To be honest, I expected RAM prices would push back the release date. But AMD would know more about than I would.
I just want the SteamOS on Desktop, finally!
Isn’t that what BigScreen mode essentially is? Never actually seen the actual OS.
BigScreen mode even lets you sleep the computer from within it, and when you turn it back on, you’re already in it.
My only complaint so far is I wish they called it the Steam Engine
Steam Machine is better for SEO I imagine
checks calendar
Are they aware we are rapidly running out of time to make an “early 2026” release date?
Valve just announced they’re still targeting a release in the first half of 2026, but they don’t know when and it’s uncertain due to component pricing.
There’s a dedicated post about it in this community that went up a couple hours ago.
I could agree that first half is earlier than second half, but feel its a misuse of the spirit of the word early.
i NEED that new controller.
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Gabe could afford to eat the price spikes of the components and sell a reasonably priced machine.
But he won’t.
Credit where credit’s due, Valve did that for the Steam Deck’s entry pricing. Although the danger for the Steam Machine would be potential abuse for massive orders (at Valve’s expense) for things like call centers and offices rather than individuals.
People keep saying this, but Valve could easily prevent companies buying up Steam Machines simply by limiting purchases to a X amount per account. If they are worried about people creating burner accounts just to purchase Steam hardware, they could require the accounts to be a certain age or a minimum amount spent on Steam. Not saying they will or should do this, but they could.
That’s a really interesting idea to give preference to existing steam users with a legitimate history.
Not even that. Since it’s just a PC, regular consumers can buy them without ever using Steam.
That’s actually the same case with the Steam Deck, apart from the hardware form factor.
That’d be anticompetitive and would be used against them in lawsuits. By Epic, who use anticompetitive exclusivity agreements & subsidise giveaways, but aren’t in a dominant market position so it’s totally not hypocritical.
I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not (Poe’s Law, and all) so just to be safe I’ll remark that releasing a product at an affordable cost is the opposite of anti competitive.
Usually when you think of something being anti-competitive, it’s because it’s bad for consumers. But you can also be anti-competitive by doing things that are appealing to consumers in the short term (like selling a product at a loss) but help ensure market domination for the longer term.
Valve’s position here is tricky, the steam machine would have a small marketshare compared to consoles, but as a PC it could be considered furthering Valve’s PC game “monopoly”.
Selling products below cost is legally anticompetitive behavior. Anticompetitive behavior is only illegal for monopolists, which Valve aren’t. But they have been accused and sued, part of why those suits haven’t lead to them being declared a monopoly is because they don’t engage in enough anticompetitive practices. So adding anticompetitive practices would be extremely risky for Valve.
I am not a lawyer, but as far as I know that’s actually incorrect, selling a product below cost is considered predatory dumping, as it means literally nobody can afford to compete with you on anything resembling a level playing field. How is any competitor supposed to release a competing product when Gabe is using his own financial resources for “eating the price spikes”. Unless you have your own financial resources or massive speculative investment, you cannot also “eat the price spikes” so your own products will have to be priced at realistic levels so that it is something that actually earns you some level of profit in order for your business to continue and grow, and thus those products will be far more expensive than Valve’s subsidized product, and thus, you probably won’t sell any unless you have some significant further advantage, which you shouldn’t need to have in order to simply compete with the market leader. That’s a clear barrier to entry, and is the definition of anti-competitive.
Usually, this would be done to lock the subsidized buyers into a particular ecosystem, or even just to bundle that ecosystem by default (aka illegal bundling, like Microsoft did for years) from which additional profit can later be expected. In Valve’s case, this would be Steam, and it pretty clearly would profit them in the long run, and this strategy also keeping all competitors out by dumping hardware below cost, thus abusing their Steam distribution monopoly to fund a second monopoly on the Steam Machines market to maintain their first monopoly. That’s literally what antitrust laws were designed for. Just because we don’t really effectively enforce them anymore I feel like people have started losing sight of what they mean and what they are supposed to be for and I don’t think we should just normalize that this is how businesses are supposed to operate.
And that’s why Valve probably won’t do that. (at least I suspect they won’t, based on my view of their history, I have no insider knowledge)
Selling hardware at a loss when you make it up in subscriptions or sales in that ecosystem is incredibly common.
Sony is a prime example of doing this in the same market, they’ve sold generations of Playstations at an initial loss knowing games sale and subscriptions would make it up, and then eventually they start making a profit on the hardware as well.
Also, like, I’m not sure it holds up when thinking about FOSS. Is Nextcloud anti competitive against Microsoft because you can self host the software for free?
It is definitely incredibly common, yes. Like I said, the laws are generally not effectively enforced, and they’re also intentionally limited. For some reason, we have decided it is totally acceptable to do that when you don’t have a recognized monopoly position, which Sony doesn’t in that market. It’s very particular, it’s very specific, and it’s very subjective, which is probably a huge part of why they aren’t effectively enforced. Also, companies know all the ways to get around the ways the laws are written if they really want to.
We still don’t really follow them even when the laws probably do apply though, it’s just vestigial at this point. We’re supposed to believe the antitrust laws were only meant for those old, bad monopolies like Standard Oil and Ma Bell. We don’t really have monopolies like that anymore, all our monopolies are the good kind of monopolies that don’t harm society, or they’re not monopolies at all, they’re coordinating oligopolies that constantly partner with and all own chunks of each other, which means they’re also perfectly fine and not any kind of bad monopoly at all.
I didn’t write the laws, there are lots of things about them that I think could be vastly improved. But I do agree with their intent, and we shouldn’t forget what their intent is, just because our current financial and political environment is not interested in them.
I’m not a lawyer either, but I think you’re missing some aspect of intent that would be required to make it against the law.
Rivian for example was (is?) selling their cars at a negative gross margin because they couldn’t sell them for a profit for years. If you can’t sell something at a loss, so many businesses would be breaking the law when they start out, maybe legitimately almost every single business. (edit: your stance would make Rivian be forced to sell cars for prices no one would pay)
If the intent was to destroy another company by doing it, then that could fall under anti-competitive laws. In this case, the intent isn’t to destroy other hardware, it would be to help stabalize the ridiculous increase in prices knowing they could make it up in game sales.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for explaining it.
Look, Gabe needs another yacht, OK?
I would really have to sit and have a long hard think about what my price ceiling is for any of the new Steam lineup. I know I have a maximum price I’m willing to pay but I only have a hazy idea of what that might be.
I just want the controller with trackpads and back buttons.
Yes this. 100%
I have the first generation, and once I learned how to properly use it and set up the pads and gyro, it quickly became one of my favorite controllers of all time.
I hope this next one will be even better.
Same for me! I’m waiting on the new controller.
If I were wealthy, I’d be all about the Frame and Machine as well, but at a minimum, I’d love to have the controllers assuming they live up to my expectations, which as this point are basically, does it work and does the battery last more than a year or two?
Looks like they’re using standard rechargeable AAs, so very replaceable.
Oh, I hadn’t even noticed that. That’s one thing I like about the XBox controller I have, takes standard batteries. The playstation controllers, though, those have built-in batteries with about a 2 year lifespan as best I can tell, which SUCKS. Thanks for pointing that out!
I think otacon239 is remembering the controllers for the Steam Frame, which have an AA each
The Steam Controller was listed as an ~8Wh Li-ion
That’s what I was thinking (i.e. rechargeable battery not AA), but I wasn’t 100% sure. Either way, I’m in the market for a new controller and Steam seems to be working on a great option that ticks all the right boxes for me as long as the price is reasonable enough. It kind of has an Xbox form factor but the more symmetrical d-pad / analog stick placement of a PS controller, so best of both worlds in my opinion.
I’m pretty sure they’re going to wait to release the controller alongside the Steam Machine.
Unfortunately that would mean that if RAM/etc prices cause a Machine delay, we’ll probably see the controller get delayed as well.
I hope it does well but at current I’m not buying anything new
As I already have a Playstation 5 for demanding games (and my kids playing Fortnite and Roblox sadly) and a Steam Deck for less demanding games, I really don’t know for sure if I’m gonna get a Steam Machine.
Its price and the way it integrates with my Steam Deck might be a deciding factor.
To be honest, I’m quite happy it isn’t out yet as it’s pushing my FOMO away.
I guess the wise decision would be to buy every game on Playstation physical, sell them and buy them again on Steam Machine 2 instead of getting a Playstation 6. Espace especially because I’m only using the Playstation for racing games (too demanding for the Deck) or exclusives…
As I already have a Playstation 5 for demanding games (and my kids playing Fortnite and Roblox sadly) and a Steam Deck for less demanding games, I really don’t know for sure if I’m gonna get a Steam Machine.
That makes sense. I sometimes forget that not everyone shares my deep burning despise for Sony…yet.
Anyway, it’ll be good to have a better option when the Playstation 6 does whatever bullshit Sony pulls out of their asses next.
What made you despise Sony? I’ve had a good experience over 5 Playstation generations so far. I would just hope they don’t end up having a monopoly over the console market (exc’uding Nintendo). That’s why I’m happy about the Steam Machine.
I guess the disappearance of a physical Bluray player is gonna make me jump to 100% Linux gaming soon anyway.
Not op, but I’d like to provide a “why i hate Sony story”: they installed a rootkit on my computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
Exactly the link I was going to search for!
Those fuckers at Sony made me wipe and rebuild my PC, for the “crime” of listening to one of their fucking CDs at my desk one time.
(Sony’s virus caused all kinds of bugs, and then people who didn’t wipe and rebuild immediately were getting infected by worse viruses within a few days, because Sony’s virus fucked up the PCs defenses so badly.)
I figured I would be less pissed this long later, but I’m not.
Fuck Sony. I’m mad just thinking about it long enough to post this confirmation.
That is what did it, for me. Fuck Sony.
Did I mention “fuck Sony”? Fuck Sony. Bunch of virus writing assholes.
21 years is a pretty good stretch to hold onto that grudge. Good work.
One good thing if you purchase this and ditch the PS is you don’t have to pay for a membership, which is insane that console players still put up with that. A quick search (without actually checking if it’s correct) is that it’s $160 per year, on top of what you’re paying for your internet. The Steam Machine would pay for itself in just a few years, even with no other advantages.
I don’t have the Playstation plus anymore but I never payed above 70$ and got a lot of free games with it.
Still, it wasn’t worth it to me as I mostly play single player games except some racing sims…
I have to be pedantic, but I always hate it when people say “free” for something they paid for. It’s included in the price, not free.
I guess you’re right and you could also say that I didn’t really own these games since I can’t play them anymore because I don’t have PSPlus anymore.
Owning a steam deck and a gaming PC, the deck integration is amazing. The cross saves just work and I’ve had no problem, even when I have a save conflict.
Best case scenario is that they had already secured a RAM deal when the prices went mad, so they can now offer a good price. Even then, it might still be an issue for later batches though.
If they got the deal secured, you bet your table the ordering website is gonna get slammed.
A week after it ships ebay will be full of “steam machine bring your own ram”
Is it upgradeable? I assumed it would be soldered in.
Maybe we’ll see, “Some soldering required,” instead 😂
Given the proclivities of Valve and their hardware so far, i woud expect the gabecube to not have soldered ram.
Considering how repairable the steam deck is, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is upgradable
It is, using SODIMMs (Laptop form factor)
Cool, I tried to find the info, but obviously didn’t find that detail. It makes sense, all things considered
They explicitly said it has user upgradeable ram. The graphics card is soldered on though. Its basically gaming laptop hardware.
Why would it be soldered? It’s not like it’s in a laptop with space constraints.
Have you seen how it looks without the casing? this thing is filled to the brim, whatever space was left has been filled with cooling, it would be complicated to place a standard d6 in there - the whole system is built around the cooling that goes through the middle. but the ram isn’t soldered and i think it’s even placed so you can upgrade it without dismantling the whole thing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was soldered on because it shares the RAM with the GPU. That’s pretty common these days, and GPUs want both high performance RAM and low latency. There are solutions to significantly lower the trace lengths between expandable RAM and the CPU/GPU, but the standard never took off.
I dunno. There’s probably plenty of examples where companies soldered RAM instead of installing SODIMM slots, even when they had space. I agree that it makes sense, but sense isn’t always a factor when a company starts crunching the production cost numbers.
I’m pretty sure they likely did what they did with the steam LCD, which was order an absolutely insane amount of units that they had stock for years. The semi-custom AMD chip they’re using likely needed a minimum order of millions of units.
Not gonna happen, Valve are already revising price and release dates.
Exciting! We are in early 2026 already.
Feels like it’s been 2026 for years already. Can’t bear the thought of there being even more of it.
I figured the announcement for preorders would have been two or three weeks ago. We will see I suppose.
Im guessing end of march
I recently dreamed it’s going to be April 1st which was like tomorrow. I was a bit disappointed when I woke up and realised it was not even February yet 🤣
Hey it’s been a long year
Less than a day later, and Steam already announced the opposite.
I’m laughing so hard at this. It’s like they’re beefing.
They probably are internally, steam doesn’t want to have to deal with unnecessary missed expectations just because a partner talked about stuff they obviously have no knowledge of.
Pricing or frig off lahey!
I have a buddy who wants to play Nioh 3 but has problems spending money. This could be his solution but… not if it’s like $1200+
Despite what everyone says, it’s probably not going to be cheaper than building your own system, especially since building your own you can skip stuff you don’t need and prioritize parts you really want. This just has whatever it has. You don’t get to pick and choose. At best, it’s going to be about the same price as if you purchased the hardware yourself.
It will be less effort though, so there’s that.
I think price estimates are somewhere sub $600. That’s all just speculation though.
If its even close to build it yourself the opportunity cost of doing it yourself should be considered. Turn key operation is good.
Yeah, it’s something everyone has to consider. That can’t really be compared though. It’s different for everyone. I think there’s also an opportunity cost to buying pre-built to. You won’t have as good of an understanding of your hardware.
Yes but when!
Early 2026! Which since we are already halfway through the first quarter of the year, that means it’s only like 4 years away in Valve Time.
