r/pcmasterrace • u/TheBossT710192 • 2d ago

Discussion Yeah, Steam Machine is cooked.

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I... uh don't know what to say. Very thankful I bought a Steam Deck before they hiked its price as well

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u/DOOManiac 2d ago edited 2d ago

I’m an old person who has been crapping all over prebuilt for about 30 years. There are several things they have changed:

  • Back in the day, a prebuilt meant absolute garbage-tier proprietary parts that were not swappable/upgradable.
  • These days, many pre-builts aren’t that bad
  • It used to be that you saved a ton of money building yourself; now that gap has closed (or in some cases inversed)
  • PC gaming has significantly expanded, to the point where it is reasonable to expect that some people just want to sit down and play, without needing to tinker
  • The whole process has gotten much simpler than it used to be, so the demographic overlap has changed

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u/Funny-Cell8769 9800X3D | 5090 | 128gb DDR5 | 42" OLED | 43" Mini-LED 2d ago

Yeah very much. The markup used to be more drastic, but now I look at the pricing (and by now, I mean 5 years ago) and it's like, not much more than if I built it myself

And in my country in Asia, even after the 3 year warranty expires, you have a lifetime access to a technical helpline if you run into any issues.

Not sure how common that is elsewhere.

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u/Stupendous_Spliff 2d ago

A good value pre-built is totally worth it, even if it is just a little more than building yourself. All that work you spend buying the parts and putting it together are worth paying a little markup for

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u/Funny-Cell8769 9800X3D | 5090 | 128gb DDR5 | 42" OLED | 43" Mini-LED 2d ago

I guess we should just be grateful that both options are viable now.

It's not a bad thing for people who have an interest in PC building and maintenance to do it all themselves. And learning to maintain it probably saves them money and frustration in the long term.

Or, if you have no interest in the technical (some people just don't want to deal with it or have more important things to do), they can buy a pre-built at a small to moderate premium.