Following its announcement on 13 November, Valve’s Steam Machine hybrid console has raised questions from the gaming community regarding its price point, but now, Valve coder Pierre-Loup Griffais has revealed that its cost will be more in line with that of a regular PC.
Speaking on Skill Up’s Friends Per Second podcast, Griffais explained that the Steam Machine will target comparable PCs on the market, with the aim to provide a “good deal” for the amount of performance it can push out.
“If you build a PC from parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that’s the general price window that we aim to be at,” Griffais explained “Ideally, we’d be pretty competitive with that and have a pretty good deal, but we’re working on refining that as we speak. Right now is just a hard time to have a really good idea of what the price is gonna be.”
When asked if the Steam Machine will see the same subsidies as other consoles on the market, like the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, Griffais said that it would not, although he added that Valve will try to remain competitive in terms of price versus the performance of the hardware on offer.
“Obviously our goal is for it to be a good deal at that level of performance, and then, you have features that are actually really hard to build if you’re making your own gaming PC from parts.” he added, noting that these include the hybrid console’s portable size, its low noise level, or the ability to be used with a TV remote or be switched on using a controller, further reiterating that the Steam Machine is “not really something that exists in the PC market right now”, making price planning a challenge at this point.
With the current generation of gaming consoles already being rather expensive due to price bumps over the years, the PS5 comes in at S$669 and S$799 for its digital and disc versions, respectively, while the Xbox Series X and S cost S$799 and S$469.9, it remains to be seen just how expensive the Steam Machine will get, but even if it does turns out to be pricey, let’s hope the hardware it packs is powerful enough to justify its cost.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
