I’m lucky enough to have disposable income, I could afford to buy one without it hurting. That said, idk just off principle it feels like an insane ask. Especially considering its not doing anything a PC can’t do (as far as I know). For those not in the know, the cheapest edition will be about 1,000 USD and the most pricy will be around 1,500. To my knowledge, consoles themselves aren’t profitable historically. So, do you think even at this price point Valve is taking a hit? Do you think if this sells well it will drastically increase the cost of other consoles (completely independent of the external factor being hardware shortage due to AI). General steam machine discussion post as well, just dont be a dickhead to anyone.
Highly unlikely, so I’ll say no.
The big appeal (for me) would be simplified gaming for the 1 television in my home, but I almost never get that tv to myself. The other big appeal to me would be to buy the mega max pro pro plus pro maxxx xxxl super mega 2TB with controller version and then sell at a higher price (i.e. scalp), but that’s a little risky and not really a thing I’d ever really do.
I was only interested in the new controller to begin with, which that release has been botched to hell, so I’m not really likely to get one now. I simply do not want to pay that much AND wait that long to replace the crappy, god-awful, unreliable piece of shit PS4 pro controller of mine. There are a myriad of easier to find and/or cheaper options.
Going back to the Steam Machine itself: I assume it’s highly unlikely that Valve is selling this kind of hardware at a loss. Given the current pricing, I’m even more confident in that assumption.
Thousands of people have “done the numbers”, and while I’m not an expert on the parts and prices, the general consensus is that you can build something from off the shelf parts much cheaper. On the one hand, the Steam Machine is using some amount of custom parts and obviously using more expensive stuff for the smaller footprint, but on the other hand, they’d also likely be getting some amount of discount on a good portion of the parts/materials that wouldn’t necessarily be available to hobbyists putting together a home PC. So, I’m going to say that’s a wash.
You’d have to be very clear and very specific about what you mean “sells well” to comment there. I suspect that Valve knows that regardless of whether the price is competitive on a singular “by the specs” or “per performance” metric, there will be a solid number of people who will buy it. As long as they were relatively conservative with their estimates on the size of that crowd and produced fewer units than that, it will sell out. Selling out is certainly one way to define “sells well”. This hardware was never going to sell at a magnitude similar to established console brands, so anybody using that as a metric for selling well is, I’ll be nice, not being realistic.