The Steam Machine is the beginning of a more expensive future for console games

It’s not a secret almost every aspect of video games they are getting expensive. Sports games are constantly increasing in price, PC hardware is getting more expensiveand the best years of mobile shopping are overall because of global RAM shortagewhich has also affected the same price for PC games, including portable devices like the Steam Deck. All of this led to panic surrounding the Steam Machine, Valve’s latest attempt to bring the scale and openness of PC gaming into a format designed for your living room. Of course the device was delayed in February especially because of the memory problem only added to this feeling. Now, Valve has revealed the price of the Steam Machine. And while it may not be as expensive as some fear, it’s not cheap, pointing to a more expensive future for the comfort zone.

First, here are the details. The most basic Steam machine, with 512GB of memory, costs $ 1,049, and combined with the Steam Controller the price jumps to $ 1,128. If you want the 2TB model it will cost you $1,349, or $1,428 with the controller. That’s not exactly bad by PC gaming standards, but the Steam Machine isn’t exactly competitive with other gaming PCs. It’s a device designed specifically to create a console-like experience, and even in the world of high-end gaming consoles, the Steam Machine costs more than its closest competitors, through higher-end options. A The 2TB Xbox Series X now costs $729.99when The PS5 Pro is $899.99. The cheapest of the bunch, the Switch 2, it will be $499.99 starting in September.

Of course, there are advantages to purchasing a Steam Machine for consoles from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, not the least of which is that it includes access to Steam’s largest library of games. That’s a big bonus. But some of the benefits of social media are less obvious, especially if you’re looking for toys. In fact, game-wise, the Steam Machine is very similar to the PS5. As my friend Sean Hollister explained his Steam Machine review: “You’re not getting more performance than a 5.5 year old Sony PS5 that you can still buy today.” This, although it was almost twice the price.

It’s hard to fault Valve for the prices surrounding the Steam Machine. Even Apple, a company worth a few trillion dollars, plans to raise prices because of “inconsistencies”. around RAM prices. In a blog post, Valve explained that one of the reasons for the current price is because it doesn’t use a premium version of the console. “We think of Steam Machine as an extension of PC gaming, not as a console,” the company says. “The traditional console model is to sell hardware at a loss and make money with subscription services or to sell games that are not locked with hardware. We think this may make sense for one business in the short term but that an open environment is good for customers in the long term.”

But even if Valve says it doesn’t see the Steam Machine as a console, the price tag is another sign that the future of video games is looking very bright. Already, the price increase of the current generation of hardware has had a significant impact. In May, Sony announced that PS5 sales fell by 46 percent year-over-yearfollowing the price of the base of the PS5 jumping to $ 649.99, making $ 150 more than it was at the beginning in 2020. Now imagine how things would look if the PS6 was launched at $ 1,000 or more. That seems to be the direction we’re headed, as shares continue to rise in price and platform holders seem unwilling or unable to provide the funding.

The big question is what happens next – and the answer is unclear. In the middle the mess that’s ruining Xbox right nowthe company has been teasing a bit about its next Xbox, called “Project Helix.” But even so it is initially classified as a “premium” device. which sits somewhere between console and PC, it looks like plans have changed due to pricing concerns. “I think we’ve reached a point where it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that a large audience could pay thousands of dollars to use the next generation of consoles, so I think we’re going to start seeing a lot of different businesses that we didn’t expect to start coming later this year,” Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said recently. Sony, for now, has not said much about the PS6 since they introduced some new GPU technology last yearwhich, obviously, will be very expensive to use now.

If you had asked me a year ago what the next generation of gaming would look like, I would have said something like the Steam Machine: a device that straddles the line between a PC and a home console. But now I’m not sure – and it has come down in price. The Steam Deck is a much-loved device, and one that remains the same, even if it’s more expensive at launch (now, not so much). I think Steam Machine will get a similar solution. But historically the console game has not been a niche in itself; Switch, for example, has sold over 150 million unitswhile the PS5 has topped 90 million. But if the “very different business models” can’t bring the price down to something, it’s hard to imagine the next generation of consoles reaching such an audience.