Why Steam Machine Price Pinch is a Risk for Valve, RAM Costs Dominate Industry

So much of the Steam Machine's potential success is dependent on whether they can get the price right for the average consumer.

There's no denying that Valve absolutely has the player base to produce a hardware behemoth of previously unheard of proportions, but this isn't the same ballpark as releasing a handheld in a fledgling market.

Whether they like it or not, the release of the Steam Machine puts Valve on a pretty direct collision course with the giants of the console market, even more so now integration between consoles and PC is closer than ever before.

Unfortunately, it looks like the new hardware might not be quite as cheap as we all want it to be, as new information from a Valve employee seemingly confirms a low price isn't possible.

Valve

Steam Machine Won't be Subsidised

As first reported by Game Rant, via an interview with SkillUp on YouTube, Valve software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais confirmed that the Steam Machine will not be sold at a subsidised price to the end user.

He then went on to confirm that the admittedly cute little cube will be priced much more closely to PCs with similar specifications, rather than punching much above its weight for the price.

This also leaves the new release entirely at the mercy of the price for parts, with RAM in particular proving to be a major concern.

Some predictions have the price of RAM doubling within the next two years, something which would make a notable difference to the price for both the 16GB dedicated RAM and 8GB VRAM found in the specs.

The Steam Deck proved to be so successful for two main reasons.

One, it came along at a time when there was almost no competition, providing something that players couldn't get almost anywhere else.

Secondly, it was, and still is, priced very competitively, sacrificing the very top-end performance to keep the cost below a certain level.

The Steam Machine comes into the market with far less favourable conditions working against it. The market for hardware parts is pretty brutal, and only set to get worse, while it essentially offers the same thing as a ton of other options out there.

Sure, it will offer seamless integration with the Steam App itself, I'm not sure that's enough to consider buying it in its current state.

Fortunately, there are ways out of this, so let's hope Valve manages to find one before release day rolls around.