The Steam Machine was a surprising announcement from Valve, but a welcome one at that.
Aside from Valve fans being convinced the new hardware is hinting at something bigger, most just want to know how much the thing will cost.
Valve is yet to announce the price of the Steam console but has suggested it’ll be what you’d expect of a miniature PC.
This is incredibly interesting though. The last Steam Machine was a failure to put it lightly whereas this new iteration might genuinely have a chance of competing with Xbox and Playstation.
The Steam Machine is in many ways good news for Xbox as its current specs place it on the same level as an Xbox Series S in terms of power. This means the next-gen Xbox console, believed to be some sort of console and PC hybrid, will have no issue outperforming it, and with Steam integration also said to be planned that’s even more reason to get the next Xbox even if it is more expensive than Valve’s new system.
It’s PlayStation that could be in trouble, as experts suggest the Steam Machine will be sold for around $700, roughly the same as a PlayStation 5 Pro. For places like the UK that’d probably be £700.
This sounds right when you consider the other Valve hardware currently on the market.
The Steam Deck for example costs as much as £569 if you want the version with the most internal storage, and you can pay slightly more for the adapter that lets you play it on a TV/monitor.
So call it around £600 for the higher-end of Steam Deck pricing, so that $700 / £700 price point starts to make sense.
Not stopping there, while Sony has the edge in power in the same way Xbox does, that’s not the biggest pull of the Steam Machine, that would be the game library.
Steam is famed for having one of the largest offerings of games in the industry, with more and more Xbox and PlayStation exclusives seeing release on PC.
With Xbox rumoured to be embracing Steam as one of its next console’s user stores, and with the Steam Machine potentially offering a reasonably priced entry-point into PC gaming, PlayStation might be in serious trouble.
Of course we must temper our expectations until the official price of the Steam Machine is announced, probably before the end of the year.
