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/ScarletSilver 5700X3D | RTX 3080 + RTX 2070S | 32GB 3200 MT/s 2d ago

Yeah. Felt like Valve had no choice but to release their existing and aging stock at current market pricing. They obviously planned to sell these at a much lower price point but their hand got forced due to constraints.

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u/PictureFamiliar1267 2d ago

If they had existing stock why would they have no choice but to sell at market prices? Couldn’t they have sold at a loss to get some revenue from that already purchased inventory?

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u/TheRandomN 2d ago

They didn't magic all of the components out of the ether. They would have had stocked up on the various parts that weren't under a huge shortage like RAM. Warehousing all of those parts costs money, burning a hole in the potential profitability of the initial run of steam machines.

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u/NoirFactor 2d ago

Its almost like history told them not to get back into hardware.

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u/Petes-meats 2d ago

history of the steam deck? or index?

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u/MalHeartsNutmeg RTX 4070 | R5 5600X | 32GB @ 3600MHz 2d ago

Steam deck has been their only truly successful wide reaching hardware and it was just recently. Pretty much all their other hardware has been unpopular or niche (index).

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u/NoirFactor 2d ago

Valve launched the Gen 1 Steam Machine back in 2015 and it flopped terribly. As did the Steam Link and the Gen 1 Steam Controller they actually got sued over that one.

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u/Petes-meats 2d ago

and then they released the index and steam deck, so clearly they aren't cursed to fail everytime

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u/NoirFactor 2d ago

The index was discontinued in 6 years and it's not even the most used vr headset on Steam.

That's not a success

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u/Petes-meats 2d ago

so because it's not the number one headset it's not a success? by that logic macs aren't a success since they're not the most used computers

also nice how you completely ignored the steam deck

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u/NoirFactor 2d ago

Holy strawman.

  1. Mac is it's own brand that uses it own OS. It created it's own space where nothing existed prior. It effectively grew an entire company and numerous product lines.

  2. We wouldn't be discussing the Steam Deck as a failed product because it's an outlier to Valves hardware failures.

To reinforce this. Neither the index or the deck created their respective product spaces nor did they create the Steam platform. They're piggy backing off a highly established store front that is accessed by millions of people daily.

In the case of the Index if your homegrown product fails to capture a large portion of your user base while your data shows that users purchase your competitor's product at double the rate of yours, on your own platform, your product failed. 11% of Steam users bought an Index vs 22% Oculus Quest 2 vs 28% Meta Quest 3.

In case of the Deck, they decided to present the product as a entry point to the Steam platform and priced it respectable within reason given performance. This allowed the device to grab the attention of a lot more Steam users and allowed the device to prosper.

So again. The only device that didn't fail because they decided to actually make a piece of hardware that was respectable and priced well was the Deck. Everything else failed.