Steam Machine price shock: starts at €1,039
Valve finally revealed the price for its new Steam Machine and, yep, a lot of players blinked. The compact living-room PC running SteamOS is coming in at €1,039 for the 512 GB model (controller not included), with the 2 TB tier climbing to about €1,359. That puts it well above most consoles and a fair bit higher than many fans expected for the Steam Machine name making a comeback.
The company says this wasn’t the plan from day one. When development kicked off in 2023 Valve assumed parts would follow the usual PC trend and get cheaper over time. Instead, rising RAM and storage costs — plus some supply hiccups — pushed component prices up, and Valve priced the units based on what they could buy over the last six months.
Why it matters to gamers (and what to expect)
Bottom line: this is a small PC built for the sofa, not a discount console. Because Valve isn’t eating the hardware cost like some console makers do, the sticker leans closer to real manufacturing price. That explains a lot of the sticker shock, and also why initial stock might be tight — parts shortages reduced how many machines Valve could assemble.
For players, the takeaway is practical: if you want a tidy, official SteamOS living-room box and you value convenience over pure bang-for-buck, this could be attractive. If you’re watching your wallet or happy tinkering, a custom mini-PC or waiting for sales/used units will likely deliver more value. Either way, the announcement sparked plenty of debate in the community about subsidies, component markets, and what a modern “console” really should cost.
