Valve’s Steam Machine aims to deliver the equivalent of PC gaming in your living room, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be any cheaper than an actual PC.
See while I’m happy to be a console gamer I can’t deny I’ve never felt the pull of a PC and its infinite possibilities. I even trialled a PC just to feel the difference and while it wasn’t the right time for me to be converted, I’m open to the possibility in the future.
PC gaming allows for greater power and performance, meaning your games look and run better and there’s also more of them, especially with more and more console exclusives getting ported across. You also can’t deny Steam is the place to go when it comes to gaming deals and bundles.
That’s why the Steam Machine feels like such a temptation for me, as it’s aiming to provide a worthy PC experience but in the shape and feel of a console.
However there’s one tiny problem, the price. Valve hasn’t stated the price of its next piece of hardware but it recently confirmed through Skill Up that we can expect similar pricing to that of a PC.
This doesn’t mean it’ll cost as much as a top-of-the-range rig but it definitely won’t be cheap, though this could be a win for Xbox of all companies.
A Worthy Opponent
Despite being an Xbox fan I can wholeheartedly say it’s fumbled this current console generation, and its rumoured pivot towards PC gaming in the next generation did have me worried at first, especially when the Steam Machine was announced.
While Xbox’s next console / PC hybrid will definitely be more powerful than the Steam Machine I expected it’d be much more expensive too, so for someone like me who prefers accessibility and a bigger game library over graphics and performance Valve’s bit of kit felt like a no-brainer.
Valve’s recent statement on pricing though does make me wonder if Xbox will surprisingly have the edge over this new challenger, because if both systems are priced similarly but Xbox has more bang for its buck, surely it’d make more sense to go with Microsoft this time around. Rumour has it the next Xbox will support Steam too, so there’s even more reason to go with it over Steam’s own system.
I need to catch myself a bit as a lot of this is speculation on my part, but if Valve gets a bit too greedy with its pricing, Xbox could be back in the race when it comes to its PC audience.
