“I can’t tell you what the price will be, because I literally don’t know,” he said on the November 15 episode of the WAN show.
“When I said I’m disappointed it isn’t going to follow a console pricing model, where its subsided by the fact that manufacturer is going to be taking 30% of every game sold on it over the lifespan of this thing, because I feel that would be a more meaningful product, they asked what I meant by console price and I said $500. Nobody said anything, but the energy in the room wasn’t great.”
I think it’s unrealistic they’ll price it at $500. I’d be pleasantly surprised if it’s $600. Above $700 things will get difficult, though. If you can build a more powerful PC for the same money, the cube loses much of its appeal. That goes for both nerds and normies, because those will buy an Xbox instead.
It’ll be an extremely niche market - the narrow range of nerdy PC players who don’t want to buy a laptop or a regular prebuilt, and don’t want to bother building their own.
A huge chunk of the Deck’s success is in its form factor. I don’t see much ROI on the Machine in that aspect.
I have high hopes for the Frame though.
I think you’re wrong. It appeals to gamers who want a simple living room PC and it appeals to console people who just want to plug something in and start playing. If the price is right, this may be huge. Also, it would actually be an upgrade for a lot of Steam users so there’s another huge market.
Unfortunately “console people who just want to plug something in and start playing” is a pretty big slice of the type of people that like playing multiplayer games especially AAAs which won’t always work. Not to mention they will still be served with a PC game so there will be all of the regular options like graphics that PC players are exposed to.
I’m really hoping Valve proves me wrong but I don’t think I’d recommend this device to a console only player as their first PC.
I hope I’m wrong; market success on this could stand to break at least some of the corporate living room triumvirate (though I’m not sure how popular Xbox is anymore tbf) and further development for Linux as an “it just works” system in a more mainstream context.
Your guess is as good as mine. Only time will tell.
Linus is a dumbass. Tariffs are the reason I’ve seen that this won’t be priced aggressively, at least in the US. Most products going forward will have a new, much higher, normal established by tariffs. This includes next gen consoles.
The full LTT video outside of the WAN show is a lot better. In it he said that a company can just buy a lot of Steam Machines as their office computers giving no Steam sales to Valve and making them take the hit. He also gave a few more justifications as well as tariffs and others I think.
Always been a dumbass, given all the controversies. He should just stop and hand the channel over to somebody else.
I dislike Linus Drop Tips, his “reviews” and questionable attitudes.
I see the Steam Machine has a pre-built PC then a console.
If they don’t price it like a computer, companies would just buy them and not even buy games.
If you ever worked at a company before, you’d know that’s an insane belief
Maybe a startup would do it. If they did development of smaller shit like apps or simple web dev. But yeah no, no business would do this because businesses need support deals.
After cutting the price to reach greater audience (originally too expensive) Sony had to remove Linux support from Playstation 3 because companies where amassing lot of those things to set up some sort of DIY supercomputers.
Lol
The steam deck already has a dock that will hook it up to your TV, and bluetooth to use a wierless controller, or mouse + keyboard, plus the steam deck is 100% mobile. Steam deck is already console priced, with 3 different options depending on budget and needs. Who is their market? I already own a new self built PC, 2 older PCs, an older laptop, and a steam deck. I’m not dropping $ on this, (although I would if I had disposable income like that.) I’m not sure if their target audience is console players, or PC players that hate windows, but are not technologically savvy enough to install linux on their own machines? Edit: I feel like we saw all this go down in 2012-2014 with steam machines, and this seems like it will be a repeat. I want steam and valve to succeed here, but I don’t think they will in this market.
DOA already if it’s priced more than that. Who is this marketed to?
I think it’ll sell just fine. They’re not gonna manufacture them in console sized batches. They’ll sell what they make and manufacture more if people like it. Gonna pair well with the headset. I think it’s a rich kid and nerdy tech guy console.
I think they want to pierce the market, like with the SteamDeck.
At least the SteamDeck was a different form factor, this will find it difficult to compete with consoles forget normal pre-builts, especially if its more expensive than both
It’s a bit of a hard sell in an environment where being economical is the first thing on people’s minds. That’s a very niche audience. People who don’t want to build their own PC, don’t want a normal prebuilt, and are okay being less powerful than a console, and will not to mention not play a ton of multiplayer games out of the box. It’s not going to capture anyone from the console market and its not going to capture the hardcore PC nerds.
