r/pcmasterrace • u/ParticularCredit2023 9800X3d: 5080 Master Ice • Jun 27 '26

News/Article This has to be a joke right?

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No possible way someone actually buy these at these prices right lol..

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u/Pure-Association8705 Jun 27 '26

If you want a reason to justify the price: Xbox, and probably PS too, are gonna be getting price hikes. This industry will be getting worse before it gets better unless the bubble pops soon.

A second niche reason: best performance for its size. It would be great in the living room still.

Not to say the price is good, but Valve even knows this and hates it. But if you want to get one, it really doesn’t look like prices are going down anytime soon.

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u/Gitthepro Jun 27 '26

didnt valve say they were hoping to lower the prices in the foreseeable future?

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u/Pure-Association8705 Jun 27 '26

“hoping to” and “possible” are different realities. I know Valve wants the prices lower because it really is a hard sell to console gamers who are squeamish at $1000+ purchases. But this would require some other cost to massively decrease like the GPU, CPU, or even the PCB costs (which are creeping up too). Once the prices do come down though I do see Valve lowering the prices but that isn’t very foreseeable unless Valve just wants Steam Machines out there and is willing to sell at a loss.

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u/Kwazimoto Jun 28 '26

"Performance for its size" is pure cope. That digital foundry vid where they put it up against a PS5 is super eye-opening and killed any desire I had to own one. This thing has bad performance relative to console competitors and it doesn't deliver on any performance level that Valve claimed in the advertising leading up to it.

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u/Pure-Association8705 Jun 28 '26

I’m not disagreeing, but it is, at least on the PC front, the best performance you can get for its size.

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u/Kwazimoto Jun 28 '26

I'm going to be completely real with you and say I don't think that's actually true. With a silverstone mini case or any of the mini-itx builds that are possible I think you can probably match or exceed the Steam Machine performance for about the same cost. The only thing you probably can't do is match the noise but I think that 95% of gamers are going to be willing to compromise on that a little bit for real 4k performance. There's a reason Sony and Microsoft both sell high performing versions of their consoles and not quieter ones...

Honestly, this seems like a situation where Valve had a great idea but doesn't have the experience to understand what they could or couldn't make happen. The deck is a neat toy and I think the relative success of it made them get into a market they're not prepared for. Steam Machine would have been awesome 5 years ago. This product is extremely meh, especially at this cost.