[branon]

I respect what Valve is doing here and I loved the Steam Deck but a prebuilt desktop PC with 16 GB system memory and 512 GB storage for $1,000+ is insulting. Those are specs that belong on a laptop or a lowend console offering like the Series S.

I think this product is going to be hamstrung by its attempts to present as a midpoint between a PC and a console. The way this is being achieved seems to be by selling a device with the specifications of a console but the price tag of a PC.

Valve already did the "this is a lowend device and that's okay" thing with the Steam Deck, and got away scot-free because nobody expected a handheld and people didn't have a ton of preconceived notions. The Deck was also a better value since it was (prior to the price hike) priced reasonably for its specifications.

The desktop PC and/or living room console modalities are both significantly more stratified. People have solidly defined expectations about price-to-performance-to-usability ratios in both of these sectors, and I worry this doesn't go far enough in any particular direction to meet the demands of either market.

Leaves me wondering who exactly this is for.

[aeturnum]

This device does sit between mac-mini-esq lower power devices and compact enthusiast builds and, like the Steam Deck, it's an attempt to build a new segment. That said, if you think paying $1000 for this kind of hardware is some kind of exception, I think you should go take a look at what you can get on the prebuilt gaming PC market. You get a little less because the Steam Machine has a small footprint, but if you're looking for a nice little machine you don't overpay by much.

[user43928]

No it does not. The Late 2024 M4 Mac mini benchmarks x1.6 faster in ST and 2x in MT.

The Mac mini costs $600.

[aeturnum]

The mac mini is a wonder but it's not a great gaming machine[1]. You can see that these stats are about 1/2 of what the Steam Machine does, so I think the comparison is pretty apt.

[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/mac-mini-m4-gaming-hands-on/

[user43928]

Yes, for gaming specifically, the Mac mini is often limited to 2D games.

However, at the price of $1130 for Steam Machine + controller, you might as well buy the Mac mini and a PS5 on top for $1250.

It just seems like a poor deal.

The best argument I have heard is that people already have large Steam libraries, but then again, those people typically already own a gaming PC.

[fwipsy]

Neither of those options is good value. PS5 charges more for games and you have to pay extra to connect to the Internet. The value proposition of PC gaming is openness. You can play on whatever you want, on anything that can run it; you're not locked into one hardware vendor or game store. This means competitive pricing across all market segments, except where consoles sell at a loss to buy lock-in.

[Forgeties79]

>PS5 charges more for games and you have to pay extra to connect to the Internet

To be clear, you have to pay to play certain games online. A lot of popular ones are free and general internet access does not cost anything.

A lot of folks also aren't all that interested in playing games online anyway.

[croes]

And then you still need a gaming PC for the games in your steam library

[aeturnum]

Buying a gaming pc is always a bad deal compared to a PS5! Even though anyone buying a gaming PC is getting a "bad deal" - many people prefer it. You can do lots of things on a PC that you can't on a PS5 - and there are reasons someone might want a 6" cube instead of a full PS5 and a mac mini. None of them are low price but they are reasons nonetheless.

A great example of the target audience are the people who've been playing games on the Steam Deck, but want something with a bit more oomf without the hassle of building a PC. I am not in that demographic! But I have a friend who is. He's quite happy to pay more for convenience. He already has a gaming laptop, but I can see him getting this to replace his ancient Steam Link.

[cassianoleal]

> Buying a gaming pc is always a bad deal compared to a PS5!

If you only compare the hardware, that's true. Even if you don't consider all the other functionality that a PC has vs. a console, add all the different ways to get free and heavily discounted games on Steam/PC, and the results of that calculation might start to look very different.

[fragmede]

what makes a great gaming machine? It plays Dwarf Fortress amazingly. And nethack. I'm running factorio on my Mac. The older Mac mini's run windows. Game of Thrones a ton of money at proton so anything that runs Linus and X86 has a shit ton of games yeah even if it doesn't have your pet game.

[aeturnum]

> what makes a great gaming machine?

A piece of hardware that runs a basket of popular higher-end games at close to 60fps is generally what people look for. If you know you wanna run DF you can use much cheaper hardware, but if you wanna run "games" you wanna check that your target pc performs good enough on a selection of games.

[mywittyname]

What makes a gaming machine...

Good - at parity with a PS5 Pro or XBSX in the latest AAA titles.

Great - better than PS5 Pro or XBSX in the latest AAA titles.

[mft_]

The lowest spec M4 Mac Mini on apple.com is $799 today. The next generation Mini will likely be more expensive due to memory pricing, and as the Steam Machine already includes current higher memory pricing, that would be a fairer comparison, no?

[user43928]

You are correct. I see now that the offer I saw for $600 is largely out of stock, and only available in Florida.

[girvo]

Now play games on it and show me the benchmarks.

I mean that for real: I’ve been impressed by the performance of the M4 Mini I own, but a gaming machine it is not

[user43928]

That is true.

Maybe in the future. There should be a new generation of Mac Mini's soon, further extending the performance lead of Apple chips.

Maybe once Fable is back or the next OpenAI model releases, we could take a look at implementing a compatibility layer to translate DirectX games to Metal.

Even if that should yet be out of reach, such a project may become more feasible if AI progress keeps up.

[izacus]

We've been hearing about future Apple gaming wins longer than we've been waiting for Star Citizen launch.

At some point you need to face the reality of it not happening.

[irusensei]

I doubt it will ever be because Apple doesn’t understand the non casual gaming market.

[jeppester]

I don't disagree that this device is very likely too expensive to sell well.

But! The price is not insulting. You can built a slightly faster PC for a little less, but that PC would be ~10 times larger, it would be louder, it would lack features like HDMI-CEC and good wifi/bluetooth. It really wouldn't compare for living room usage.

In order to get anywhere near the size of the Steam Machine, you'd have to exceed its costs.

[remix2000]

Isn't CEC available for all in-tree GPU drivers using DP-to-HDMI passthrough? (although I do imagine Nvidia would still be preferred for a custom build, perhaps with a USB CEC injector)

[WithinReason]

Here, try your hand at assembling one much cheaper at the same performance:

https://pcpartpicker.com/

[InitialLastName]

I just did one [0], mostly with regards only to specs and price (rather than quality). It comes out to $150 more, roughly 4X the volume, and about 3 hours more of my time in effort, all to get something that won't be as well-supported by games. What am I missing?

[0] https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KY3VW9

[ThatPlayer]

That CPU comes with a cooler so you don't need that.

At 2TB SSD, you should compare to the $1350 steam machine instead.

The GPU isn't exactly equivalent. Gamers Nexus puts it closer to RX6600 performance. But that ignores the RDNA3 improvements so I don't really have a good comparison for that.

They did announce SteamOS for general computers, so I don't expect game support to be too different.

[danbolt]

I don’t have a horse in the race and I’m speaking from ignorance, but I noticed that Valve’s offering only requires 300W of power. That sounds very appealing for the sort of games I play.

Would it be difficult to make a PC with a similar power/performance profile?

[InitialLastName]

Note that the power estimate for the build above is only 325W. The power supply is beefier than that for headroom and economics.

It wouldn't be surprising if Valve's efforts at integrating the unit (putting the relevant chips on a single board, eliminating anything unnecessary, and improving cooling) could shave a significant amount of power.

[kubb]

Impossible because of the unified CPU/GPU chip that the Steamdeck used.

[vel0city]

Its a MicroATX build. This is considerably larger than the Steam Machine.

The Steam Machine is about a 6" cube. That's ~3.5L in volume. This case is ~33.6L. 33.6 / 3.5 != 4.

[bgirard]

I don't recognized the CPU/GPU and PC building isn't my field so I could way off. But here's my honest attempt at it without paying a premium for the form factor which isn't an important feature for me:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3WkCdq

Price: $1021

[Peaches4Rent]

Yeah. That's great,but I think it gets a bit expensive if you try to go small form factor and silent. You need more premium parts for that.

So if you want something small, it's a bit more expensive

[vel0city]

At 51L in volume this thing is absolutely massive compared to the Steam Machine.

[cubefox]

The RTX 5060 will be significantly faster than the Steam Machine on games with hardware ray tracing effects, which tend to be the more demanding games.

[muyuu]

If you look at how extremely overpriced console hardware typically gets away with being, this is not a bad deal if the system is durable, relatively quiet and there are good games well optimised for it. The deal is sweetened by the fact that you will be eventually be able to upgrade the RAM and storage easily and for cheap if/when prices eventually come down from the current AI insanity levels.

[cyberrock]

To me it's not even the comparison with builds that's damning; it's the comparison with handhelds and other mini PCs. Most people excited by this probably have a Steam Deck or another handheld, so they have to be into playing a very specific slice of games that can run slightly better than the handheld.

For example, Forza 6 on high 1080p is 60 for SM vs 40 for high end handhelds and 30 for SD. Even at the original price, is it really worth $750? Not to mention that many handhelds and mini PCs also have USB4 ports that one could attach a retired GPU to get 60fps+ @ very high 2k, but the Steam Machine has no such port and only one NVMe slot.

So this is for people who are allergic to the existing solutions (plugging in your handheld, using Moonlight) or just like the brand, but I know it's going to still sell out. I just don't want to hear about extensibility, eco-friendliness, or cost effectiveness from a certain segment of gamers after this.

[zamalek]

People who are willing to spend $71 on not having to build it themselves. That's the premium according to GNs best-effort like-for-like build.

[ajs1998]

It's been a while since I built a PC but that price seems very fair

[ectospheno]

I have no interest in maintaining a gaming PC but want to play indie games that don’t launch on console. I also have money. I’ve been considering it.

[elAhmo]

My 15 year old Mac Mini has the same amount of RAM as this machine in 2026. I bought it used around 7-8 years ago for 200 EUR.

[0x073]

Was 16gb planned since the beginning?

Maybe they lowered to 16gb to reduce the price.

[karel-3d]

Mac Mini in 2011 had 8GB max?

[elAhmo]

I have an Late 2012 model, so it is 14 years, but the point still holds.

[karel-3d]

ahh okay

[deburo]

The disk and memory prices are very high right now. Perhaps they could do a disk-less, memory-less variant.

[bitmasher9]

I was a bit confused by the term “disk” until I realized you’re talking about NVMe.

A relic from “Hard Disk Drive”, which was about two persistent storage technologies ago.

[deburo]

Well if you want to be pedantic, your NVMe drive is actually a SSD, nvme being merely a transport protocol. But point taken; I should have said SSD prices.

[cubefox]

It seems more correct to call an SSD a disk than to call it a drive.

[itomato]

For people who are already throwing money at Valve on a monthly subscription and might otherwise have bought something from Sony or Microsoft, or more likely, will also buy something from Sony or Microsoft.

The consumerist mindset accepts this device.

[marc_g]

There's no monthly sub for Steam.

[itomato]

All games are free then?

[Tangurena2]

Very few games are free. Otherwise they range from $0.99 to $90-ish. Sometimes I get a bunch from Humble Bundle deals. Sometimes I buy something that looks interesting but never play it.

[petu]

How's that relevant?

There's no Steam subscription of any kind to access your library. Whether you're spending $0 on average year, or $300 -- you get to access your Steam library the same.

[Peaches4Rent]

Nope. Just built a pc this Jan. Ram and GPU prices are insane.

This is what you get for the price. Maybe a 100-50 max difference.

I've been looking at building a TV box for a while and this was the number it was hitting

[ZekeSulastin]

You did look at the Steam Machine's specs/benchmarks, right? I'm fairly certain that the build you just made well exceeds what Valve put out.

[sib301]

Incorrect go spec something on new egg and you’ll get a very similar number.

[fxwin]

> Those are specs that belong on a laptop or a lowend console offering like the Series S.

Unfortunately, valve (and we consumers) have to recalibrate our understanding of which prices qualify as "insulting".

[TomK32]

Who knows, maybe once the AI bubble has burst they will surprise us with a replacement mainboard for this second gen. If they want to keep it in sale as long as the Steamdeck it would make sense to offer gamers a simple way to upgrade their existing machine when Steam's ecosystem is already open to all sides. Maybe they'll even outsource that mainboard upgrade to ASUS, MSI or others. Once we see a teardown we can make a better prediction.

[robotnikman]

I blame Sam Altman and all the other AI bros for this and everything else in consumer tech increasing in price