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this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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Pretty much the answer I'd expect. In my most outlandish hopes, I'd love for this thing to serve as proper competition to the PS5, it's certainly more exciting than Xbox right now, and pretty much sounds like what MS is planning to try for the next Xbox anyway.
That's probably not likely, that kind of threat would require some really aggressive pricing, and Valve can't guarantee as much vendor lock-in money post-sale as Sony can. That said... man it'd be incredible to see Valve step into that near-monopoly as well and viably compete against both Switch and PS5, as they both pretty desperately need competition to keep them working for the consumer.
I agree it'll require aggressive pricing, and I'm also sure they know this. I think most of the predictions of price are too high. I won't be surprised if this is sold at a loss. Valve makes their money off the marketplace, not selling hardware. If they can move console players into their market, that'll provide huge returns.
Consoles used to be sold at a loss. They don't now because they don't directly compete really. Either people get both or they choose based on brand loyalty or peer pressure. I hope Valve comes in and has a price so low you can't ignore it if you're looking to buy a console. The Xbox Series S is $400. I'm expecting it'll be the same at most, potentially even lower if it's sold at a loss. If it's $300 then they'll shake up the market without a doubt.
Couldn't a problem be that If they set the price too low, companies buy them in bulk and using them as cheap, performant and sexy looking pcs? Consoles are very restricted in terms of os and other software, forcing people to use them in a way that almost guarantees you earning back your loss in the long term.
Steam machines are the opposite, you can install virtually anything on it and use them for whatever.
That wouldn't be a bad thing. A lot of the trailer footage was dedicated to showing video editing and 3d modeling software (it's just a PC, was one of the marketing lines). They want people to buy this machine. Who cares if they aren't gamers. Valve also sells digital creative software on Steam.
Yeah, that's kinda my point.
If we are talking about businesses, chances are they will simply install windows on it and use licences of applications they already own.. Again, "it's just a pc". The vast majority of businesses don't buy licenses on steam, so why would they change that?
Again, who cares? A sale for Valve is money into Linux gaming support. Still not a bad thing. I don't care what corporations use in their daily work. It is me who wants to use Linux for gaming.
But I doubt it will happen, if a ton of companies want to buy hundreds of computers at a time, they won't buy from Valve. They have their own vendors who sell in bulk at lower prizes. Corporations today acquire mostly laptops for day to day office work and mini PCs for service stations. High power workstations usually exceed the steam machine by a whole order of magnitude in required specs, and it is way too powerful just to shift spreadsheets around. The mid range independent creator space and mid range studios might see some use for it if it's cheap. But I don't see them causing scarcity of the machine itself. There are other just as cheap options purpose made for office work.