Valve's Steam Machine (affectionately dubbed the GabeCube by the internet) is aiming to find a place in the living rooms of gamers next year, despite being primarily a PC. But even though the hardware's looking to bundle console comfort with a PC-forward experience, the company's apparently not keen on pricing the Steam Machine like a traditional console.
That's according to YouTuber Linus Sebastian, AKA Linus Tech Tips, who apparently chatted to a Valve spokesperson about the hardware due out early next year. "[Valve] said that, while they expect it to be very competitively priced with a PC, that it will be priced like a PC rather than like a console with games subsidizing the upfront hardware purchase," the hardware-focused content creator says in a recent video (spotted by Dexerto).
"They wouldn't say why, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's partially to avoid stepping on the margin opportunities of their potential partners for Steam games and Steam software, but also because they recognize that the Steam Machine is a full-fledged PC," he continues. Essentially, Xbox and PlayStation can sell their consoles at a loss because every time someone buys a game on the platform, they'll get at least 30% of that sale. The Steam Machine, on the other hand, can be used like a non-gaming PC, so there's no guarantee that Valve will be making money on every owner.
In an episode of the WAN Show podcast, Sebastian says that Valve wasn't super impressed when he mentioned the possibility of a $500 price tag either.
"When I said I'm disappointed it isn't going to follow a console pricing model, where it's subsided by the fact that the manufacturer is going to be taking 30% of every game sold on it over the lifespan of this thing, because I feel that would be a more meaningful product, and they asked what I meant by console price and I said, well, $500," Sebastian recalls. "Nobody said anything, but the energy in the room wasn't great."
So, there we have it. Don't hold your breath for Valve to go toe-to-toe with Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft when it comes to the pricing of the Steam Machine. Still, the company hasn't officially put a price point on the Steam Machine yet.
Valve says "the Steam Machine is equal or better than 70% of what people have at home," but I feel like that's missing the point.
