Steam Machine pricing announced

Valve dropped a surprise announcement today that the Steam Machine (or my personal favorite community nickname: The Gabecube) is available for purchase effective today! Or, well… sort of. We’ll get to that. The long and short of it is that the Steam Machine is officially listed on Steam for anyone to hop on and get ready for purchase. Valve has announced some interesting methods to mitigate FOMO and avoid that issue that comes with being stuck at work when something gets announced and then realizing it’s sold out by the time you get off. We’ll get into it a bit on the specifics of the console, but first I’ll just go ahead and get the bit everyone wants to know out of the way: pricing.

The Steam Machine is releasing in a handful of formats and styles to help you get the right setup, but all of them contain the same internal hardware. The two main pricing structures are in whether or not you want to bundle it with a Steam Controller, and what size you want to have for your storage device. The base 512GB model comes in at $1,049 USD, adding $79 for a total of $1129, if you’d like to get a controller included. If you are interested in picking a controller up as well, it may be a good idea to take this bundle, as that does let you grab one for technically $20 off. On the higher end, Valve is also offering the Steam Machine with a 2TB drive, which starts at $1,349 and likewise increases by $79 with the controller bundle for a total of $1,428. Now, reading those numbers, you might feel a sense of physical recoil, or water in your eyes like you’re standing over an onion. Yes, that is a lot of money, but Valve has some legs to stand on for why, which I’ll also get into.

The Steam Machine is, reportedly, packing a GPU roughly equivalent to that of an Nvidia RTX 4060. You might think that’s pretty low on the chart, considering all the numbers of GPUs you know about above that. But that’s where you’d be wrong (sorta). I mean, it is somewhat lower spec in terms of modern gaming PCs, but in an interview with Adam Savage, Valve’s Yazan Aldehayyat puts it like this:

“We looked at the Steam Hardware Survey. That gives us a good benchmark of people’s home devices in terms of performance. The Steam Machine is equal or better than 70% of what people have”

That is to say that you might consider it below average, but… it’s actually a great baseline target for PC game devs because it gets that sweet spot where the average gamer is only going to continue getting past over time, but is high enough to stay relevant for long enough. Especially if you zoom out a bit and look at what it’s competing against: the Playstation 5 itself is reported to be slightly weaker than the Steam Machine, although the Pro is definitively more powerful than a Steam Machine. You might ask yourself why you would buy one then, considering that the PS5 Pro is $900 and the Steam Machine is over $1,000. The answer is simple, and again, straight from the mouth of Valve on the Steam Machine’s FAQ section:

“We think of Steam Machine as an extension of PC gaming, not as a console.
The traditional console model is to sell hardware at a loss and make up the revenue with subscription services or by selling games that are locked-in to the hardware. We think this can make sense for a single business in the short term but that open ecosystems are better for customers over the long term. PC gaming’s history proves this: The openness of the PC gaming space has enabled it to be the primary driver of hardware and software innovation for decades. The strength of PC gaming is the ability to play the games you want on the hardware you want. Steam Machine is *a* solution to these problems (and we think it’s a great one), but it’s not the only solution, and we don’t want it to be.”

It’s just that. This isn’t a console. It is a PC that Steam is wrapping up and selling to you; just as subscription free online play and full of games as it’s ever been. PC gaming, especially in the vision that Valve carries, is open, free, and unrestrictive. Games from 30 years ago might have some compatibility struggles with modern hardware, but you can almost guarantee you can still play them. “Play what you want on the hardware you want”, that’s their ethos, just like they said in the quoted segment above. Even then, the price difference will make itself up over time just by way of the generally hyper-competitive PC market for game prices and the fact that you’re not going to be paying anything monthly to get the right to use your own internet for playing with friends.

For a quick throw-in of specs, the Steam Machine is claiming that it is overall six times more powerful than the Steam Deck. Which, if you’ve ever played on one yourself, you might find runs things better than you’d expect for its hardware. If the Steam Machine is anything close to the Steam Deck’s level of hardware optimization, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Steam Machine punch above it’s weight. It’s claiming support for 4k60 gaming, which is thanks to their inclusion of AMD’s FSR technology for AI supersampling to assist with keeping things smooth even under load. The built in power supply despite it’s only 6 inch cube size helps minimize cord clutter, and it has a dedicated wifi antenna to help get the best connection possible, should you need it. They also want to make sure you don’t forget that it has a “cool LED strip” on the outside, which, admittedly, is pretty striking for just being a line on a box.

But past all of that, what are we looking at in terms of actual wait times? The Steam Machine technically releases today, but if you remember up in my first sentence, I had that lingering “sort of” that is still waiting to be addressed. Why “sort of”? Because Valve is taking a sign up list first before any sales actually occur at all. As of today, you can enter your name onto the list of interest to get a Steam Machine. But… There’s a caveat. They are explicitly not doing it on a “first come first serve” basis. Instead, on Thursday, they will close the interest list and randomize everyone who signed up. This new random order will be the determining order for who gets first dibs on purchasing. Anyone can still add themselves to the list after this point, but it will turn to a proper queue.

Personally, I think this is great. It helps mitigate that pain of being stuck at work when something releases and then getting home 5 hours later and completely missing your chance. It offers everyone three days to get a chance to decide they might be interested. Once your name is pulled, they will send an email offering you to claim your Steam Machine now, and to pay. If you don’t reply within 72 hours, they will cycle you out and offer it to someone else, so make sure you’re paying attention! These emails will begin rolling out on June 29. They are also promising some protections on their list from scalpers hoarding everything with bot accounts by way of a few restrictions. You can only add your name to the list if you have an account with at least one purchase before April 27th. This account must also be in good standing, and they are limiting it to one per household. They claim to have additional methods by which they’re doing everything they can to ensure a fair distribution.

The Steam Machine (buy it here) has quite a hurdle to get over with proving its value, as nobody loves seeing a four digit price tag for something that’s visually appealing in many of the same ways a console is, but… if you can get over that sticker shock, you’ll find some reasons that it might actually be worth it in the long run. If you’re a PC gaming purist, it might even offer you a good excuse to sit on the couch for a change and get your gaming on without the desk, while maintaining full access to all of the 40 year long PC gaming library.