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The Steam Machine is actually a great prospect — we're just looking at it wrong
(www.xda-developers.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
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So I read this article and a lot of people are saying it's likely to be priced out of competitiveness in the console space due to the parts shortages.
I understand why they couldn't sell it at a loss. It's a general purpose computing device, and it would be too easy for a call centre somewhere to buy 100 of them, which would lead to 0 game sales for Valve...
But why couldn't they release it at the stupid $900 price point, but then offer a $100 - $200 Steam voucher along with it? It sidesteps the call centre issue because the hardware is still full price, but they recoup (some) of their costs for those that ACTUALLY want is as a games console
A $900 price tag would make it cheaper than a ps5 pro after 2 years due to needing ps+. It's likely very attractive vs a next gen console with tiny library as well.
I don't think people buying consoles are doing that kind of long term thinking
Free multiplayer is a pretty good selling point either way.
PS3 having free multiplayer was why I chose it over the Xbox back in the day. Loved the exclusives and playing online for free. Then subscription happened on the Switch and PS4, so I ended up jailbreaking since there was no more benefit to not jailbreaking as someone who refused to pay for multiplayer.