Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week

Post by cassianoleal » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #25

laughing_man wrote: post #13

This is why I would never make it in business. I just don't see the consumer case for buying a Steam Machine. They're too expensive for the console niche they're intended to occupy.

The sad thing is, they're not. A lot of people have not been paying attention to PC costs. This is what they cost now. I've seen a few "make your own" builds online. If you use new parts, you might save 80$, and you generally don't get the form factor, efficiency, integrated Steam Controller puck, or visual appearance with those builds, plus, you know, you're building then yourself which should be counted for at leas…

Post by ekianjo » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

pweaver wrote: post #35

brookst wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the analysis and I don’t see anywhere that it claims to measure demand. It seems pretty clear it’s about how many units Valve is selling (charging for, shipping) and explicitly not about reservations or demand. Valve is being smart here. It is far better to be supply constrained at launch than to have enough capacity to meet initial demand (and then far too much capacity when demand slows over time).

Ya, the article doesn't specifically use the word demand but in the final section Is It Good? says "The estimated 12k to 15k weekly sales volume reflects the fact that this is not a mainstream home run." this implies that the 12k-15k is a demand number but we can't reach that conclusion with this data.

Post by falsemyrmidon » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #30

Agingcoder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux has gone mainstream a long time ago - from dvd players to android phones. It just hasn’t succceeded on old preexisting markets ( personal computers ) but has taken large parts of most of the newly created ones ( servers , mobile devices , embedded devices etc )

I feel like this is a little nitpicky. Clearly they are talking about mainstream for the average home computer user as a daily driver OS. Even with the steam deck it’s barely touching 5%. It’s still obscure and mysterious to the vast majority of the population in a way windows and macOS aren’t.

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

pweaver wrote: post #31

The analysis seems mostly[1] solid but the conclusions are all wrong. The steam machine was sold out and wait-listed. Value doesn't charge until you are removed from the wait-list so these numbers reflect the number of manufactured units per week (e.g. manufacturing capacity and/or distribution strategy) of the steam machine and not demand. This is only a minimum demand. To get the demand you would need to derive inf…

Post by weakfish » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #24

ray_v wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the price is steep but in my opinion, you really do get a lot of value here - especially with the fact that you instantly pull a ton of your library in seamlessly. If you've been in this ecosystem for a while that's a huge selling-point - or, at least it was for me!

Agree. I suspect others who use steam are thinking the same thing. When I heard the news for playstation my mind instantly jumped to silly digital prices for games forever. I look at the nintendo switch store and they will sell a digital copy for new retail price for years after even if you can pickup a used copy on ebay for half the price or less.