Valve's reveal that the Steam Machine would be priced at $1049 for the base edition (512 GB with no controller) and up to $1428 for the 2TB edition with a Steam Controller rocked most consumers who were looking forward to buying one at a much lower price.
The Steam company made it crystal clear that this wasn't the pricing they had in mind for the hardware and pointed to suppliers literally forcing their hand due to the ongoing memory and storage component crisis. Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais told Gamers Nexus:
Look, there’s no contract; there’s nothing. Like, those guys… they give us a price every month, or something, and they say, ‘You can buy that many, and it’s yes or no.’ And if we say no, then they never talk to us again.
How much would it have cost without these industry-wide issues, though? Well, IGN got a hint from Valve engineers Pierre-Loup Griffais and Yazan Aldehayyat, who suggested that the Steam Machine saw a forced price increase similar to the one that affected the Steam Deck OLED last month.
The popular handheld gaming computer originally launched at $549 but returned in stock last month with a whopping 43.7% price increase to $789. That's for the 512GB model; the 1TB model received an even heavier 46% price hike from $649 to $949. Now, working backward from that 43-46% increase, the base Steam Machine model could have cost about $718 to $734 without the effects of the crisis.
It would still have been significantly pricier than Sony's PlayStation 5, which is a problem because in most launch tests, the Steam Machine performed worse than Sony's latest PlayStation console. However, it would have been appealing to PC gamers looking for a console-like experience while still interested in PC titles that may not launch on consoles. That'd been a niche, but still better than nothing.
As it is, honestly, it seems like a hard sell. Of course, the market itself will speak soon through sheer sales data.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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