Valve’s $1,049 Steam Machine points to pricier living-room gaming
Valve’s new Steam Machine starts above current consoles, adding pressure to a market already hit by higher hardware and memory costs.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
3 min read
Valve has priced its new Steam Machine from $1,049, putting the living-room gaming PC well above today’s major consoles. The price matters because the device arrives as console makers and PC hardware companies face rising component costs, with memory prices singled out by Valve and others as a major strain.
The entry model includes 512GB of storage and costs $1,049, according to pricing reported by The Verge. A bundle with Valve’s Steam Controller raises that to $1,128. The 2TB model costs $1,349, or $1,428 with the controller.
Those prices place the Steam Machine in a different range from mainstream console hardware. The Verge reported that Microsoft’s 2TB Xbox Series X is now $729.99, Sony’s PS5 Pro is $899.99 and Nintendo’s Switch 2 is set to cost $499.99 starting in September.
Valve is positioning the Steam Machine as a living-room device built around PC gaming and Steam’s software catalog. The company has said it sees the hardware as part of PC gaming rather than as a conventional console, a distinction that also affects how it prices the machine.
In a company blog post cited by The Verge, Valve said traditional console companies often sell hardware at a loss and recover money through subscriptions or games tied to the platform. Valve said it believes open ecosystems serve customers better over the long term.
The Steam Machine’s price followed an earlier delay tied to the memory market. The Verge reported in February that Valve delayed the device because of the memory crunch, and the publication has linked higher costs across consoles, PC parts and handheld gaming devices to a global RAM shortage.
The device may have advantages over closed consoles, especially for buyers who already use Steam. The Verge noted that Steam offers a large library of PC games, giving the Steam Machine access to a broader software base than a single console platform.
Performance may be a harder sell at the listed price. In The Verge’s review, Sean Hollister wrote that the Steam Machine does not deliver a major performance jump over the Sony PS5, which has been on the market for more than five years.
The broader console market is already showing signs of price pressure. The Verge reported that Sony said in May that PS5 sales fell 46 percent year over year after the base PS5 rose to $649.99, $150 above its 2020 launch price.
Microsoft has also been discussing its next Xbox, reportedly codenamed Project Helix. The Verge reported that the device had been described as a premium product between a console and a PC, but pricing concerns appear to have affected those plans.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma recently said, according to The Verge, that mass audiences may not be able to afford thousands of dollars for a console generation and that different business models could emerge later this year. Sony has said less about its next PlayStation plans, though The Verge reported that it previously hinted at new GPU technology for a future system.
The Steam Machine is therefore arriving as both a product launch and a price signal. If parts remain expensive and hardware makers rely less on subsidies, the next generation of living-room gaming devices could cost far more than the consoles that built the market.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.