I went to PCPartPicker and tried to assemble a similarly spec'd PC, not with the absolute cheapest components, but definitely from the lower end sorted by price, it came out close to $800.

I guess if Valve can price it at that and be smaller it might have a market, but if much more than that people are better off just buying a PC.

P.S. Since Valve is not buying retail I think there is room for lower than that, and it'd definitely be welcome, but I'm not sure Valve will make that decision.

1. The top end Steam Deck was like $750 at release. Replace the screen with better CPU and GPU, and there's your baseline for the Machine. Since it's "6x" performance, price will probably be a bit higher. People thinking way less are smoking crack.

2. How many of you have actually had a Linux PC connected to your living room TV? I built one about 13 years ago (and upgraded the guts occasionally) and it's been awesome. With a regular web browser you can watch YouTube (with uBlock of course), Plex/Jellyfin, or any streaming service, in addition to gaming. Plus I've done stuff like vacation planning with my partner, where we can easily bring up maps and hotel listings from our couch without hunching over a laptop or tablet.

3. While Linux hardware support is quite good these days, there's still something to be said for buying a machine that you know is fully supported and targeted by game devs.

They're letting us discuss this ad nauseam just to understand what prices people consider acceptable for these devices

It’s $2,400 – 6 Steam Decks – the end.

Fair prices are fair, the existence of billionaires is not. Tax Gabe Newell and the rest of 'em too.

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.

I hope they release the price soon, the discourse on this has become incredibly tiring.

I know speculation is fun, but until we know the price officially, all of this is moot. Wait until next year when they announce actual pricing and judge it then for its value.

I, personally, don't think it'll be a successful product if it isn't less than $800. They don't have to have it cost console prices, but it does need to be at least somewhat within spitting distance. If the price is the cost of an Xbox or Playstation plus, say.....a year of their online service subscription, I think that could be marketable.

If it's closer to a grand, it'll be a flop like the first Steam Machines.

The worst thing about the hardware unveiling is the endless posts about pricing 😮‍💨

The discourse around this confuses the fuck out of me. Did people actually expect this to be <$500?

Remember, an Xbox series X now costs $600 for digital edition ($800 for 2tb + disk drive)

Is PC

Shock and awe when told it MAY cost similar to a PC

Not a number. Not interesting.

If they subsidized it, wouldn't that risk businesses buying it as a cheap-for-its-specs option for their office computers? It's not locked to being a gaming machine like consoles. You can just install windows on it.

Think about it this way, people. Yes, it may be more expensive than a PlayStation. However, Steam offers numerous deals several times a year, so it will be worth the investment. In the long run, owning a Steam Machine or PC will pay for itself.

Unfortunately, due to the craze of AI server farms, PC parts are becoming more expensive. For example, the price of RAM has doubled, and analysts say that SSDs will suffer the same fate.

A PS5 Pro, which is more powerful, is $750. If it's not below that it's too damn much.

Why would anyone want it then? Just install Steam on your machine and use it...