Valve Confirms Steam Machine Price Will be Similar to a PC - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 24 November 2025 / 7,594 Views
Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais in an interview with the Friends Per Second podcast confirms the price of the Steam Machine will be comparable with PCs that have similar specs.
"I think that if you build a PC from parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that’s the general price window that we aim to be at," he said (via VideoGamesChronicle).
"Ideally, we’d be pretty competitive with that and have a pretty good deal, but we’re working on refining that as we speak, and right now is just a hard time to have a really good idea of what the price is going to be because there’s a lot of different things that are fluctuating."
Pierre-Loup Griffais was asked if Valve would subsidize the Steam Machine in order to be more competitive with its price.
"No, it’s more in line with what you might expect from the current PC market," he said. "Obviously, our goal is for it to be a good deal at that level of performance. And then you have features that are actually really hard to build if you’re making your own gaming PC from parts.
"Things like the small form factor and I think the noise level that we achieved or lack thereof is really impressive and we’re excited that the people are going to find out how quiet this thing is."
The Steam Machine, Steam Frame VR headset and controllers, and a new Steam controller are expected to to start shipping in "early 2026."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
More Articles
So it's a device only for Valve fanboys lol... that GPU and with 8 GB VRAM 5 years after PS5 and XSX.
It's a low-end machine, it's going to be cheap.
Cheap as a console? Unlikely. 16GB of Ram and 8GB of VRAM won't come cheap with prices multiplying currently.
It would have been better if it had unified system memory rather than split pools to consolidate costs and complexity.
But should be competitive with the Steamdecks pricing at any rate... And with Playstation, Xbox and Switch consoles constantly increasing in price, I think Valve is in a pretty strong position to be comfortable.
The other advantage is that... The GabeCube isn't releasing with zero games, there are literally over 100,000 games on Steam and 99% of them will function just fine on the GabeCube.
That's EXACTLY the selling point.
I can go buy a Steam Deck, Rog Ally X, Legion Go, MSI Claw, Alienware, GabeCube... Or build my own PC... And if the rumors that Microsoft will open up the next Xbox to 3rd party stores?
I can literally have a single game library across all my devices... In every room, for every form factor. - No exclusive game purchase required.
Instantly game library, just add water.
Not a single vertically integrated device manufacturer/software company/game developer is currently offering this, except Valve.
Just by making an ecosystem doesn't make the individual device that sits with that ecosystem relevant though. In order for people to buy into a device that can access an ecosystem, the ecosystem has to be attractive or the device does. If the ecosystem is on other devices that are just as, if not more, attractive then what hope is there for the device outside of purists and fans?
It goes a helluva long way, Apple makes more money on average for each customer because if a customer buys an iPhone, they are more likely to buy Air Pods. - Which is why they are a more lucrative company than most other companies, even when they have lower sales than their competitors.
Apple is a great example of what I'm saying. In order to get into their ecosystem you have to buy an apple product. Once you buy an apple product those products will work best with other apple products, this reinforcing the ecosystem.
Steam doesn't have this as steam is available anywhere, unlike apples ecosystem. Therefore, they have to make the device itself an attractive offer, otherwise there won't be much growth. Price is one way to make a product attractive.
You're not acknowledging the differences between Apples approach and Valves. Outside of a handful of services, in order to access the Apple ecosystem you need to buy an iPhone or Mac. This isn't so with Steam. SteamOS isn't necessary to access Steam (I even have Steam on my Mac). So the device itself has to be attractive. With a high price, it'll be harder to make that device attractive.
But reddit told me le heckin valve was gonna save gaming and destroy the peasant consoles by pricing their cube at a competitive price
Gaben fanboys on Reddit also said a device that is selling more slowly than the PSV and Wii U was going to destroy the Switch and the Switch 2.
So it'll be above $1000. Meaning I'm not buying it. I was so excited for a console styled PC experience, but I'll stay with PlayStation
I'd be really, really surprised if it was that expensive. It definitely sounds like it's not going to be as affordable as many had hoped, but over $1000 sounds pretty extreme to me.
Digital foundry had look at pre built PC and it ranges between 700 to 1000. It will.eb anywhere in between
It is only good for old games anyway. If it was cheap I would have purchased one strictly for those titles.
They are going to be forced into making HL3 a Steam OS exclusive for this thing to sell in any meaningful way. That's if HL3 even exists
HL3 would move systems for sure, They be foolish not to have on consoles
I could see it...
Steam itself was born as DRM for HL2
People seem to forget how much PC players hated Steam initially as a HL2 requirement
Half life 2 will aways be a favorite of mine.
my thoughts exactly. Half life Alyx was also a VR exclusive. It's like they only use Half life to promote something now.
Shit, have you guys seen the ram prices these days? They are like more than double what I paid a year ago or so.
Of course it will be. At the end of the day it's a PC that just happens to be small enough to put in your living room.
I liked the idea of a dedicated less intensive device to sit under my TV but the ability to play my more PC oriented titles on, I less like having to pay PC prices for that. Stick to my 6 year old gaming laptop and PS5, me thinks.
https://manveersahota.substack.com/p/the-steam-machine-valves-50-billion
Interesting article on pricing
I'm more exited about the SteamOS itself.
What would that price be? around 700 usd? I really know nothing about PC parts/components.
Even that is too expensive. It needs to be $600 max in my opinion. Even our (UK) mainstream second hand store gives a 5 year warranty on everything.
Yeah, especially in the mainstream market that price couldn´t compete with a 450 usd Switch 2 and a 500 Usd PS5. There is just to much brand loyalty and recognition which won´t go away for a pricier product.
i have never owned a gaming PC, if they can get the system to $600 i will give a real shot
Agree. Between 499 and 600 is ideal. It would.be better at 399 but that won't happen.
Maybe $750 with 20% off in a steam sale so $600 later on. When you look at the construction it is beautifully built, a bit overbuilt I would say but then its extremely quiet I believe even under full load and of course tiny. I feel I will eventually get one but don't need to get one at launch. However if they offer some sort of pre-order discount then I might be up for a quick purchase. I'm in the UK and to be honest I'm unsure what I would be willing to pay at this point. I bought my steam deck secondhand.
Dead on arrival if that's true
