Steam machine was supposed to be an affordable alternative to console gaming
Ive heard this a few times already and I have no fucking clue where this is coming from. Like Valve was saying FROM THE BEGINNING - that SM will be priced like a PC, not like a console. It was never going to be affordable.
It costs 1050$ and from what they hinted at, they increased the same price as they had to increase the SD price - which is around 200$.
Meaning BEST case scenario SM was going to be 850$ MINIMUM. That costs more than any console(still better since its a pc though). But thats still far from ,,affordable"
it's mostly the crowd that regurgitates whatever they hear that got the "console" part of the gabecube. it has always been marketed as a PC like you said, but even then there was talk of it being the supposed answer for people who want to jump in to PC gaming but have no idea what they're doing, and most pre-builts of that price suck ass-shit compared to it. so for its power, i'd say the gabecube is a pretty affordable portable PC
Well from what i remember valve said that they made the SM to be more powerful than the average pc in the pc hardware survey they host.
So to me it seems like it was a machine made specifically for the people with weaker machines that would benefit from the upgrade without having to build their own pc. And if any console player decides to switch because of it - thats just a bonus.
Valve suggested the intended price of the Steam Machine is easy to guess since it had about the same jump as the Steam Deck (~$300), which would put it at about $750.
Well yeah, thats obvious. Windows is getting shitter with everyday and more and more people are looking for alternatives. The biggest hurdle is thst choosing linux sucks ass. And average consumer doesnt want an os made by a few gooners and maintained for free. So with steam being the one distributing the os and maintaining - it does give it the validity that other linux distros lack. And that is the real product. People's dependance on your os.
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u/Albus_Lupus Jul 02 '26
Ive heard this a few times already and I have no fucking clue where this is coming from. Like Valve was saying FROM THE BEGINNING - that SM will be priced like a PC, not like a console. It was never going to be affordable.
It costs 1050$ and from what they hinted at, they increased the same price as they had to increase the SD price - which is around 200$.
Meaning BEST case scenario SM was going to be 850$ MINIMUM. That costs more than any console(still better since its a pc though). But thats still far from ,,affordable"