Just Cancel the Steam Machine

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:07]So today, Valve announced that the Steam Deck OLED was finally back in stock after months of unavailability.

[00:00:14]And they also announced that the pricing would be higher, that the 512 GB model would be $789, and that the 1 TBTE model would be $949.

[00:00:26]And at these price points, honestly, I don't think Valve should have even bothered restocking them. And if this is an omen of what's to come with the Steam Machine, they should just cancel it now before they embarrass themselves again.

[00:00:41]And the fact of the matter is, most of you agree with me. Before I made it clear what my opinion even was, I put out a poll on my YouTube channel. And although I did let it slip that this was really about what I thought of the Steam Machine. Sorry, Freudian slip, you all voted with an overwhelming margin that you didn't think that Valve should have even bothered restocking the Steam Deck at the current prices. And for around a quarter of you though that thought that this was the right call or that it's not Valve's fault that prices are this high and there's nothing they could have done, which I'm going to dismantle that argument later in this video. Well, let me first make it clear that no matter what market conditions are, like if you're making the argument it's not their fault, there's nothing else they could have done. Well, no matter what, there are simply a max price for every product that's out there where once you hit it, it doesn't matter if it's fair or not. You're simply past a threshold where the product does not make any sense for people to purchase anymore.

[00:01:38]And I'll give you an example. Take the country of Singapore. They have exorbitant fees and taxes for when it comes to owning a car. And so, well, then people must just buy cars anyways and find ways to No, they don't.

[00:01:52]Instead, more people than otherwise would ride motorcycles and scooters.

[00:01:56]Now, would you say a scooter directly competes with a car? Well, a lot of people in the United States of America would say it doesn't. But at a certain price point, it actually does. At a certain price point, people will find another way to transport themselves, even if it's not even really the same thing. And the same goes for a gaming device. The same goes for the Steam Deck. Whether it is fair or not, it just does not make sense at the price that Valve just announced. And so unless what we are looking at today with the current Steam Deck pricing is a situation where perhaps it wasn't actually all about RAM prices in 2026. Like maybe this is a situation where yes, RAM's more expensive, but maybe that small form factor SSD they use is exorbitantly overpriced compared to other ones that are just extra overpriced. or maybe uh Valve didn't buy up enough future TSMC capacity for their 6nmter APU and because of this they had to overpay to get back in line. Like hopefully it's something like that. Unless it's something like that where it's not just about the RAM and therefore maybe the Steam Deck's this expensive, but the Steam Machine could still be $700 or less, which I heavily doubt by the way.

[00:03:03]Unless that is the case, I must argue that Valve did massive damage to their brand today by restocking the Steam Deck OLEDs at prices that fair or not are too high to make any sense for people to consider them anymore. And they've done even more damage to any hype that still remained for the Steam Machine and that they should just cancel the Steam Machine if it is priced in line with the Steam Deck OLED. That is to say, something like $1,000 or $1,200 or something. at that point, Valve, don't even bother. And also, Valve, if this is some 5D chess move ploy, like if this was some situation where Valve saw that the Steam Deck sales were not getting hurt by the release of the Xbox Lax, and so they said, "Oh, we can get away with charging as much as an Xbox Lax." And then they maybe also said, "Oh, and then if we charge $950 for this, everyone will think that a Steam Machine priced at $800 or lower is going to look like a bargain." If this is some weird profit taking price expectation setting move, it's still a massive blunder because people are furious and people might not even pay attention anymore. They might just turn off their Google alerts for Steam Machine price after seeing this stuff today. And this has still done massive damage to you. Even if you get Steam Machine pricing right, this is still worse than if you just didn't restock the Steam Deco LED until you could get it to a reasonable price. And actually, speaking of getting a product to a reasonable price, I think it's now time for the most important part of this video, which is outlining that it is still possible in 2026. And that there are countless examples out there right now and a ton of data to show that if you know what you're doing, you can release a product despite elevated RAM and SSD cost this year for a reasonable price. and that it is truly either Valve's greed, more likely their incompetence that has gotten us to where we are today with Steam Deck OLED pricing after an ad from a sponsor. This piece of content is brought to you by the Minis Forum M2 mini PC, a mini PC with an ultra portable tiny body that is ready for far more than where it starts.

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[00:06:06]You can use offer code broken silicon to save $30 off it if you do want to purchase it. So once again, support Mo's law is dead by checking out the minis forum M2 mini PC today. All right. So earlier I gave you that Singapore car example to demonstrate that this idea of well the market dictates the price fair or not and consumers just have to take it. That that argument it has its limits. At a certain point a product becomes so expensive that fair or not people will not find a way to buy it.

[00:06:36]They will just find any other way of doing something. Like even if you really wanted a car and a car is what really would do your job well, you will find a way to make a scooter to work. The same is true of a gaming device like the Steam Deco LED. Although in Valve's example, it's actually worse because they do have direct competitors that are handling the situation far better and handling it in a way that tells me it's not just because they're big, it's because they found a way to do it sustainably. The most obvious example would be the Nintendo Switch 2. And I actually defended the Nintendo Switch 2's price increase a little bit. Not heavily, but a little bit when I saw them increase it from $450 to $500. And that's because even back then, honestly, compared to a $550, $650 Steam Deck, I thought that was a fair price. I would choose the Nintendo Switch 2 over it given its hardware. And I would also probably have chosen it over a $1,000 Xbox Ally X. And I thought that, well, it sucks when anything gets a price increase. Technically, it was 10%. By now, the PS5 has gone up in price 30%. And so, it seemed reasonable to me. But you know what? Nintendo is also actually increasing production of the Nintendo Switch 2 according to recent reports. So, that means that they are fine with making it at 500, whatever it costs to get to that $500 price point for a while. That means that they if they're going to increase production that they think they can sustainably keep this thing at $500 and that they're not going to announce $1,000 anytime soon. If it wasn't a sustainable price, if they were worried about even more price increases, then they would probably cut back production, especially considering the slowing momentum in sales that we've seen, and just hope prices get better next year and then ramp up production then. But that's not what they are doing. suggesting that it is possible to find a way to make things cheaper and keep production going sustainably if you are competent. Then there's also another example here, the Xbox Allies X. And you know, something that at its worst is still decently faster than the Steam Deck while having access to a larger library of AAA games.

[00:08:42]It's now at a similar price point to the Steam Deck. And although there's been limited price increases in regions like Japan, it tells me that this thing is probably at most going to get like another 10 or 20% price increase if it gets one at all. And at that price point, it's a steal. And again, it has more RAM than the Steam Deck, a more expensive APU than the Steam Deck. It's made by Asus. Asus likes big profit margins. And so, yeah, this thing, it seems like that this is also handled better than Valve's console. And oh, another very important distinction about this product here. I'm not under the impression that the uh Xbox LAX is in higher production than the Steam Deck.

[00:09:24]So, there's not some argument here that like Asus or Microsoft are just making tons more of them and so that's why they can afford to negotiate these contracts.

[00:09:32]No, it's a lower volume product than the Steam Deck and yet now it's almost the same price with vastly better hardware.

[00:09:39]What What does that tell you? Again, just like the other example that tells you that there's a level of incompetence here when it comes to Valve's ability to navigate the 2026 market conditions. And then actually, I have a third example here, and it's Radeon. Bear with me. I know it sounds like a stretch, and it's weird, but bear with me. It'll make sense, but I believe the RX970 XT actually proves that you don't have to get screwed over in the current market if you build and design your product correctly for it. Uh AMD just had record Q1 gaming revenue and that is because they have been able to supply their GPUs just fine despite the market conditions.

[00:10:16]And to be clear, their sales remain strong. Sales are up and despite bogus reporting from some firms where I never get or understand where they get their numbers. If you actually look at publicly available information like best GPU sellers on Newegg, even in a quarter two, their sales remain strong relative to Nvidia. again, relatively speaking, in the do-it-yourself space. And yet, there are reports coming out that prices are going down. So, 970 XT, we know that AMD got good GPU revenue in quarter 1.

[00:10:46]We know that their sales are remaining strong if you just look around at freely available data. And yet, we know that the prices are going down. The prices aren't going down because no one's buying Radeon. People are buying Radeon and prices are just going down. That's because AMD is correctly navigating the market and keeping their RAM prices in control. Are they still elevated? Yes, they are. I spoke to people. GDDDR6 prices are maybe a little down this quarter compared to the previous quarter, but they're still massively up.

[00:11:11]But AMD has worked on a design that they can still sell for around MSRP or apparently in some regions below it. And uh by the way, one more thing about this that I think is pretty interesting. If anyone were to make the argument, oh well, they made these cards a year ago and so it's based on previous gem pricing. No. I reached out to some contacts today in distribution and I believe you can actually prove this if you went out there and bought a bunch of them today and checked their uh uh serial numbers. But what I am told is that the RX970 XTs you're buying now, most of them were produced actually just a few months ago during peak GDR6 pricing. And yet in the US they're being sold for $700. What does that tell you?

[00:11:52]That tells you that Radeon, even Radeon, who we make fun of all the time, can handle a retail channel effectively during a crisis vastly better than Valve to the point that it makes Valve look like they probably shouldn't even bother. And so that actually gets me to my final concluding point, and that is this. No, the Steam Deck is not this expensive today because Valve had no choice. It happened because Valve is either greedy or more likely incompetent when it comes to supply chains and planning for the future. Nintendo is fine. The Asus low volume handheld that they're pretending is an Xbox is relative to the Steam Deck fine. Radeon, the company we all make fun of for not getting things right, is fine. And so I am forced to conclude that the only way this product could be getting this expensive, going from $650 to $950. a $300 price increase for the one TBTE model. The only way you get there, if you math it out, is if they are like buying the chips on eBay manually.

[00:12:58]Seriously, that's the only way I can make the math work for the current pricing we are seeing today with the Steam Deck OLED. either they have zero discounts from spot pricing or higher honestly costs than spot pricing for the RAM and the SSD they're buying from their suppliers who are bending them over a barrel or they don't have any suppliers at all and they're just like sending out employees to find stuff on eBay and cobbling them together themselves and if that's what they're doing now that means that the steam machine just makes no sense at all because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how you get to to a $950 Steam Deco LED or hypothetically a $1,000 or $1,200 Steam machine. At a certain point, at a certain price, it just doesn't work anymore. And you know, as friend of the channel, the Fox demonstrated on Twitter, and actually that I also ranted about in a recent live stream, you can buy a stronger pre-built than the Steam Machine right now for $700. Any $1,000 Steam Machine is DOA. And I myself demonstrated that I could build one for less than $750. that is actually notably faster, like in some situations a lot lot lot lot faster than the Steam machine as well. So whether you want to pay 700 and get something stronger that you don't have to build or you want to pay like what I did somewhere under 750 and get something vastly stronger and build it yourself, you have other options and the Steam Machine just will not make any sense. I stand by it. It still makes no sense above $700. And look, technically though, it is still an if it who knows, maybe maybe it is about the small SSDs they have to source for the Steam Deck and that's like half of the cost increase or there's something with a tariff import or they had to double pay to get capacity from TSMC because they didn't plan ahead accordingly. I don't know. Maybe the Steam Deco LED is the priced at where it's at and the Steam Machine will actually be cheaper than both of those models. Maybe. But I have to say that if it is not, it is simply not worth your time to buy it if it isn't that cheap. That is to say, if the Steam Machine isn't at least below 800, in my opinion, below 700. And that's because you have other options. And if that happens, it won't be because it's 2026. It will be because Valve up. Look, I love Steam. I've always liked the Steam Deck. And I am incredibly grateful that Steam OS is forcing Microsoft to fix Windows gaming.

[00:15:23]Heck, I glazed the out of Valve in my reaction video to the Steam Machine announcement. I love the things. One of one of my most positive videos of last year, but this this is what we're seeing today makes me question if I should ever be excited about the Steam Machine any longer or excited about really any piece of gaming hardware Valve makes in the future. And so, I really, really hope that it's more than just RAM. I hope something else is causing this and they can do something about it. I mean, heck, for all we know, they thought they could get away with pricing the Steam Deco LED against the Xbox Ally X. And if they couldn't, then they'll delay the Steam Machine until they can get it to a good price. Or if actually the Steam Deco LED keeps selling, they'll know that they can sell the Steam Machine for too much.

[00:16:08]Who knows? Maybe it's some misguided attempt at testing the market. But all that I know is that if the Steam Machine is priced in line with the Steam Deco LED, it doesn't make sense and Valve should just cancel the Steam Machine now and avoid further embarrassment. All right, that is going to do it for my video. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please make sure to like it. I know it's a more negative one than usual, but it's a negative situation. And so I just don't mistake what I'm saying for anything more than I'm trying to make clear how we got here and I'm not happy about it, nor do I hate any companies I talk about. Usually there a couple AI companies I'm sick of actually. But yeah, please, you know, give me an up vote. Comment down below. Let me know what you think. Will you will you buy a Steam machine at 800, 1,1,200? What is the price you would pay for something that's weaker than a PS5 that's coming out a year before Xbox Helix and PS6? I do actually genuinely want to know in the comments. And uh also make sure that you are subscribed to the Moors Law is Dead YouTube channel and ring the bell button. Um and then consider joining us on Patreon. Actually, right after I get done with this video, me and Dan will be recording an episode where we take in uh submissions from you all that were sent to me ahead of time for the Patreon where we'll discuss what it means to even have a generation. Like what made the past gen the past gen, the current gen, the current gen? Is it arbitrary?

[00:17:28]Is it just literally when the console launches or is it a type of tech? and what defined this generation for you.

[00:17:34]We'll be discussing all of that on a dive rink that will come out later this week and you can get access to it at just the $2.56 the 256 bit tier and also that'll give you access to hundreds of other episodes as well and the Discord and there's there's other tiers that get you more.

[00:17:48]There's a $1 tier that gets you less.

[00:17:50]You can ask guest questions. But for everybody else, if you made it this far into the video, thank you for watching.