The Steam Machine may be Microsoft’s “worst nightmare” or a new era for living room PCs. But even if Valve hasn’t officially announced pricing, all signs point to one thing: It won’t be cheap.
This first became obvious when Linus Tech Tips broached the topic of a $500 price tag to the company, and the energy afterwards “wasn’t great.” Now, it’s Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais, who revealed on the Friends Per Second Podcast that the price would be in line with a PC that offers the “same level of performance.”
“I think that if you build a PC from parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that’s the general price window that we aim to be at.
“Ideally, we’d be pretty competitive with that and have a pretty good deal, but we’re working on refining that as we speak, and right now is just a hard time to have a really good idea of what the price is going to be because there’s a lot of different things that are fluctuating.”
When asked about subsidizing the price, Griffais said, “No, it’s more in line with what you might expect from the current PC market. Obviously, our goal is for it to be a good deal at that level of performance. And then you have features that are actually really hard to build if you’re making your own gaming PC from parts.
“Things like the small form factor and I think the noise level that we achieved or lack thereof is really impressive, and we’re excited that the people are going to find out how quiet this thing is.”
With the Xbox Series X costing $649.99 and the PS5 retailing for $549.99 in the United States, it wouldn’t be surprising for the Steam Machine to veer towards the higher end in terms of pricing. But then again, such is the hold that Valve – and by extension, Steam – has on the market. How far it can leverage that is the real question, even if the Steam Machine is guaranteed to sell disgustingly well at launch.
All of the recently announced Steam Hardware, including the VR-focused Steam Frame and new Steam Controller, will launch in early 2026. Unlike the Steam Deck, Valve believes that they should be more readily available at launch.
