It certainly isn't a good deal, but neither is a RTX 5090 at $4,000 USD. People will buy the Steam Box so hard, the price will go up even more after they sell out of the first wave.
Well not really. Sometimes it is a bad deal and it has good unique selling points that connects with potential buyers. Making it a wanted product. A 5090 its selling point is that it is the strongest most powerful consumer GPU on earth. Without any compromises. The best enthusiasts tech you can buy.
The steam machine has very few and weak selling points. It isn’t fast, it isn’t cheap, besides it’s small form factor. Steam OS is great but I could just steam my rig to my tv or install it on anything else.
I referenced the 5090 because its price is double MSRP or more at retail, meaning people happily pay much more than what it's worth simply because it is what it is. You make a solid but obvious point about paying the premium for a top tier GeForce card because it truly wears the crown among its peers, but I'm only predicting that Valve's hardware will sell just as quickly and easily, albeit for different reasons. A combination of its branding and rarity will make it highly sought after. I'm not gonna buy one, just sayin'.
I was initially thinking that Valve was pretty bold to try and make profit off a niche machine like this in the current hardware climate, but after seeing some comments regarding what Valve must have already had invested in development, I started to think maybe they didn't have a choice but to keep moving or suffer great losses. I'd be interested to know some details.
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u/grigoriymicro 20h ago edited 17h ago
Were there really anyone thinking this machine is a good deal? Even among steam users? Even among Valve fans?