wall that needs to be broken down around pc-gaming. A real bad one. Maybe valve agrees. PC gamers are pretty loud and evangelistic, and can sometimes hurt their own cause. One way they do that is their perceptions of what hardware is low, mid, or high spec. My pc cost like $1200 and a lot of people call it mid-tier. In my book, for the diminishing returns of what you actually see on screen, the performance is straight up excessive. But to the outsider forming their perceptions of pc gaming second-hand, it's "mid".
"The best version is on pc" essentially means the best version is on 5090. The bad advice upselling parts to potential budget builders, the trashing of prebuilds as bad deals. The stealth bragging. Dear lord the stealth bragging.
MY advice for the pc-curious console gamer has for a long time been this: Plug whatever controller you already have into whatever laptop you already have and open a steam account for free. You'll need to save up $0, of course. Shop for a few indies or old games on sale. Play them. See how you like it as a companion device. This gets met with pc gamers saying this is going to be a horrible experience. Presumably because the console player is allowed to still be more invested in their console.
Steam machine probably won't sell a bunch, but like the steam deck, it will get an outsized amount of attention, and will be the de-facto ambassador of living-room pc gaming. And it's going to be slower than a base ps5. Good. The pc gaming world might find out that raw performance is about the last reason a normal person would pick a pc over console. Among the top reasons would be multi-purpose capability, flexibility, selection of games, and steam as a home-base platform.
So the low spec combined with a low price could be a sort of statement and proof of concept. That a gaming pc does not have to bury a console in performance to be great.
I created a thread last week before Valve's announcement about creating my own Steam console using one of these. The integrated 780M graphics perform well at 1080p. Though you are using FSR for heavier games like Hogswarts Legacy.
The thing is these runs $360-400 for 16GB RAM and 512GB storage. $500-550 for roughly triple the GPU performance would lets you game more comfortably at 1440p if that's what the Steam Machine ends up costing.
Yet people scream it's under powered and a scam. I really feel it's all the tech Youtubers to blame. First there was all the screaming about 8GB GPUs, that let me get a $400 8GB 4060ti for $330 a few weeks after launch. It's in a PC for a kid connected to a 1080p monitor and smokes everything we've ran on it. Including the previously 8GB experience is shit Hogswarts Legacy. When you actually optimize, you can fix a lot of issues. Now all the Youtubers are doing their benchmarks at ultra settings. Maybe I'm just old, but I remember when even the best GPUs available would slideshow at ultra on the most graphically complex games. But in a year or two you'd get a new card that could get you 60fps and be amazed. But so many of the settings at Ultra do things that cut performance by 30-40% while doing dumb shit like having a proper reflection in the iris of characters eyes that are normally 1/4" or less in size on the screen at any given time. Swapping to high or very high can give 95% or more of the image quality at 2x the performance. But people need to join the circle jerks and parrot what they are told instead of doing their own research.
RIght now I'm playing through Hi-Fi Rush on my custom Steam console. The mixed cell shaded/old school color printing artstyle look great on my 75" TV even though I have it outputting 1080p. But the game is running at a solid locked 1080p 60Hz with roughly 67% GPU utilization and that's without scaling of any kind beyond the TV doing 1080p -> 4K. We'll see what the Steam Machine ends up costing, if it hits $500-550. Then it will be a great way to jump into PC gaming, or great second device to connect to a TV and move from your desk to a couch.
Spitfire098
Member
$700. Price shouldn't be an issue for pcgamers with all the savings pcgaming brings right.
Topher
Identifies as young
There are certainly cost saving factors in favor of PC gaming, but still think $700 is too much. Unlike with consoles, there are tons of other options
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Kacho
Gold Member
I wouldn't buy a current gen console for $600-700.
reinking
Gold Member
Kacho
Gold Member
Next gen will probably be a bit more palatable because of the better specs. But the idea of dropping $600+ on old hardware is a tough sell for me.
reinking
Gold Member
I bought a PS5 Pro so I have already crossed that line. I would not do it after the price increases though. I will always know I could have gotten it cheaper and I would be a sucker to pay more now. That is where I am with handheld PCs right now.Next gen will probably be a bit more palatable because of the better specs. But the idea of dropping $600+ on old hardware is a tough sell for me.
Kacho
Gold Member
Imagine if the 2TB Steam Box is the same price as the 2TB Series X. I don't think many people would see value in that.