Comment on Steam Machine price leak suggests it will cost as much as an iPhone
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 1 day agoThere will probably be a hefty convenience tax in the price of the SteamDeck, in exchange for my not having to learn a bunch of facts about graphics cards that I’m not sure I will never afford anyway.
Valve bought my trust with my SteamDeck. Let’s see if they spend it well when I eventually buy a Steam Machine.
David_Eight@lemmy.world 1 day ago
But why buy the Steam Machine over a PlayStation at that point? Your getting worse performance for twice the money. Isn’t the SM meant to convert console players, most current Steam users already have PCs. Or am I looking at this all wrong?
user_6282638282@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
I don’t think Valve is trying to convert console players. I think (and they’ve implied) that they’re trying to offer what a lot of Steam Deck buyers have been asking for: a more powerful Steam Deck that plays more of their library. That they took a lot of cues from consoles in terms of packaging and design is really more about “the living room” than that specific customer they’re targeting.
I could have consoles, and I choose not to because I have a large Steam library and, as OP said, they’ve earned my trust.
David_Eight@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That seems like a niche within a niche to me. The Steam Deck filed a hole in the market, the Steam Machine doesn’t. Either way that doesn’t explain the high price, last I heard Sony makes a profit selling the PS5 Pro($750) and the Steam Machine has worse specs (60cu vs 28cu GPU/ 2TB vs 500GB storage). Like others have mentioned, the price might be reseller pricing vs buying directly from valve.
user_6282638282@sopuli.xyz 22 hours ago
Valve hardware is niche. They have (as of 2024) less than 400 people working there, and surely most of them of Steam and… maybe some games.
I really heard nothing in their presentations and interviews to suggest they have grand aspirations of shifting 10s of millions of units. The Deck I think is considered a success, and still only moved in a few years what the Switch did in a few months.
I think their target demographic is PC gamers who are just not super enthusiastic about the endless hardware grind.
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I don’t buy locked-down hardware, with a locked down al game ecosystem, when open hardware is available, so the Playstation isn’t in the running, for me.
If itch.io and the like run on Playstation, that’s good to hear. I have assumed that they do not, from what I know of Sony in the past.
Anwya, I’m still pissed about the time that Sony shipped a Windows virus on their music CDs.
David_Eight@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m with you on that but the price still seems steep to me. Last I heard Sony makes a profit selling the PS5 Pro($750) and the Steam Machine has worse specs (60cu vs 28cu GPU/ 2TB vs 500GB storage).
Personally I was considering getting a Steam Machine over upgrading my PC just to make my life easier. But, not for that much of a premium.
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
Agreed. It seems like we’re all still speculating at this point.
Hopefully if RAM prices drive the price this high, arresting and jailing another batch of RAM producer CEOs can bring prices and the Steam Machine down in price to something reasonable.
I can dream, anyway.
In the meantime, I may still pay the premium just to signal my interest in having a less closed gaming option hooked up to my TV.
Mesophar@pawb.social 22 hours ago
With the current market, I’m not sure how much you can upgrade your current PC for less than that.