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After years, Valve is returning to the Steam Machine concept, and this time it's doing so not as an experiment but as a fully fledged product that has just gone on sale. The new device is meant to sit somewhere between a console and a gaming PC and will allow convenient use of the Steam ecosystem on both a TV and a monitor. The problem, however, is that the new machine is priced higher than the PlayStation 5 Pro, yet it does not offer performance that would immediately justify such an outlay. Valve puts the situation down to a crisis in the RAM market and rising production costs. That does not change the fact that, for many gamers, the first impression may be fairly brutal.
Steam Machine returns to the living room as a PC, but its price is unlike a console
The new Steam Machine has been officially launched by Valve as a compact gaming PC that can be connected to either a TV or a monitor. The device was first shown back in November 2025, and its launch was due in early 2026. Ultimately the whole plan was delayed because of an ongoing RAM supply crisis. However, the biggest problem turned out not to be the release date but the price. The base Steam Machine was priced at $1,049, which is higher than the PS5 Pro, whose suggested price is $900. Valve is quick to stress that this hardware should not be viewed as a conventional console. The company notes it is not selling the device at a loss or subsidising its price the way traditional console makers do. The customer therefore pays the full cost of the components, but in return gets a more open platform based on the Steam library, where game prices are often lower than on PlayStation or Xbox. That is meant to be one of the device's biggest advantages. The Steam Machine is not an attempt to directly copy the console model but rather to bring PC gaming into a more accessible, living-room-friendly form. But that vision immediately collides with the hard reality of pricing. For many players, spending over a thousand dollars on a console-shaped device may simply be hard to accept. Especially since Valve is not entering an empty niche but is trying to compete for the attention of users who already have consoles, handhelds and traditional gaming PCs to choose from. The company will therefore have to convince customers that the Steam Machine is more than just a small PC in an expensive case. And this is where the questions about the project's viability begin.
The specs look solid, but the top-of-the-line version costs an absurd amount.
Technically, the Steam Machine doesn't look bad, but it doesn't quite deliver the performance that would automatically justify its price. Inside, it's a custom AMD Zen 4 processor with six cores and twelve threads, running at up to 4.8 GHz. Graphics are handled by a custom AMD RDNA 3 chip with 28 CPUs. It also comes with 16 GB of DDR5 memory and 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. The base model offers a 512 GB NVMe SSD, while the more expensive version gets a 2 TB SSD. The hardware supports Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, Ethernet, and a full range of ports, including DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, USB-A, and USB-C. Valve also included an integrated wireless adapter for the Steam Controller and RGB lighting with 17 addressable LEDs. On paper, it sounds like a reasonably equipped miniature living room computer, but the problem arises when comparing price and performance. According to available information, the new Steam Machine is supposed to offer roughly half the graphical power of the PS5 Pro, while costing more in its base configuration. The 2TB variant with a controller is even more expensive, priced at $1,428. This price point puts the Steam Machine beyond being a curiosity for a wide range of gamers and begins to resemble a device for a very specific, enthusiastic niche. Valve also admits that component availability issues have impacted not only the price but also the device's availability. For this reason, the company has launched a reservation system based on a waiting list. The first shipments are scheduled for June 29th, but not everyone interested will receive the device immediately. In theory, the Steam Machine is intended to be a modern bridge between the worlds of PC and consoles. In practice, its launch may be significantly hampered by the price, which will prove prohibitive for many.
Valve has officially launched a new Steam Machine, a compact gaming PC running SteamOS with access to the entire Steam library. The problem is that the base model costs more than the PS5 Pro, and the more powerful version with a larger drive reaches a price point that will be hard to justify outside a small group of enthusiasts.
source: flatpanelshd
