Valve fans react to Steam Machine prices with disappointment and defeat

When Valve revealed the Steam Machine back in November, what fans saw wasn’t a PC gaming rig. Sure, that’s technically what the hardware was — another option, much like the Steam Deck, which expanded where players could access their Steam libraries. What everyone was expecting, however, was Valve’s version of a console. Now that the Steam Machine’s pricing has been revealed, fans are contending with a much harsher reality.

With the lowest model costing $1,049 and the highest-priced one clocking in at $1,428, the Steam Machine isn’t cheap. No one expected it to be. Between the widespread increased costs for computer chips and Valve’s hesitance to reveal the Steam Machine’s price tag, fans have spent the last few months bracing for the worst. If the top-end PlayStation 5 can cost nearly $1,000, there was no way the Steam Machine was going to be less than that … right?

Valve has never outright made a comparison to consoles. The PC publisher instead has repeatedly referred to the system as a PC. The messaging around Steam Machine has muddled things, however. The Steam Machine’s simple design and compact size evoked the Nintendo Gamecube. The hardware brings games to TV screens, something that most people associate with consoles. Valve’s marketing images situated the Steam Machine next to toys. One of the games prominently featured in the campaigh was Stardew Valley. Removable plates and size comparisons to a banana gave the Steam Machine a playful tone. Valve paired its Steam Machine announcement with the reveal of a new Steam Controller, which allows players to play games as they would on consoles.

Rationally, people understood Steam Machine wasn’t a console. But the way people spoke about the machine still treated it like something on par with an Xbox or a Nintendo Switch 2. Pricing discussions usually framed the Steam Machine in comparison to consoles. The discourse revolved around whether Valve would sell the system at a loss, as console companies do — and if it was viable to launch in opposition to that.

Valve's Steam Machine, as it is surrounded by a toy car and driving accoutrements.

Valve knows it, too. How else can one explain the Steam Machine’s FAQ section that addresses whether it is a Valve console? Why would a tech publication like The Verge call the Steam Machine the “most ambitious game console” the reviewer has ever experienced? When Valve fans call the Steam Machine a Gabecube or a Gamecube, it’s a joke — one that reinforces the way people see the hardware.

Now that we know how much a Steam Machine actually costs, that hope has been shattered.

“Sad day to be poor,” one top-voted thread on the Steam subreddit reads.

“I know it’s more powerful than any ps5 & Xbox one, but yea this price is very unappealing,” one Steam user wrote on Valve’s price announcement.

“Nothing is affordable for anyone making less than $50k these days,” wrote one Bluesky user.

“Is it reasonable?” Linus Tech Tips asked in a recent video. “Yes. Is it too high? Yes.”

An example of a customizable faceplate for Valve's new Steam Machine hardware.

On Bluesky, plenty of fans say they understand why the Steam Machine is priced the way it is. Comparisons to PCs with similar components show that Valve’s hardware is priced fairly in the current market. At the same time, Steam users have seen recent headlines about Valve founder and billionaire Gabe Newell spending unfathomable amounts of money on luxuries, like a 500 million-dollar super yachts and a 70 million-dollar mansion. Supporters want to think of Valve as a the rare company has not been corrupted by chasing profits. If there was one company that could feasibly sell something at a loss, the thinking went, it was probably Valve.

The Steam Machine FAQ notes that selling at a loss is the “traditional” console hardware model, where companies recoup costs with subscription services and exclusives. Valve, however, doesn’t think this model makes sense for them — they’re a PC gaming company, the FAQ insists. This might explain why the cheapest option for the Steam Machine doesn’t come packed with a Steam Controller, as a console would.

“The strength of PC gaming is the ability to play the games you want on the hardware you want,” the FAQ reads. “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.”

To Valve’s credit, the company likely didn’t want the price announcement to feel like a rug pull. In the blog post accompanying the FAQ, Valve reveals that it has spent a long time wrestling with the Steam Machine’s pricing. The hope back in 2023 was that, with time, prices for components would be lower. Once Valve realized things wouldn’t play out that way, it tried anticipating component price increases. But when price hikes for some computer components exceed 100%, it was still difficult for Valve to set a viable price that would make everyone happy.

A Steam Machine with wood-colored front panel, that's enveloped in greenery.

“There were periods where we found we couldn’t source some of our components at all, at any price,” the post reads. “More than anything else, this has impacted the number of units we’ve been able to produce for launch.”

A cynic might see the Steam Machine’s pricing as a rational, unavoidable outcome. Were the optimists wrong to have hope, though? Valve’s blog post states, “our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable.”

In an interview with Eurogamer, Valve user interface designer Lawrence Yang doesn’t share a specific number — but he does make it sound like Steam Machine was supposed to be much cheaper than it turned out to be. The original pricing was closer to what a Steam Deck currently costs, apparently.

“That’s sort of a rough estimate of what that would have been,” Yang says.

Valve insists that Steam Machine isn’t a console. Maybe that’s true — but if it is, the designation is not entirely by choice.