Why I'm Still Buying the Steam Machine

Right off the bat it’s important I say that the price is, obviously, a disappointment. Coming in at $1049 US Dollars is a tall ask when I can get a pre-built at my local Micro-center for 999 and have it be more powerful. My partner and I have been off and on having the discussion for weeks of if we are getting the Steam Machine, if there was a price that was too much, what we might get instead, if we should just keep using our Media Server Computer that’s hooked up to the TV already, but is less powerful than the Steam Machine and sometimes is being used for Plex at the same time we might want to play and if we wanted a specific controller to come along with it? All of these are things that have been going through my mind for weeks and when, on Monday, the price was officially announced as below our “no way” budget, they started to become more real.

My partner and I decided that we are gonna get the Steam Machine. Frankly, it just fits our use case really well and, best of all, it’s the closest thing to a console-like experience in our living room while still having our Steam Library and still being a PC. So today, I want to take you, my dear reader, through the same thought process that I had with my partner. I want to go over how yeah, you can buy a more powerful PC for the same or slightly cheaper cost, how that doesn’t really matter because there’s more to the Steam Machine than power, and how the current market is absolutely borked when it comes to prices so this price isn’t even that unreasonable.

I also want you to know my thought process by no means applies to everyone, this is just how I’m thinking of it. You might, and probably will think differently, and that’s perfectly okay! It’s good to have a variety of people voicing their opinions on this out there, I am simply one among many.

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That is the question. Cause yeah, the Steam Machine isn’t an incredibly powerful machine. It’s a rather modest machine, one that is easily outclassed.

The argument goes that for 1049 you could easily buy or build a more powerful PC for the same or slightly cheaper cost and that this obviously means the Steam Machine is a rip-off. I mean, take a look at this PC:

It’s got a stronger GPU, CPU, slightly faster RAM and more storage. All for 50 bucks cheaper since it’s on a deal over at Micro-center. Yet, That thing is bulky. I’ve been to my local Micro-center, I’ve seen it in person. It isn’t a tiny PC like the Steam Machine. It’s larger, even if smaller than my current Desktop case. But should that matter? Is the only thing you could possibly want to do for the living room is play your games all on high even when you have a perfectly good Desktop in another room?

I mean for some l, definitely. I get that people want their games to run as best they can. Why suffer 80fps or even 50fps if spending 50 bucks less will get you well over 100? It’s a reasonable ask. I myself have been playing a lot of two games recently, 007: First Light (amazing game) and Monster Hunter Wilds (also an amazing game). Both of these games run amazingly well on my system and I’d like them to run well in my living room too. I don’t know if the Steam Machine will handle Wilds super well though. So Shouldn’t I want the best possible chance at that?

Even if I chose to build my own PC for the living room, instead of going for a pre-built I would likely be able to make a more powerful PC for around the same price. Every tech Youtuber is doing what they can to build a “more powerful than the Steam Machine” PC right now for the same cost because...well...the algorithm. Building a PC also gives you more opportunity to go for something even smaller. For those not in the know, there’s something called SFF (Small Form Factor) builds which are basically just super tiny PCs, most are specifically done with a motherboard size called mini-itx. It’s the smallest motherboard size for commercial sale currently on the market and it can get you some tiny ass builds. I did some looking and found some really nice cases for that size motherboard, which, if you’re interested in the Steam Machine, you want a nice case for your machine. This one is particularly popular:

But with SFF builds so too comes an SFF premium cost. mini-itx motherboards cost more and these tiny cases require specialized and more expensive power supplies. Plus you are limited on the size of your CPU cooler and GPU. Add in the tremendous pain in the ass building something so tiny is and that when it’s all done it’ll probably be insanely loud and run hot.(Compared to the steam machine) All in all, this is the closest to form factor you can really get to the Steam Machine while building it yourself and you’ll probably spend a bit more or around the same cost for, sure, a more powerful machine, but also one that is far more of a hassle and is that really worth it?

Another aspect is that building your own or buying a pre-built PC also leaves you with room to upgrade in the future, that you can upgrade the CPU or GPU eventually to make it even more powerful years down the line. This is a very good point. It’s probably the best point against buying the Steam Machine. But is that really the thing that should decide if you buy something? Just because it’ll be upgradeable eventually? For some yes, that’s the most important, while for others they might just want a hassle free experience and not have to worry about any of that.

I realize I’m constantly putting forward these arguments as questions and that might seem rather contrived. It’s not that I don’t think these are legitimate points, it’s okay to want these things. But when you choose to do those things you do give others up. So let’s talk about those things.

The Steam Machine offers three things that no other competition in this market can beat, a smaller form factor, HDMI CEC, and software developers at valve and other game developers out there looking to squeeze every ounce of power out of this specific hardware. In many ways this is exactly what a console boasts. Yet the Steam Machine isn’t a console, it’s an open platform. Valve has talked about how they view this not as a console but as an extension of PC Gaming into the living room and I can’t help but agree. The Steam Machine isn’t meant to be the PC console, it’s meant to evoke a console-like experience in its simplicity.

More than that, the Steam Machine is going to be far more customizable than any other box that you could put into the living room. The Steam Deck has something called Decky loader that allows you to change the design of your decks home UI and, even more, add stuff to it that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise, so why would an equivalent not be made for the Machine? Even more, the Deck allows you to get super granular and fine tune your CPU clocks so it would make sense that the Machine would, at least eventually, allow you to do the same with your CPU and GPU. With my Steam Deck and my Legion Go S I’ve used this feature to make games run better when some of them actually benefit from lower CPU clock speeds. Now, to be fair, much of this is because of the APU powering the Deck which is a CPU and GPU combined and the Machine doesn’t have that, but that doesn’t mean the same kind of software isn’t possible. I fully expect to be able to get super granular with the Machine and be able to get every ounce of power out of the thing.

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Okay, so the customizability though is technically something you could do on any other PC, but the granular potential in the Machine to be able to easily change things without any fiddling through different applications and such is a lot more enticing to me. Then, there’s the form factor. See, I have a small house, 721 sqft (about 67m²) and my living room is already pretty cramped. Shoving another PC in there would mean I’d have to do a lot of maneuvering around, I’d have to get PC Stand to hold both my Server and this new PC and I’d have to find a place to move the bookcase that my server currently sits on. For me, in a small place with limited space, I have a spot under my TV in my TV Stand/Entertainment Center thing just big enough for the Steam Machine. I wouldn’t have to move anything, I’d just plop it into that space and boom I’d be gaming in mere minutes. That’s what I want. I don’t want to have to figure out where to move things in a tight space that I live in, I want to get something that already fits my space. I am giving up some of the upgradability sure, and some power sure, but that is something I’m willing to do personally.

Then there’s HDMI CEC, which for a long time I didn’t even know that’s what it was called. It’s the protocol software thing that allows your TV to turn on when your Console or Roku do. A normal PC, both pre-built and built myself, does not have that without a lot of extra finagling. It’s not an OS thing, it’s a port and software thing from what I understand. This means I never have to touch the damn power button. On a pre-built I’d have to press the button, turn the TV on, then turn my controller on and sit down. With the Machine I just press the Steam button on the controller and boom everything is on. Just like a console. Convenience is something a lot of people are willing to pay extra for.

So sure, I’ll give up some power, and some future upgradeability when I buy a Steam Machine. But for me, that is a cost I’m willing to pay so that I can be hassle free, especially when if I want to deal with the hassle I always have my own Desktop PC to deal with.

At the end of the day though this price isn’t what I was hoping for. I’d ideally have loved to pay about 200 bucks less for it. I still think it’s a reasonable price but that’s purely because the prices in the market have completely skyrocketed.

When the price for the Machine was announced I immediately started to do some price researching. I was just going around and looking at different components even more than I had been recently when I bought some RAM at a far too high a price. I especially was comparing parts that I currently have, the price I got them for, and the price they are now worth. A lot of them weren’t that different. The bundle I got my CPU, Motherboard, and the original RAM before my replacement in was only about 100 bucks more expensive. But that was the bundle. The individual parts were several hundred more expensive overall. The GPU I got for 630 was now 1000. The CPU Cooler I got for 100 bucks was now 150 bucks. Even the RTX 3060 I had gotten a couple of years ago before I upgraded was 100 bucks more than when I got it. Everything is more expensive now and it absolutely sucks.

Then, there’s the recent news that the RAM makers out there are so flooded with business that they have no need to negotiate with Valve directly saying that if they tried to negotiate then the makers would just never talk to them again. Saying in a recent interview with Gamer Nexus:

“Look, there’s no contracts, there’s nothing. Like, those guys…they are…they give us a price every month or something and they say ‘You can buy that many’ and it’s yes or no. And if we say no, then they never talk to us again.”

So the RAM market is absolutely nuts right now, but so is the consumer market. Like, sure you can build a better PC for cheaper than the Steam Machine, but for most of the history PC Gaming that has been true. I, myself, have advised people around me to build their PC instead of buying them pre-built because it would be cheaper and more repairable. But they still elected to buy a pre-built. Only now do most pre-builts come with better specs than you can afford to build yourself, but that’s also just dependent on deals you find. My point is that the market is fucked and the price that the Steam Machine is, $1049 US for the base version, is as reasonable as it could have been in this market. I mean sure getting it to 999 would have been great for the brain thing where we thing that’s cheaper. But I just don’t think that’s that big of a difference.

There’s not a whole lot we can do honestly with this market. Sure you can build a better machine right now, but what about in a year? Two? I would fucking hope prices will have come down by then, but what if they’ve gone up? The Steam Machine is an unreasonable price if it was in the prior market but it’s not. Right now, as much as it fucking sucks, it’s a reasonable ask.

Of course there is the subsidization point of whether Valve should have sold the machines at a loss in order to gain market share but the reason why console manufacturers are able to do that is two fold. First, they make back a ton of their money in subscriptions and game sales on their locked ecosystem that the Machine doesn’t have. And Second, the one that I don’t see most people talking about, Moore’s Law. Which, if you’re not aware, basically says that technology that exists today will get cheaper over time. So the subsidization has been possible because it’s a temporary thing and they don’t expect to always sell their consoles at a loss. But with prices going up frequently and the market being so messed up, it’s not guaranteed that a 100-200 dollar loss that Valve could conceivably sell the Machine at would stay that much a loss. If prices go up and they sell at a loss now then all of a sudden that loss will drastically increase. It’s a fucked situation and nothing can really be done about it...well....unless the AI bubble popped. Then that would likely lead to massive decreases in cost...and loss of millions of jobs. But hey, cheaper RAM!

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So that’s kinda what has been going on in my head since the announcement on Monday. I’m on a list to buy a Machine, I hope to be in the first wave so I can play games in my living room. But I also have no idea since they’re randomizing it. The Steam Machine may not be the best deal you could get, but that doesn’t mean its gonna be trash. And, most importantly, you might want to take reviewers with a grain of salt. Pre-release software is usually drastically different than at and post-release. Once people have had the release version in their hands for a month or so then we can start to have more of a conversation about how the system performs and how it might perform over time. Until then, who knows. I do know though that I will be reviewing the Machine. I mean, I may as well right, I already reviewed the controller last week, so why not do the Machine too! I’ll get to the Frame eventually, a future tattoo has taken over that cost and VR isn’t as useful to me as playing games on my couch would be.

Well, with that, what about you? Do you despise the price of the Steam Machine? Are you still intending on getting one? Did you ever want to get one? Do you think it’s absolutely insane the market is so borked at the moment? And, most importantly, do you think next-gen consoles are gonna be even more expensive than the Steam Machine because at this rate, and with the current gen still being pretty expensive, it’s not impossible that it’s at least close to that price? Maybe next-gen consoles should just be delayed, they really aren’t needed, this gen felt so short because of all the cross-gen stuff. I dunno, that’s a topic for a future article, not here at the end when I’m suppo-

Oh it seems my editor has told me I need to stop because I’m just meandering instead of ending. They’re right, as always. I hope to see your thoughts in the comments!

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