5 ms·

I hardly understand the headline. Steam machine is just a computer, and since it can be used for other stuff than playing games, then it can't have the cheap pr

by TheRoque 11mo ago

I hardly understand the headline. Steam machine is just a computer, and since it can be used for other stuff than playing games, then it can't have the cheap pricing of a console. Most consoles are sold at a loss, and the benefits are made when selling console-exclusive games. If you sell something at a loss, but users aren't forced to buy your games, then you're not gonna make any money. Hence, the Steam Machine (AKA GabeCube) is gonna be as expensive as a laptop (or slightly less expensive because of the bigger form factor and lack of portability). On top of that, the base OS can't run a ton of games that run on console, because it runs in the way of kernel anti cheats (think: battlefield, call of duty, valorant, league of legends... the biggest games basically), while consoles are guaranteed to run most AAA games. So with all that in mind - while I appreciate what Valve is doing a lot - I don't think it'll win the "console generation". I hardly see how it can even be called a console. It's just a PC, and that's how they call it themselves.

chamomeal 11mo ago
Is money still made from console exclusives? I feel like I see less of them these days. The biggest games are cross platform monsters, and the smallest are indie games. Crazy to think that the Horizon Zero Dawns of the world would be propping up all of console gaming?? But maybe that’s why Xbox is looking to get out. And trying new monetization strategies (gamepass is on Roku or something)
- Normal_gaussian 11mo ago
  Exclusives sold consoles which determined future revenues. MS messed up horrendously with both a worse console and meh exclusives. An exclusive will sell fewer copies, so the console manufacturer will strike a beneficial deal to make up for it.
- tormeh 11mo ago
  In principle the consoles themselves and the exclusives are both loss leaders. Or, sold at cost, anyway. The actual money is made from the 30% cut on any third party game sales, and the online subscriptions required to play online. Consoles are expensive. Once a consumer has bought one, they're likely to stick with it for the generation. This is why we have flame wars about them. Only a small minority has several high-end gaming devices.
ethmarks 11mo ago
Laptops have lots of components that the Steam Machine doesn't have. The screen, keyboard, touchpad, cameras, microphones, speakers, battery, et cetera are all fairly small costs, but they add up. Plus using a Linux-based OS instead of Windows automatically knocks around $50 off the price because the price doesn't include the cost of an OEM Windows license. I don't think the Steam Machine will be priced lower than a PS5 or Xbox (unless Valve is willing to burn money in exchange for market share), but I think that it'll be priced significantly lower than an equivalent-spec laptop (which would be in the $600-800 range based on the fact that the Steam Machine has an "AMD RDNA3 28CUs" GPU, which according to Google is roughly equivalent to an Nvidia RTX 4050, laptops containing which are priced around $600-800).
- Telaneo 11mo ago
  The 'AMD RDNA3 28CUs' is likely to be the 7600M, as all the major specs are the same (power draw and clocks is lower, but given that the Steam Machine is not a laptop, it probably will have more headroom for that).
- TheRoque 11mo ago
  > Laptops have lots of components that the Steam Machine doesn't have. The screen, keyboard, touchpad, cameras, microphones, speakers, battery, et cetera are all fairly small costs, but they add up. Plus using a Linux-based OS instead of Windows automatically knocks around $50 off the price because the price doesn't include the cost of an OEM Windows license. Yet's all the mini PCs I've come across are more expensive than their laptop equivalent Because it's also about the demand, and how much you can mass produce them to reduce the cost
- wpm 11mo ago
  I mean, Valve built this with the profits, at least, in no small part with the profits from selling games, DLC, and gacha skins on their storefront which has many many competitors too bozo-brained to run their stores as well as Valve does. If any company has a business case for “we’ll sell the form factor at a loss with our store preinstalled” now it’s Valve, especially if they want to make the hardware only to prove the viability of the form factor, and especially since they already have been selling on platforms they don’t own.
kouteiheika 11mo ago
> I hardly understand the headline. Steam machine is just a computer, and since it can be used for other stuff than playing games, then it can't have the cheap pricing of a console. I don't understand this train of thought. It absolutely can have the cheap pricing of a console, as long as Steam is the default store, and the majority of users will use the console as-is and buy games on Steam. Let me give a quick analogy: Google paid Apple 20B USD just to be the default search engine in Safari, even though users can easily change it. Defaults matter. The vast majority of people are not highly technical users who customize everything in-depth and seek out alternatives. The vast majority of people just use whatever is the default.
- jsheard 11mo ago
  > It absolutely can have the cheap pricing of a console Valve hasn't committed to a price yet, but they told Gamers Nexus that it'll be priced less like a console and more like an entry level computer (i.e. more expensive than a console).
  - kouteiheika 11mo ago
    I didn't say it "will", I said it "can". And since pricing is not announced yet we have no idea what they will do in the end.
    - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
      Sega can also come back and announce a Dreamcast 2. I'd rather work on likelyhoods than dreams.
  - jauntywundrkind 11mo ago
    Weird statement, because I can search for PS5 pro & see $750 price points, and entry level computers have been far far cheaper. Cheaper than Xbox series X at $650. Getting pretty solid laptops for a bit under $500 has been possible for many years now. But "entry level computer" has a very broad interpretation available. Could be higher for sure.
bryanlarsen 11mo ago
Very few consoles were sold at a loss. Some certainly were, like the fat PS3. But that was the exception, not the rule. More relevantly, none of the current generation (ps5, xbox series, switch 2) are sold at a loss. They don't have large margins, but they are sold above cost. The Taiwanese computer manufacturers won't be phased by thin margins; that's their modus operandi.
- tinybear1 11mo ago
  Microsoft testified under oath in court that they lost money on every Xbox sold prior to the current generation. Sega lost money on every console prior to exiting the market. Nintendo sold various consoles at a loss (Wii U). The PlayStation 1 through 4 sold either at a loss or break even.
  - bryanlarsen 11mo ago
    You're listing the losers in the market, the ones that had to drop prices to make sales. The real volume sellers weren't generally sold at a loss. Most Nintendo consoles were never sold at a loss. Sony often sold at a loss in the first year or so, but their redesigns made them profitable, and the vast majority of sales happened after redesigns. Moore's law was responsible for a large portion of the profits from hardware sales.
    - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
      Okay. That doesn't conflict with their point. "No one had to sell at a loss... Except every non-market leader" only proves their point. >, but their redesigns made them profitable No one says consoles always sell at a loss. They are sold over 6-8 years and price drops are pretty conservative (until last gen where they ceased to be). Every conse eventually becomes profitable, but not in the years where they sell the most.
      - bryanlarsen 11mo ago
        > but not in the years where they sell the most. Nope. Take 1 example, the PS3. It lost money in 2007 & 2008, but became profitable in 2009. They sold 16 million PS3's in 2007 and 2008 out of a total 87 million. So approximately 20% of PS3's were sold at a loss. And the PS3 is perhaps the console that was sold at the biggest loss at the beginning due to the horrendously expensive Cell chip. It's kind of moot, anyways. The discussion is about the consoles of 2026 competing against Steam Machine. The PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2 are all currently being sold for positive margin.
quantummagic 11mo ago
> I hardly see how it can even be called a console. Rather than focus too much on the technology classification, think of it in terms of extending the Steam platform to new markets. How many new people in the market for games-on-their-tv will at least consider a Steam machine. Even with the trade-offs you mention, my guess is quite a lot. And Valve doesn't care about making money on the hardware, they are already basically printing money.
dgrin91 11mo ago
GabeCube gave me a good chuckle, thank you.
somenameforme 11mo ago
> Most consoles are sold at a loss You're thinking of 'back in the day.' The original XBox's video card was worth more than they sold the entire system for, and the PS3 was a complete beast of computation (even if not entirely inappropriate for games...)! But in modern times (PS4 gen onward) consoles have become relatively vanilla midrange computers designed with the intent of turning profit on the hardware as quickly as possible. The hardware cost of the PS4 was less than it's retail price from day 0 [1], and they began making a profit per unit shortly thereafter. Similarly the PS5 also reached profit per unit in less than a year. [2] XBox models from the PS4 gen onward are conspicuously similar as well. [1] - https://tech.yahoo.com/general/article/2013-11-19-ps4-costs-381-to-make-according-to-hardware-teardown.html https://tech.yahoo.com/general/article/2013-11-19-ps4-costs-... [2] - https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609150/sony-playstation-5-ps5-loss-profit https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609150/sony-playstation-...
- musicale 11mo ago
  PS2 and PS3 were price-competitive with stand-alone DVD and Blu-Ray players (respectively) at launch. However, Switch is another console that sold for more than component and manufacturing cost at launch. But most of the cost that needs to be amortized is R&D.
  - littlestymaar 11mo ago
    > PS3 were price-competitive with stand-alone Blu-Ray players at launch. We got a PS3 at home for this very reason, needless to say my brother and I were ecstatic.
- DuckConference 11mo ago
  Tariffs/inflation/everything has raised the unit cost to the point that they're probably close to running a loss again sometimes on the latest gen consoles.
James_K 11mo ago
A console is really just a PC with the word “console” tagged on the side of it. It's more of a branding exercise than a proper distinction. The only real difference is you boot up the console and it takes you straight to a game library. As for the range of games available, it's got a lot more indie titles than console does. One rather hopes it will inspire game developers to develop more Linux-compatible anti-cheat solutions, or just host Linux versions of the game on separate servers, but I won't hold my breath. I've honestly never got the point of anti-cheat myself, it doesn't seem to work in most games. I've long thought there exist much better solutions to cheating than software ones. The simplest would be to permit cheats in the game's base servers and allow players to scan their ID (á la Online Safety Act) to access servers with a higher degree of moderation. A permanent identity-based ban would sort out the problem much more swiftly than endlessly chasing hackers.
nicce 11mo ago
> think: battlefield, call of duty, valorant, league of legends... the biggest games basically Do people actually play these on console? I think most people still use Windows for these?
hamdingers 11mo ago
It's strange how neither you nor seemingly any of your replies have heard of the Steam Deck. Valve sold the Deck at a loss that GabeN himself described as "aggressive and painful," 3rd party estimates put it at $150/unit for the base model. I see no reason to believe they won't employ the same strategy for the Machine. If I can lodge my own bet, I think they'll price it somewhere between a PS5 digital and pro.
- wnevets 11mo ago
  > I see no reason to believe they won't employ the same strategy for the Machine. They have already said its gonna be priced like a computer and not a console. [1] [1] https://youtu.be/bWUxObt1efQ?si=KCNHtUt1fGqkqlOn&t=58 https://youtu.be/bWUxObt1efQ?si=KCNHtUt1fGqkqlOn&t=58
  - hamdingers 11mo ago
    An "entry level" computer which could mean anything. The first thing I did after the announcement was put together a micro atx PC with similar specs on PCPartPicker and came up with $800, so I consider that the ceiling. Assuming they can bring costs down at scale and subsidize a bit, I don't think undercutting the PS5 pro is unreasonable.
    - wnevets 11mo ago
      > An "entry level" computer which could mean anything. Perhaps but I don't feel like Valve going out of their way to specifically say that the steam machine will not be priced like a console leaves a ton of room for interpretation. With the current state of the industry & tariffs I would be shocked if its under $1000 USD.
      - hamdingers 11mo ago
        A similar spec laptop from ASUS with a 7600S is $988 on Amazon right now, and it comes with a screen, keyboard, mouse, battery, and Windows license. I'd be shocked if Valve is so out of touch they would kill this thing with an unwarranted price tag, but I guess we'll see.
johnnyanmac 11mo ago
Yeah, the fanboys are in bliss right now, but seeing this pre built cost 999 (and that's my most generous estimate) will bring them back down to earth.That would still be a good deal as long as the GPU is decent. But it's not "console killer" territory in the slightest. I do look forward to buying the decade awaited iteration on the Steam Controller, though. Very underrated piece of tech.
estimator7292 11mo ago
Are you assuming that nobody who buys a GabeCube is going to buy a game on Steam ever again? Is it perhaps more likely that users with a convenient box attached to their TV might want to buy more games from Steam? Now this might be difficult to track, but stay with me. Valve makes the GabeCube. Valve owns Steam. Sales from Steam go to Valve. Users with Steam hardware play a disproportionate amount of games bought from Steam. See where this is going? There's absolutely no difference. You can run games from other stores on a GabeCube, but most people will play Steam games. People who play more games buy more games. Just like people who mainly play Xbox buy more Xbox games.
- TheRoque 11mo ago
  I guess you're right, even though it's possible to change the gabecube into a workstation and use it for work, never gaming, it's really unlikely it'll ever be a significant proportion of the buyers. Since they have the steam deck, they also probably have enough data to back their new hardware strategy

chamomeal 11mo ago

Is money still made from console exclusives? I feel like I see less of them these days. The biggest games are cross platform monsters, and the smallest are indie games. Crazy to think that the Horizon Zero Dawns of the world would be propping up all of console gaming?? But maybe that’s why Xbox is looking to get out. And trying new monetization strategies (gamepass is on Roku or something)

Normal_gaussian 11mo ago
Exclusives sold consoles which determined future revenues. MS messed up horrendously with both a worse console and meh exclusives. An exclusive will sell fewer copies, so the console manufacturer will strike a beneficial deal to make up for it.
tormeh 11mo ago
In principle the consoles themselves and the exclusives are both loss leaders. Or, sold at cost, anyway. The actual money is made from the 30% cut on any third party game sales, and the online subscriptions required to play online. Consoles are expensive. Once a consumer has bought one, they're likely to stick with it for the generation. This is why we have flame wars about them. Only a small minority has several high-end gaming devices.

ethmarks 11mo ago

Laptops have lots of components that the Steam Machine doesn't have. The screen, keyboard, touchpad, cameras, microphones, speakers, battery, et cetera are all fairly small costs, but they add up. Plus using a Linux-based OS instead of Windows automatically knocks around $50 off the price because the price doesn't include the cost of an OEM Windows license. I don't think the Steam Machine will be priced lower than a PS5 or Xbox (unless Valve is willing to burn money in exchange for market share), but I think that it'll be priced significantly lower than an equivalent-spec laptop (which would be in the $600-800 range based on the fact that the Steam Machine has an "AMD RDNA3 28CUs" GPU, which according to Google is roughly equivalent to an Nvidia RTX 4050, laptops containing which are priced around $600-800).

Telaneo 11mo ago
The 'AMD RDNA3 28CUs' is likely to be the 7600M, as all the major specs are the same (power draw and clocks is lower, but given that the Steam Machine is not a laptop, it probably will have more headroom for that).
TheRoque 11mo ago
> Laptops have lots of components that the Steam Machine doesn't have. The screen, keyboard, touchpad, cameras, microphones, speakers, battery, et cetera are all fairly small costs, but they add up. Plus using a Linux-based OS instead of Windows automatically knocks around $50 off the price because the price doesn't include the cost of an OEM Windows license. Yet's all the mini PCs I've come across are more expensive than their laptop equivalent Because it's also about the demand, and how much you can mass produce them to reduce the cost
wpm 11mo ago
I mean, Valve built this with the profits, at least, in no small part with the profits from selling games, DLC, and gacha skins on their storefront which has many many competitors too bozo-brained to run their stores as well as Valve does. If any company has a business case for “we’ll sell the form factor at a loss with our store preinstalled” now it’s Valve, especially if they want to make the hardware only to prove the viability of the form factor, and especially since they already have been selling on platforms they don’t own.

kouteiheika 11mo ago

> I hardly understand the headline. Steam machine is just a computer, and since it can be used for other stuff than playing games, then it can't have the cheap pricing of a console. I don't understand this train of thought. It absolutely can have the cheap pricing of a console, as long as Steam is the default store, and the majority of users will use the console as-is and buy games on Steam. Let me give a quick analogy: Google paid Apple 20B USD just to be the default search engine in Safari, even though users can easily change it. Defaults matter. The vast majority of people are not highly technical users who customize everything in-depth and seek out alternatives. The vast majority of people just use whatever is the default.

jsheard 11mo ago
> It absolutely can have the cheap pricing of a console Valve hasn't committed to a price yet, but they told Gamers Nexus that it'll be priced less like a console and more like an entry level computer (i.e. more expensive than a console).
- kouteiheika 11mo ago
  I didn't say it "will", I said it "can". And since pricing is not announced yet we have no idea what they will do in the end.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    Sega can also come back and announce a Dreamcast 2. I'd rather work on likelyhoods than dreams.
- jauntywundrkind 11mo ago
  Weird statement, because I can search for PS5 pro & see $750 price points, and entry level computers have been far far cheaper. Cheaper than Xbox series X at $650. Getting pretty solid laptops for a bit under $500 has been possible for many years now. But "entry level computer" has a very broad interpretation available. Could be higher for sure.

bryanlarsen 11mo ago

Very few consoles were sold at a loss. Some certainly were, like the fat PS3. But that was the exception, not the rule. More relevantly, none of the current generation (ps5, xbox series, switch 2) are sold at a loss. They don't have large margins, but they are sold above cost. The Taiwanese computer manufacturers won't be phased by thin margins; that's their modus operandi.

tinybear1 11mo ago
Microsoft testified under oath in court that they lost money on every Xbox sold prior to the current generation. Sega lost money on every console prior to exiting the market. Nintendo sold various consoles at a loss (Wii U). The PlayStation 1 through 4 sold either at a loss or break even.
- bryanlarsen 11mo ago
  You're listing the losers in the market, the ones that had to drop prices to make sales. The real volume sellers weren't generally sold at a loss. Most Nintendo consoles were never sold at a loss. Sony often sold at a loss in the first year or so, but their redesigns made them profitable, and the vast majority of sales happened after redesigns. Moore's law was responsible for a large portion of the profits from hardware sales.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    Okay. That doesn't conflict with their point. "No one had to sell at a loss... Except every non-market leader" only proves their point. >, but their redesigns made them profitable No one says consoles always sell at a loss. They are sold over 6-8 years and price drops are pretty conservative (until last gen where they ceased to be). Every conse eventually becomes profitable, but not in the years where they sell the most.
    - bryanlarsen 11mo ago
      > but not in the years where they sell the most. Nope. Take 1 example, the PS3. It lost money in 2007 & 2008, but became profitable in 2009. They sold 16 million PS3's in 2007 and 2008 out of a total 87 million. So approximately 20% of PS3's were sold at a loss. And the PS3 is perhaps the console that was sold at the biggest loss at the beginning due to the horrendously expensive Cell chip. It's kind of moot, anyways. The discussion is about the consoles of 2026 competing against Steam Machine. The PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2 are all currently being sold for positive margin.

quantummagic 11mo ago

> I hardly see how it can even be called a console. Rather than focus too much on the technology classification, think of it in terms of extending the Steam platform to new markets. How many new people in the market for games-on-their-tv will at least consider a Steam machine. Even with the trade-offs you mention, my guess is quite a lot. And Valve doesn't care about making money on the hardware, they are already basically printing money.

dgrin91 11mo ago

GabeCube gave me a good chuckle, thank you.

somenameforme 11mo ago

> Most consoles are sold at a loss You're thinking of 'back in the day.' The original XBox's video card was worth more than they sold the entire system for, and the PS3 was a complete beast of computation (even if not entirely inappropriate for games...)! But in modern times (PS4 gen onward) consoles have become relatively vanilla midrange computers designed with the intent of turning profit on the hardware as quickly as possible. The hardware cost of the PS4 was less than it's retail price from day 0 [1], and they began making a profit per unit shortly thereafter. Similarly the PS5 also reached profit per unit in less than a year. [2] XBox models from the PS4 gen onward are conspicuously similar as well. [1] - https://tech.yahoo.com/general/article/2013-11-19-ps4-costs-381-to-make-according-to-hardware-teardown.html https://tech.yahoo.com/general/article/2013-11-19-ps4-costs-... [2] - https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609150/sony-playstation-5-ps5-loss-profit https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609150/sony-playstation-...

musicale 11mo ago
PS2 and PS3 were price-competitive with stand-alone DVD and Blu-Ray players (respectively) at launch. However, Switch is another console that sold for more than component and manufacturing cost at launch. But most of the cost that needs to be amortized is R&D.
- littlestymaar 11mo ago
  > PS3 were price-competitive with stand-alone Blu-Ray players at launch. We got a PS3 at home for this very reason, needless to say my brother and I were ecstatic.
DuckConference 11mo ago
Tariffs/inflation/everything has raised the unit cost to the point that they're probably close to running a loss again sometimes on the latest gen consoles.

James_K 11mo ago

A console is really just a PC with the word “console” tagged on the side of it. It's more of a branding exercise than a proper distinction. The only real difference is you boot up the console and it takes you straight to a game library. As for the range of games available, it's got a lot more indie titles than console does. One rather hopes it will inspire game developers to develop more Linux-compatible anti-cheat solutions, or just host Linux versions of the game on separate servers, but I won't hold my breath. I've honestly never got the point of anti-cheat myself, it doesn't seem to work in most games. I've long thought there exist much better solutions to cheating than software ones. The simplest would be to permit cheats in the game's base servers and allow players to scan their ID (á la Online Safety Act) to access servers with a higher degree of moderation. A permanent identity-based ban would sort out the problem much more swiftly than endlessly chasing hackers.

nicce 11mo ago

> think: battlefield, call of duty, valorant, league of legends... the biggest games basically Do people actually play these on console? I think most people still use Windows for these?

hamdingers 11mo ago

It's strange how neither you nor seemingly any of your replies have heard of the Steam Deck. Valve sold the Deck at a loss that GabeN himself described as "aggressive and painful," 3rd party estimates put it at $150/unit for the base model. I see no reason to believe they won't employ the same strategy for the Machine. If I can lodge my own bet, I think they'll price it somewhere between a PS5 digital and pro.

wnevets 11mo ago
> I see no reason to believe they won't employ the same strategy for the Machine. They have already said its gonna be priced like a computer and not a console. [1] [1] https://youtu.be/bWUxObt1efQ?si=KCNHtUt1fGqkqlOn&t=58 https://youtu.be/bWUxObt1efQ?si=KCNHtUt1fGqkqlOn&t=58
- hamdingers 11mo ago
  An "entry level" computer which could mean anything. The first thing I did after the announcement was put together a micro atx PC with similar specs on PCPartPicker and came up with $800, so I consider that the ceiling. Assuming they can bring costs down at scale and subsidize a bit, I don't think undercutting the PS5 pro is unreasonable.
  - wnevets 11mo ago
    > An "entry level" computer which could mean anything. Perhaps but I don't feel like Valve going out of their way to specifically say that the steam machine will not be priced like a console leaves a ton of room for interpretation. With the current state of the industry & tariffs I would be shocked if its under $1000 USD.
    - hamdingers 11mo ago
      A similar spec laptop from ASUS with a 7600S is $988 on Amazon right now, and it comes with a screen, keyboard, mouse, battery, and Windows license. I'd be shocked if Valve is so out of touch they would kill this thing with an unwarranted price tag, but I guess we'll see.

johnnyanmac 11mo ago

Yeah, the fanboys are in bliss right now, but seeing this pre built cost 999 (and that's my most generous estimate) will bring them back down to earth.That would still be a good deal as long as the GPU is decent. But it's not "console killer" territory in the slightest. I do look forward to buying the decade awaited iteration on the Steam Controller, though. Very underrated piece of tech.

estimator7292 11mo ago

Are you assuming that nobody who buys a GabeCube is going to buy a game on Steam ever again? Is it perhaps more likely that users with a convenient box attached to their TV might want to buy more games from Steam? Now this might be difficult to track, but stay with me. Valve makes the GabeCube. Valve owns Steam. Sales from Steam go to Valve. Users with Steam hardware play a disproportionate amount of games bought from Steam. See where this is going? There's absolutely no difference. You can run games from other stores on a GabeCube, but most people will play Steam games. People who play more games buy more games. Just like people who mainly play Xbox buy more Xbox games.

TheRoque 11mo ago
I guess you're right, even though it's possible to change the gabecube into a workstation and use it for work, never gaming, it's really unlikely it'll ever be a significant proportion of the buyers. Since they have the steam deck, they also probably have enough data to back their new hardware strategy