this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 61 points 2 weeks ago (48 children)

Facts people forget:

  • Assembling your own Steam Machine with similar parts will cost around 800
  • Even if you assembled it yourself you would be missing features, such as cec, wake by controller, sleep mid game, etc. LTT will try to build one, it will be interesting to see what they come up with, but I'm 90% it won't have feature parity.
  • There's lots of engineering gone into this machine, they're way more compact, less power hungry and more quiet than anything you can build yourself.
  • Buying the same build as a prebuilt brings a premium and costs around 1000
  • Valve purchases stuff in scale so they can diminish their margin and could potentially sell it cheaper than prebuilts, and possibly cheaper than building it yourself.
  • Consoles are sold at a loss, and they recover it with games because the platform is closed.
  • The Steam Machine is not closed, they can't be sure they're getting game purchases, because people might be buying this to be their work computer. So they have to price it as a PC, with margin on hardware, not promise of future returns.
  • Price might fluctuate between now and announcement, RAM prices are going crazy nowadays.

With all of that being said, it seems to me it's very likely it will be around 800 but less than 1000. For people saying you can build one for that price yourself, sure, go ahead, you'll have a huge, power hungry loud box, without the same features and you would have saved only a small fraction of the value by having to assemble everything yourself.

[–] coriza@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Also people who like to DIY seem to forget that a lot of people want a turn-key solution, I even dare to say that most people prefer a ready made solution. Even a lot of people who work in tech when they get home want a just work solution.

[–] ours@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

And a lot of the prebuilts have a ton of cut corners. A well put-together machine that people can trust to play their games at a base performance could be great for those who don't want or can't DIY.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

PCs suffer from massive hardware fragmentation. It's about time someone made a standardized PC.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Eh, I dont want steam machine becoming a standardized PC.

having CPU and GPU baked into the board and unchangable will just increase e-waste cause it will age out much faster than a PC which you could, 3-4 years down the line, max out the CPU in, throw more ram into, or upgrade teh GPU, to keep it relevant for another 4+ years

It serves its niche purpose, but it should not become standard.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 points 2 weeks ago

A good APU solution like in the consoles would be a nice option though. Especially now with RAM prices through the roof again.

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Nail On The Head.

I work in tech. I also have terrible dexterity. While I love my gaming PC, I dread upgrades or things going wrong. I hate applying thermal paste, replacing a motherboard, etc. I’d gladly pay “prebuilt” prices for something from a company I can “trust” (as far as corporations can be trusted).

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Yup, I love DIY, had tons of fun building my wife's mini-itx gaming rig, my NAS and even my desktop (although it was the boring one of the three since it's just standard). I love poking on my system, trying out stuff, etc. But I bought a Deck and my only mod was getting EmuDeck in it, it just works for what I want it to, and that's worth a lot to me, it allows me to pour my time on stuff I want to be building and just game on my gaming boxes.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

A thousand dollars seems fantastically reasonable for a well-engineered home-gaming machine that can play current gen PC games at high quality. I spend that much every several years on upgrading or building a new PC.

My complaint is not the price, I think the price is fair. Let's talk wages.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Let's talk wages.

Absolutely agreed, if every company had wages at the level Valve does it would be very good.

[–] Ricaz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 weeks ago (12 children)

LTT will try to build one

Time for another video of Linus failing to follow basic instructions and going out of his way to break the OS because Linux gaming bad

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah, but to be fair that was a shitty thing the system did, anyone with experience would know not to do it, but honestly it should have never happened. On the other hand, Linus is a bit daft and lots of stuff blows over his head monumentally, in the same video where he said he would be building a Steam Machine he also couldn't seem to grasp that this is just a computer and people would see it as a prevuilt. In short I don't think he will acknowledge lots of the killer features in the Steam Machine just so he can claim his thing does the same. But at least it will be an interesting watch.

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[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

failing to follow basic instructions and going out of his way to break the OS

Otherwise known as a typical behaviour of majority of users

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[–] Burninator05@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

...LTT will try to build one...

Jay already tried. It was bigger, didn't have the custom OS, and cost $1700. He could have done better except he was part limited to what rhe Microcenter he was at had on hand. Doing a bunch or research and getting different parts would probably bring down the price.

[–] Credibly_Human@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Buying the same build as a prebuilt brings a premium and costs around 1000

For 1k you can get a 9600 9060XT 16gb system, which is waaaaaay more powerful, so this is quite an exaggeration.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

A prebuilt plug-and-play device? Can you share a link to that?

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais claimed that the Steam Machine price had not been nailed down internally, but that Valve’s aim was to offer a “good deal” in line with equivalently powered PCs.

“I think that if you build a PC from parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that’s the general price window that we aim to be at,” he said.

There going to be price competitive with building from parts, apparently.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The answer I'm replying to suggested you can get a prebuilt with a 9600 for 1000, since they're replying to my point that a prebuilt with similar spec is 1000.

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[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Consoles are sold at a loss, and they recover it with games because the platform is closed.

Sometimes, but evidently not currently. Sources seem to indicate that only Microsoft seems to say they are selling at a loss, though it seems odd since their bill of materials looks like it should be pretty comparable to PS5...

I'll agree with the guess of around $800, but like you say, the supply pressure on RAM and storage as well as the tariff situation all over the place, hard to say.

[–] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago
[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Assembling your own Steam Machine with similar parts will cost around 800

No, it won't. $800 will get you a machine that's around 50% faster. Controller included.

Even if you assembled it yourself you would be missing features, such as cec, wake by controller, sleep mid game, etc. LTT will try to build one, it will be interesting to see what they come up with, but I'm 90% it won't have feature parity.

Fair enough.

There's lots of engineering gone into this machine, they're way more compact, less power hungry and more quiet than anything you can build yourself.

It's literally a laptop CPU with a laptop GPU.

Buying the same build as a prebuilt brings a premium and costs around 1000

Also not true. A 1k prebuilt is around 70% faster. Controller not included, though.

Valve purchases stuff in scale so they can diminish their margin and could potentially sell it cheaper than prebuilts, and possibly cheaper than building it yourself.

Sure, but that's an argument in favour of it costing less.

Consoles are sold at a loss, and they recover it with games because the platform is closed.

Yeah, and the best selling console of the generation is $450 for the digital-only version.

The Steam Machine is not closed, they can't be sure they're getting game purchases, because people might be buying this to be their work computer. So they have to price it as a PC, with margin on hardware, not promise of future returns.

Stop this delusion. If this was an actual possibility, it would already be happening with the Steam Deck. Yes, I know you know someone who did it. I know someone who bought a Surface to put Linux on it. There's dozens of us!

Price might fluctuate between now and announcement, RAM prices are going crazy nowadays.

That I see happening. RAM/storage might triple in price tomorrow which would push the price of the whole industry up.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No, it won't. $800 will get you a machine that's around 50% faster. Controller included.

Care to share a link to a PCPartPicker with that? Here's a link on the same thread of someone building a similarly speck machine for 800 https://lemmy.world/comment/20649777 and that is without the controller. In case you haven't noticed, RAM prices are a bit crazy at the moment.

It's literally a laptop CPU with a laptop GPU.

It's literally not, they custom developed it for the product, similar to the Steam Deck one, it is based on the architecture used on laptops, but so are Playstation and Xbox AFAIK.

Also not true. A 1k prebuilt is around 70% faster. Controller not included, though.

Can you provide a link to such a prebuilt? Here's the first prebuilt I could find with similar specs, and it's 1k https://periphio.com/gaming-pcs/firestorm-7600-prebuilt-amd-gaming-pc/

Sure, but that's an argument in favour of it costing less.

Yes, that was my point, the top of what this should cost is the same as a prebuilt with similar specs since Valve buys stuff in bulk it should be cheaper than that.

Yeah, and the best selling console of the generation is $450 for the digital-only version.

And the other one is 700, your point is?

Stop this delusion. If this was an actual possibility, it would already be happening with the Steam Deck. Yes, I know you know someone who did it. I know someone who bought a Surface to put Linux on it. There's dozens of us!

It didn't happened with the Deck because it's not sold at a loss, so it's cheaper to assemble a similarly built PC for you. But I definitely saw several posts through the years recommending people just buy a Steam Deck as their machine in certain conditions. If the Steam Deck costed 300 I guarantee you people would be using it as their daily drivers or building clusters of them.

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[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's literally a laptop CPU with a laptop GPU.

Not trying to have a go at you, actually genuinely curious: Do you have a source to confirm this, or is it more of an educated guess on your part?

All I’ve seen so far is that it’s a semi-custom AMD Zen 4 6c/12t CPU and RDNA 3 28 CU GPU.

[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

An educated guess. The specs of the "semi-custom" components perfectly match with existing products. However, if I were to put my tinfoil hat on, I'd point out that the 7600M has been out for 2 years and you still cannot find a laptop with one. Almost as if someone snatched up all of the supply.

Edit: Forgot to mention what those existing products are. Ryzen 5 7400F and RX7600M. (The M is very important. Don't forget the M).

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