Steam Machine launches today

Post by drnick1 » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #470

tmoertel wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is a promising solution to scalping. Previously, if you had only small numbers of consoles available at launch, scalpers and their bots would claim a large share of them. With Valve's new policy, that share is reduced to s/g , where s is the number of verified Steam accounts controlled by scalpers and g is the number of legit gamer accounts. Since s is likely to be much less than g , s/g is close to zero,…

Scalping is much easier to solve, people just wouldn't like it: Lock the device to the purchasing Steam account for a year.

Post by jitl » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #343

asattarmd wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need to do that because, in some sense, they're competing with Gaming PCs, not really with Gaming consoles. Gaming consoles sell their consoles at a discounted price because they can recoup a lot of it when selling games. Steam can't have a markup on games because they share their marketplace with other PCs.

You could still offer this, similar to the ad tier and ad free tier of a kindle, or a carrier locked phone. $799 for a locked down version, $1049 for an unlocked version. Opportunity to pay $300 to unlock it later at any time. 5% discount on purchases on a locked device.

Post by viktorcode » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

littlecranky67 wrote: post #406

pseudosavant wrote: post #72

I know the price for PC parts is terrible these days, but $1049 for a 6-core 16GB RAM, with a 512GB SSD, and no controller, is a terrible value. For reference, the PS5 Pro has more than twice the number GPU CUs, an 8-core CPU, a 2TB SSD, a controller, and costs $899.

Well, and you pay 120$/year for the privilege to play games online on that PS5. That is one of the reasons SONY can subsidize the PS5 unit price and sell under cost. Valve is not in that position, because people would buy it as office PC replacement.

Post by otto-riz » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

Post by noxvilleza » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #470

tmoertel wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is a promising solution to scalping. Previously, if you had only small numbers of consoles available at launch, scalpers and their bots would claim a large share of them. With Valve's new policy, that share is reduced to s/g , where s is the number of verified Steam accounts controlled by scalpers and g is the number of legit gamer accounts. Since s is likely to be much less than g , s/g is close to zero,…

Scalping is much easier to solve, people just wouldn't like it: Lock the device to the purchasing Steam account for a year.