Steam Machine Out to Have Pie and Eat It Too

by Rian

Valve announced yesterday the specs and price point of the new Steam Machine. It has been speculated Valve is coming after the console market, specifically, the “couch” market. The first Steam Machine from 2015 was a commercial failure, in large part because the pricing wasn’t agreeable to either console or PC gamers. After the successful run with Steam Deck, Valve is giving Steam Machine yet another go, seemingly for the same reason.

Preliminary reviews and benchmarks say it is comparable to standard PS5. Released in 2020, PS5 Digital Edition is currently priced at $599, not $1049 like Steam Machine. One could argue Sony hedged against the AI bubble with mass orders, but component prices hit pre-built rigs the same way. Even on Best Buy, at around $1200, there are listings with higher specs than what Valve just announced. Steam Machine’s price tag isn’t poor timing. It’s a zero-tolerance policy against losses.

We won’t know the details of the hardware configurations until it has reached the community at large, but a pre-built gaming rig provides just about everything Steam Machine promises to do at hardware level and more. Fully upgradeable components. Its pre-installed Windows is widely regarded as default in PC gaming. Linux and SteamOS on x86-64 are no problem. Other unique Valve peripherals also support Windows just fine. A buyer who would take interest in the features likely already knows how to do it on a standard PC. The only thing uniquely “Valve” in Steam Machine is maybe the Valve logo and SFF form factor.

On the console side, Steam Machine isn’t even in the same league. PS5 Pro outperforms it on hardware (and still costs less, for that matter), and its UI is built for the couch — the UX consistent throughout, the games curated and optimized for the platform. No matter how well Steam is integrated, so long as Steam Machine pulls double duty between the TV and the desk while also selling itself as a general-purpose PC alternative, there will be compromises. For the user who never moves it, half the features are dead weight.

Steam Machine also makes a poor case for existing cross-platform gamers as well. Mouse and keyboard centric genres, such as RTS and simulation, are often CPU-intense. And the gamers who subscribe to the genres likely already have a CPU capable enough to run the simulation as there is less pressure to upgrade on CPU front. It’s GPU, and controller centric games (or non M&K games) and its frequent upgrade cycle that makes the difference. But at the price point Steam Machine is offered, one can upgrade the GPU to 5070 Ti on existing build.

Ultimately, it’s a question of value proposition. Valve wants to target a specific group of gamers who would rather not spend much on their gaming PC, but do not want to involve themselves with gaming consoles. I believe the premise itself is an oxymoron. If one is literate in the gaming landscape to assess different platforms, one would also be literate enough to weigh the price of a Valve-branded pre-built gaming rig. Steam Deck offered portability of the Steam library with the software guarantee from Valve, neither of which is lacking on desktop gaming PCs nor consoles. Steam Machine is presenting itself as an accessibility product for the literate target audience who, by virtue of being in that target, understands both the hardware and the software enough to seek out an alternative and even build one. If Valve wants a slice of the gaming console pie, they better be out with more adventurous price tags to entice gamers into the platform.