The Steam Machine—Valve’s bite-sized SteamOS-based console/PC hybrid hardware—is now available for pre-order, and lands with a price tag more comparable to a dedicated video game PC than a TV-based console. The price tag raises interesting questions about Valve’s ambitions for video game hardware, and reflects how AI-driven component shortages are choking the affordability of all computer hardware.
Valve is releasing two versions of the Steam Machine with different built-in memory sizes. A 512GB Steam Machine costs $1,049 ($1,128 with a Steam Controller), while a 2TB Steam Machine costs $1,349 ($1,428 with a Steam Controller).
The pricing does reflect the device’s hybrid nature. Like the Steam Deck, the Steam Machine is a Linux-based device that runs PC games on SteamOS, either through a native version or a compatibility layer called Proton. It can easily be used like a console in front of a TV, or at a desk like a personal computer. It can play more types of games than a $500 digital-only PlayStation 5, but isn’t as powerful as a prebuilt PC meant for video games, like the $1,800 ROG Strix G15DS.
Unlike a traditional PC, the smaller form factor makes it easier to place in different home enviroments.
Valve has acknowledged that an ongoing shortage of memory and other hardware components driven by obsessive demand from generative AI companies has driven up the price of the Steam Machine and its predecessor, the Steam Deck. It’s unclear what original price point Valve hoped to sell the device at, though an interview with Aftermath and a blog post from the company offer some clues.
The blog post details why Valve doesn’t think of the Steam Machine as a traditional console, with one major element being that the company isn’t selling the hardware at a lower price to drive software adoption. “The traditional console model is to sell hardware at a loss and make up the revenue with subscription services or by selling games that are locked-in to the hardware,” the company stated. “We think this can make sense for a single business in the short term but that open ecosystems are better for customers over the long term.”
Meanwhile according to Aftermath, Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais and designer Lawrence Yang suggested that the $200 price increase of the Steam Deck OLED (a 43 percent increase) as “a ballpark estimate of how much the Steam Machine’s target had moved.”
That may mean Valve originally hoped to sell the Steam Machine for anywhere from $200 to $500 cheaper, depending on how it measured the price increase and the cost of components, assembly, and shipping.
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