4 ms·

Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

114 points by ekianjo 3mo ago

kibwen 3mo ago
Very interesting, it didn't occur to me that hardware products would show up on Steam's top-sellers list. At this rate, the Steam Machine will probably turn out to be a modest success. Remember, it's a PC, not a console. Unlike a console, it doesn't need to use hardware sales to convince game developers to ship games for the platform; the PC platform does not depend on the Steam Machine selling like hotcakes. Also unlike a console, Valve isn't selling these at a loss; Sony can sell you hardware at a loss because they claw that money back via online subscriptions and platform licensing fees. Valve will likely be happy enough if they can sell 100,000 by the end of the year, and based on these estimates they may already be about halfway there.
- infecto 3mo ago
  The steam deck has been on the top sellers list on and off for some time now.
mmusc 3mo ago
One interesting point I've seen online is that the steam machine is more of a budget Mac than a pc. As valve controls the whole stack including the OS which creates a very streamlined experience that just works. Maybe its what will make Linux more mainstream!
- ekianjo 3mo ago
  Valve's vertical control over SteamOS, the UI, and the hardware specs indeed gives the Steam Machine that taste of Mac. Not sure if Apple would have gone for something like that if they ever made a console: one key difference is that Valve keeps it open like a regular PC which is a major benefit to keep the device alive down the road for years to come.
- fendy3002 3mo ago
  Yes, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct driver for Linux and set it up. Having steam machine be start and play like steam deck really brings the console feel on PC. Moreover it's still Linux which you can use for other things, so people doesn't feel loss for this.
  - dannersy 3mo ago
    Nvidia has been historically tricky, but in the last two years or so (maybe longer), I have not needed to do any manual work for drivers. Sometimes, you may see some diminished performance on hardware that is brand new until drivers catch up, but that is usually just about waiting for an update on driver you already have. I've been of the belief that 2026 has been year of the Linux desktop. As a user of MacOS for work and Linux at home, and being a former user of Windows for decades for video games, Linux has come so far that I think it has surpassed the mainstream OSes in terms of experience. The barrier to entry isn't really troubleshooting anymore, it is that we don't have any dominant desktop environment. Which is "bad" for adoption, but has been great for iteration by teams who are not bogged down by the need to support legacy users who don't want things to change.
  - drnick1 3mo ago
    > Yes, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct driver for Linux and set it up. It's interesting that you say that, because it isn't how drivers normally work on Linux. Finding, downloading and installing drivers is very much a Windows thing.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
- Agingcoder 3mo ago
  Linux has gone mainstream a long time ago - from dvd players to android phones. It just hasn’t succceeded on old preexisting markets ( personal computers ) but has taken large parts of most of the newly created ones ( servers , mobile devices , embedded devices etc )
  - Forgeties79 3mo ago
    I feel like this is a little nitpicky. Clearly they are talking about mainstream for the average home computer user as a daily driver OS. Even with the steam deck it’s barely touching 5%. It’s still obscure and mysterious to the vast majority of the population in a way windows and macOS aren’t.
    - sejje 3mo ago
      I've been a techie my whole life, and for me, the mysterious OS is macOS. I haven't used it since high school (late 90s), which is when I picked up linux at home. I was never able to afford mac products as a young person, and now that I can, I wouldn't part with linux.
      - Forgeties79 3mo ago
        I really don’t feel like I need to explain how this is not what I’m talking about.
        sejje 3mo ago
        Okay, well this is: I've installed ubuntu for my elderly father, who is the opposite of a techie. He didn't know the difference. He can still browse the web and play solitaire, just like on windows. He ran it for a few years. Then he bought a new device and hasn't asked for my help.
        Forgeties79 3mo ago
        This is still not what we are talking about. This has nothing to do with ease of use when set up or the practical considerations of swapping. Linux is not mainstream in the consumer world. People do not really know what it is. It is still mysterious and personal computer installation is far from turnkey.
- gessha 3mo ago
  It was always the disconnect between the people who made it work and the people who couldn’t that prevented wider adoption.
- pjmlp 3mo ago
  It doesn't control the games though, hence Proton. If they controlled the whole stack Linux native games would be a requirement.
- m4xp 3mo ago
  The only reason why Linux hasn't gone mainstream (talking about desktop pcs) is because of schools and prebuilt-pcs. Majority of pc users don't even know what OS they are running.
nvarsj 3mo ago
This assumes Valve isn't artifically bumping up the Steam Machine for more exposure.
- kibwen 3mo ago
  This makes no sense. Valve can already just advertise the Steam Machine on the homepage, the page that everyone sees when they open Steam. They don't need to manipulate any rankings on the top-sellers list, the page that no ordinary person regularly looks at.
  - lapelusa 3mo ago
    Exactly. Plus, Valve is the last company that I know of that IA transparent about metrics.
  - Onawa 3mo ago
    Funny enough, I literally looked at the top sellers list last night, for the first time in probably years. I decided to look after I saw Palworld topping the charts, which I thought was interesting since it released early access 2 years ago. Turns out it just released v1.0.
  - infecto 3mo ago
    Agree with the rest but I pretty regularly look at the top selling and new & upcoming.
- lapelusa 3mo ago
  Why would we assume otherwise? Valve, with all its flaws, is the one mainstream company that I'm aware of that is consumer friendly and has no issues disclosing real metrics.
  - serf 3mo ago
    why would we assume a corporate entity wouldn't manipulate popularity numbers on an owned and unregulated platform that sells their own goods? https://80.lv/articles/former-valve-developer-claims-steam-lies-about-small-games-player-number https://80.lv/articles/former-valve-developer-claims-steam-l... owning 'the list' for a thing makes a company, it's why billboard still has any relevance.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
I got one and I am considering switching everything to SteamOS. Unfortunately I still have nvidia cards around, but the experience is amazing for videogames. As for the desktop experience, having access to linux is way better than windows.
- tenuousemphasis 3mo ago
  There's an Nvidia branch of Bazzite, and it works great. I'm even surprisingly able to play Star Citizen, which is notoriously finicky.
  - YawningAngel 3mo ago
    Can you explain what the point of Bazzite is? I don't really understand what it adds over installing Lutris onto whatever distro you would otherwise have used
    - cgearhart 3mo ago
      I like my steam deck and got tired of waiting for the steam machine. I asked one of the AIs for something similar and it told me to install Bazzite. Took me an hour and I got the Steam-like UI that I wanted. I did not explore other options because my problem was solved.
    - omnimus 3mo ago
      You can indeed install everything manually (it won't be just lutris though, there are many possible tweaks). SteamOS/Bazzite/uBlue project are Linux distros with immutable core. The immutable part is tweaked, tested, fixed in time and can be easily switched/rolled back. Many people (me included) find it much nicer experience to get some battery included base that someone more competent put together and that can't be easily broken. So instead of figuring out how to put linux parts together you find immutable distro that fits most of what you need and then install just what is missing.
    - bikelang 3mo ago
      It’s just an opinionated, gaming-centric build of Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite. It ships with everything preconfigured for typical gamers that just want a low barrier to entry and low maintenance burden. It’s extremely plug-and-play.
laughing_man 3mo ago
This is why I would never make it in business. I just don't see the consumer case for buying a Steam Machine. They're too expensive for the console niche they're intended to occupy.
- Ronsenshi 3mo ago
  Consoles are quite expensive too these days. I think if not for the whole AI hypetrain and subsequent chip shortage, price for Steam Machine would have been more friendly.
  - laughing_man 3mo ago
    They've said as much.
  - dgellow 3mo ago
    The global inflation caused by the the AI wild ride is so underestimated. Also, so many consumer products that cannot exist in the current economy. Really looking forward for all of that hype to calm down
- jerf 3mo ago
  The sad thing is, they're not. A lot of people have not been paying attention to PC costs. This is what they cost now. I've seen a few "make your own" builds online. If you use new parts, you might save 80$, and you generally don't get the form factor, efficiency, integrated Steam Controller puck, or visual appearance with those builds, plus, you know, you're building then yourself which should be counted for at least some cost in most cases. Anything that saves more than that involves used parts or parts the person making the video/article already had, which is fine if you have them but not generally comparable. You can get a better deal on some consoles at the moment, but I wouldn't count on that to last. The Switch 2 has a price increase scheduled. The Xbox line has a price increase scheduled. PlayStation did one earlier this year. Rather than being a permanent situation this feels like everything going up, just irregularly rather than smoothly, so sometimes one thing feels like a better deal, sometimes another, but it's not obvious that any of them are much better on a longer time frame. If you're looking out at the console versus Steam Machine and thinking the consoles look better for your use case, you don't already have one, and you're interested in one of them, I suggest moving sooner rather than later. The Steam Machine is what got noticed, and earthed a lot of anger about prices, but it's not particularly out of line or especially expensive. The whole market is screwed up.
infecto 3mo ago
It is great timing in a way. There is a backlash with consoles and now more than ever the energy around AAA studios feels pretty low. You don't need incredible horsepower to play really fun games that still look visually appealing.
- thewrinklyninja 3mo ago
  The Nintendo Switch was a great console for pointing that out as well. fun games on older mobile hardware even at the time it came out.
- ray_v 3mo ago
  And the price is steep but in my opinion, you really do get a lot of value here - especially with the fact that you instantly pull a ton of your library in seamlessly. If you've been in this ecosystem for a while that's a huge selling-point - or, at least it was for me!
  - infecto 3mo ago
    Agree. I suspect others who use steam are thinking the same thing. When I heard the news for playstation my mind instantly jumped to silly digital prices for games forever. I look at the nintendo switch store and they will sell a digital copy for new retail price for years after even if you can pickup a used copy on ebay for half the price or less.
    - weakfish 3mo ago
      Yep. A large part of the value prop for me is easy portability of the same games and saves to couch or PC with zero effort or re-purchase.
    - ethbr1 3mo ago
      This. The biggest value proposition of a console that plays Steam games is the ability to acquire Steam games during Steam sales. The closed console ecosystems seemingly have far less incentive to ever discount games, even old ones.
Havoc 3mo ago
Not going to buy one but I am stoked. The more energy flows into Linux gaming the better
Narishma 3mo ago
I'm not sure about their methodology. They looked at the global chart, but did they take into account that the Steam Machine isn't available everywhere? It's also a single point in time while the chart is constantly changing. Right now for example the Steam Machine is in 3rd place behind Palworld, while in their calculation it was above it.
pweaver 3mo ago
The analysis seems mostly[1] solid but the conclusions are all wrong. The steam machine was sold out and wait-listed. Value doesn't charge until you are removed from the wait-list so these numbers reflect the number of manufactured units per week (e.g. manufacturing capacity and/or distribution strategy) of the steam machine and not demand. This is only a minimum demand. To get the demand you would need to derive info about the length of the waiting list. [1] The unit mix would be what valve picked as the initial mix and not necessarily the market average. Also, the sales numbers would include the steam controller if you selected that option but I don't know if there is good data on whether any of the initial reservations had the steam controller.
- brookst 3mo ago
  I read the analysis and I don’t see anywhere that it claims to measure demand. It seems pretty clear it’s about how many units Valve is selling (charging for, shipping) and explicitly not about reservations or demand. Valve is being smart here. It is far better to be supply constrained at launch than to have enough capacity to meet initial demand (and then far too much capacity when demand slows over time).
  - pweaver 3mo ago
    Ya, the article doesn't specifically use the word demand but in the final section Is It Good? says "The estimated 12k to 15k weekly sales volume reflects the fact that this is not a mainstream home run." this implies that the 12k-15k is a demand number but we can't reach that conclusion with this data.
    - ekianjo 3mo ago
      it also says: > On top of that, Valve may be constrained in the number of units they can actually ship, so there may be downward pressure on a higher demand. We don’t know for sure.
      - layer8 3mo ago
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
brador 3mo ago
It’s selling to collectors not genuine players. It’ll catch dust after week 1. Sales will crash out. This is why you never wait to sell a product once the work is done. Once the buyer has the card out do the deal. Never stall. You are never too big to fail.

114 points by ekianjo 3mo ago

Very interesting, it didn't occur to me that hardware products would show up on Steam's top-sellers list. At this rate, the Steam Machine will probably turn out to be a modest success. Remember, it's a PC, not a console. Unlike a console, it doesn't need to use hardware sales to convince game developers to ship games for the platform; the PC platform does not depend on the Steam Machine selling like hotcakes. Also unlike a console, Valve isn't selling these at a loss; Sony can sell you hardware at a loss because they claw that money back via online subscriptions and platform licensing fees. Valve will likely be happy enough if they can sell 100,000 by the end of the year, and based on these estimates they may already be about halfway there.

infecto 3mo ago
The steam deck has been on the top sellers list on and off for some time now.

mmusc 3mo ago

One interesting point I've seen online is that the steam machine is more of a budget Mac than a pc. As valve controls the whole stack including the OS which creates a very streamlined experience that just works. Maybe its what will make Linux more mainstream!

ekianjo 3mo ago
Valve's vertical control over SteamOS, the UI, and the hardware specs indeed gives the Steam Machine that taste of Mac. Not sure if Apple would have gone for something like that if they ever made a console: one key difference is that Valve keeps it open like a regular PC which is a major benefit to keep the device alive down the road for years to come.
fendy3002 3mo ago
Yes, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct driver for Linux and set it up. Having steam machine be start and play like steam deck really brings the console feel on PC. Moreover it's still Linux which you can use for other things, so people doesn't feel loss for this.
- dannersy 3mo ago
  Nvidia has been historically tricky, but in the last two years or so (maybe longer), I have not needed to do any manual work for drivers. Sometimes, you may see some diminished performance on hardware that is brand new until drivers catch up, but that is usually just about waiting for an update on driver you already have. I've been of the belief that 2026 has been year of the Linux desktop. As a user of MacOS for work and Linux at home, and being a former user of Windows for decades for video games, Linux has come so far that I think it has surpassed the mainstream OSes in terms of experience. The barrier to entry isn't really troubleshooting anymore, it is that we don't have any dominant desktop environment. Which is "bad" for adoption, but has been great for iteration by teams who are not bogged down by the need to support legacy users who don't want things to change.
- drnick1 3mo ago
  > Yes, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct driver for Linux and set it up. It's interesting that you say that, because it isn't how drivers normally work on Linux. Finding, downloading and installing drivers is very much a Windows thing.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
Agingcoder 3mo ago
Linux has gone mainstream a long time ago - from dvd players to android phones. It just hasn’t succceeded on old preexisting markets ( personal computers ) but has taken large parts of most of the newly created ones ( servers , mobile devices , embedded devices etc )
- Forgeties79 3mo ago
  I feel like this is a little nitpicky. Clearly they are talking about mainstream for the average home computer user as a daily driver OS. Even with the steam deck it’s barely touching 5%. It’s still obscure and mysterious to the vast majority of the population in a way windows and macOS aren’t.
  - sejje 3mo ago
    I've been a techie my whole life, and for me, the mysterious OS is macOS. I haven't used it since high school (late 90s), which is when I picked up linux at home. I was never able to afford mac products as a young person, and now that I can, I wouldn't part with linux.
    - Forgeties79 3mo ago
      I really don’t feel like I need to explain how this is not what I’m talking about.
      - sejje 3mo ago
        Okay, well this is: I've installed ubuntu for my elderly father, who is the opposite of a techie. He didn't know the difference. He can still browse the web and play solitaire, just like on windows. He ran it for a few years. Then he bought a new device and hasn't asked for my help.
        Forgeties79 3mo ago
        This is still not what we are talking about. This has nothing to do with ease of use when set up or the practical considerations of swapping. Linux is not mainstream in the consumer world. People do not really know what it is. It is still mysterious and personal computer installation is far from turnkey.
gessha 3mo ago
It was always the disconnect between the people who made it work and the people who couldn’t that prevented wider adoption.
pjmlp 3mo ago
It doesn't control the games though, hence Proton. If they controlled the whole stack Linux native games would be a requirement.
m4xp 3mo ago
The only reason why Linux hasn't gone mainstream (talking about desktop pcs) is because of schools and prebuilt-pcs. Majority of pc users don't even know what OS they are running.

nvarsj 3mo ago

This assumes Valve isn't artifically bumping up the Steam Machine for more exposure.

kibwen 3mo ago
This makes no sense. Valve can already just advertise the Steam Machine on the homepage, the page that everyone sees when they open Steam. They don't need to manipulate any rankings on the top-sellers list, the page that no ordinary person regularly looks at.
- lapelusa 3mo ago
  Exactly. Plus, Valve is the last company that I know of that IA transparent about metrics.
- Onawa 3mo ago
  Funny enough, I literally looked at the top sellers list last night, for the first time in probably years. I decided to look after I saw Palworld topping the charts, which I thought was interesting since it released early access 2 years ago. Turns out it just released v1.0.
- infecto 3mo ago
  Agree with the rest but I pretty regularly look at the top selling and new & upcoming.
lapelusa 3mo ago
Why would we assume otherwise? Valve, with all its flaws, is the one mainstream company that I'm aware of that is consumer friendly and has no issues disclosing real metrics.
- serf 3mo ago
  why would we assume a corporate entity wouldn't manipulate popularity numbers on an owned and unregulated platform that sells their own goods? https://80.lv/articles/former-valve-developer-claims-steam-lies-about-small-games-player-number https://80.lv/articles/former-valve-developer-claims-steam-l... owning 'the list' for a thing makes a company, it's why billboard still has any relevance.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago

I got one and I am considering switching everything to SteamOS. Unfortunately I still have nvidia cards around, but the experience is amazing for videogames. As for the desktop experience, having access to linux is way better than windows.

tenuousemphasis 3mo ago
There's an Nvidia branch of Bazzite, and it works great. I'm even surprisingly able to play Star Citizen, which is notoriously finicky.
- YawningAngel 3mo ago
  Can you explain what the point of Bazzite is? I don't really understand what it adds over installing Lutris onto whatever distro you would otherwise have used
  - cgearhart 3mo ago
    I like my steam deck and got tired of waiting for the steam machine. I asked one of the AIs for something similar and it told me to install Bazzite. Took me an hour and I got the Steam-like UI that I wanted. I did not explore other options because my problem was solved.
  - omnimus 3mo ago
    You can indeed install everything manually (it won't be just lutris though, there are many possible tweaks). SteamOS/Bazzite/uBlue project are Linux distros with immutable core. The immutable part is tweaked, tested, fixed in time and can be easily switched/rolled back. Many people (me included) find it much nicer experience to get some battery included base that someone more competent put together and that can't be easily broken. So instead of figuring out how to put linux parts together you find immutable distro that fits most of what you need and then install just what is missing.
  - bikelang 3mo ago
    It’s just an opinionated, gaming-centric build of Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite. It ships with everything preconfigured for typical gamers that just want a low barrier to entry and low maintenance burden. It’s extremely plug-and-play.

laughing_man 3mo ago

This is why I would never make it in business. I just don't see the consumer case for buying a Steam Machine. They're too expensive for the console niche they're intended to occupy.

Ronsenshi 3mo ago
Consoles are quite expensive too these days. I think if not for the whole AI hypetrain and subsequent chip shortage, price for Steam Machine would have been more friendly.
- laughing_man 3mo ago
  They've said as much.
- dgellow 3mo ago
  The global inflation caused by the the AI wild ride is so underestimated. Also, so many consumer products that cannot exist in the current economy. Really looking forward for all of that hype to calm down
jerf 3mo ago
The sad thing is, they're not. A lot of people have not been paying attention to PC costs. This is what they cost now. I've seen a few "make your own" builds online. If you use new parts, you might save 80$, and you generally don't get the form factor, efficiency, integrated Steam Controller puck, or visual appearance with those builds, plus, you know, you're building then yourself which should be counted for at least some cost in most cases. Anything that saves more than that involves used parts or parts the person making the video/article already had, which is fine if you have them but not generally comparable. You can get a better deal on some consoles at the moment, but I wouldn't count on that to last. The Switch 2 has a price increase scheduled. The Xbox line has a price increase scheduled. PlayStation did one earlier this year. Rather than being a permanent situation this feels like everything going up, just irregularly rather than smoothly, so sometimes one thing feels like a better deal, sometimes another, but it's not obvious that any of them are much better on a longer time frame. If you're looking out at the console versus Steam Machine and thinking the consoles look better for your use case, you don't already have one, and you're interested in one of them, I suggest moving sooner rather than later. The Steam Machine is what got noticed, and earthed a lot of anger about prices, but it's not particularly out of line or especially expensive. The whole market is screwed up.

infecto 3mo ago

It is great timing in a way. There is a backlash with consoles and now more than ever the energy around AAA studios feels pretty low. You don't need incredible horsepower to play really fun games that still look visually appealing.

thewrinklyninja 3mo ago
The Nintendo Switch was a great console for pointing that out as well. fun games on older mobile hardware even at the time it came out.
ray_v 3mo ago
And the price is steep but in my opinion, you really do get a lot of value here - especially with the fact that you instantly pull a ton of your library in seamlessly. If you've been in this ecosystem for a while that's a huge selling-point - or, at least it was for me!
- infecto 3mo ago
  Agree. I suspect others who use steam are thinking the same thing. When I heard the news for playstation my mind instantly jumped to silly digital prices for games forever. I look at the nintendo switch store and they will sell a digital copy for new retail price for years after even if you can pickup a used copy on ebay for half the price or less.
  - weakfish 3mo ago
    Yep. A large part of the value prop for me is easy portability of the same games and saves to couch or PC with zero effort or re-purchase.
  - ethbr1 3mo ago
    This. The biggest value proposition of a console that plays Steam games is the ability to acquire Steam games during Steam sales. The closed console ecosystems seemingly have far less incentive to ever discount games, even old ones.

Havoc 3mo ago

Not going to buy one but I am stoked. The more energy flows into Linux gaming the better

Narishma 3mo ago

I'm not sure about their methodology. They looked at the global chart, but did they take into account that the Steam Machine isn't available everywhere? It's also a single point in time while the chart is constantly changing. Right now for example the Steam Machine is in 3rd place behind Palworld, while in their calculation it was above it.

pweaver 3mo ago

The analysis seems mostly[1] solid but the conclusions are all wrong. The steam machine was sold out and wait-listed. Value doesn't charge until you are removed from the wait-list so these numbers reflect the number of manufactured units per week (e.g. manufacturing capacity and/or distribution strategy) of the steam machine and not demand. This is only a minimum demand. To get the demand you would need to derive info about the length of the waiting list. [1] The unit mix would be what valve picked as the initial mix and not necessarily the market average. Also, the sales numbers would include the steam controller if you selected that option but I don't know if there is good data on whether any of the initial reservations had the steam controller.

brookst 3mo ago
I read the analysis and I don’t see anywhere that it claims to measure demand. It seems pretty clear it’s about how many units Valve is selling (charging for, shipping) and explicitly not about reservations or demand. Valve is being smart here. It is far better to be supply constrained at launch than to have enough capacity to meet initial demand (and then far too much capacity when demand slows over time).
- pweaver 3mo ago
  Ya, the article doesn't specifically use the word demand but in the final section Is It Good? says "The estimated 12k to 15k weekly sales volume reflects the fact that this is not a mainstream home run." this implies that the 12k-15k is a demand number but we can't reach that conclusion with this data.
  - ekianjo 3mo ago
    it also says: > On top of that, Valve may be constrained in the number of units they can actually ship, so there may be downward pressure on a higher demand. We don’t know for sure.
    - layer8 3mo ago

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

brador 3mo ago

It’s selling to collectors not genuine players. It’ll catch dust after week 1. Sales will crash out. This is why you never wait to sell a product once the work is done. Once the buyer has the card out do the deal. Never stall. You are never too big to fail.