Discussion – Steam Machine / Steam cube / GabeCube thread

It’s guaranteed to make the PCMR unhappy. They have dined on a steady diet of 8GB VRAM = garbage. So they are going to moan that unless it has subsidized giveaway pricing, it’s a ripoff. HWUB predictably dumped on it as expected (the biggest purveyor of 8GB = garbage). Steve, can’t see how it ends up being a success. Tim even claimed it would have to sell for $300…

Valve has been giving some broad pricing hints. The consistent hint: Pricing will NOT console equivalent, but entry level Gaming PC equivalent. Which I don’t think anyone could interpret as lower than console pricing. They clearly mean higher. PS5 is currently $550, and XBSX is $650.

Further they added some additional clarity: We intend for it to be positioned closer to the entry level of the PC space, but to be very competitive with a PC you could build yourself from parts,” Valve designer Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge.

That closest matched self build comes in around $700, and that with cheapest components, and full size/mATX, since SFF would increase it to even more.. PCMR will call anywhere near that price DOA.

OTOH, it’s looks like the best engineered SFF I’ve seen. It’s a couple of classes above a minisForum PC. If someone isn’t obsessed by VRAM, this looks like a fantastic miniPC.