After months of speculation, Valve has finally announced the price and release date for their upcoming console, the Steam Machine. And it’s going to be very expensive, worse than what everyone was thinking. The age of affordable consoles is over.
Steam Machine Price and Release Date
Steam Machine officially costs over $1000. There are two models – a 512GB version that costs $1049 and another 2TB version that costs $1349 – and both release on June 30th, with preorders going live this week on June 25th. Both versions come without the Steam Controller. You can combine the 2TB version with a Steam Controller for $1428.
Overall, it seems Valve is pricing the new Steam Machine comparatively to new low-to-mid-tier PCs, which makes sense given the Steam Machine runs the SteamOS just like the Steam Deck does. It’s mean to be a living room system that can play PC games from your Steam library. Of course, like the Steam Deck, the Steam Machine will come with its own “verified” badge to signal which games can be run properly on the new home console.
Here are the full specs for the Steam Machine:
CPU
- Semi-custom AMD Zen 4 6C / 12T
- Up to 4.8 GHz, 30W TDP
GPU
- Semi-Custom AMD RDNA3 28CUs
- 2.45GHz max sustained clock, 110W TDP
RAM
- 16GB DDR5 + 8GB GDDR6 VRAM
Power
- Internal power supply, AC power 110-240V
Storage
- 512GB NVMe SSD or 2TB NVMe SSD
- Both models include a high-speed microSD card slot
Steam Machine Compared to Other Consoles
Valve’s Steam Machine comes on the heels of Nintendo Switch 2’s release last summer and perhaps 1-2 years ahead Sony’s PlayStation 6 and Xbox’s Project Helix consoles. Very little is known about the latter systems, but given that Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have all increased the costs of their current-gen platforms, not to mention the ongoing shortage of RAM, helium, and other elements that go into manufacturing hardware, it stands to reason that the next-gen consoles will also cost more than $1000.
Console gaming was always meant to dominate the living room, while PC gaming was more of an enthusiast way of gaming. But as the years tick by, console gaming and PC gaming are becoming more aligned. Rumors have it that the new Xbox will run Windows 11, or at least have an OS comparable to a PC. This is the direction the industry is moving in, and the Steam Machine is just the first platform to make that jump.
The post Steam Machine Price and Release Date Officially Revealed (and It’s Expensive) appeared first on VICE.
