Steam Machine Price Leak is SHOCKING!

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Welcome back to another video. I'm Blaze 22 and I have bad news regarding the Steam Machine. We're all the fans, the fans are waiting for the price, the release date for this thing. How much is it going to cost? When is it coming out?

[00:00:10]How powerful is it going to be? Well, I just saw this article literally a couple of minutes ago, and it's not good news.

[00:00:16]It really isn't. The Steam Machine's internal price target already topped $949 um 2 months ago. Um and a leaker is already warning of a brutal launch for the Steam Machine. This is not what we need. So, if you're not caught, basically yesterday, Valve announced that the Steam Deck was getting a massive price increase from $549 to $789 for the 512 gig and I believe $300 increase for the 1 TB to $949, damn near $1,000. Now, we were getting reports that the Steam Machine could potentially launch at like a completely surprising price point of $600. This was just a couple of weeks ago, guys, and everyone was rejoicing. We're all happy. We thought we were finally going to get the gaming PC for the masses that would compete with consoles. Well, yesterday we were dealt a pretty heavy blow obviously with the Steam Deck, old aging hardware, several years old now, not the most powerful device getting a massive increase to 949 for 1 TB. Now, if that's getting a price increase to 949, what does that mean the Steam Machine's going to be? Well, again, this article from WCCF Tech kind of gives us a little bit bad news. So, apparently a leaker is warning of a brutal launch for the Steam Machine. And I think the price point of this thing is going to this got to be it's crucial that they hit an affordable price point. I mean, this was supposed to be the Valve hardware that was supposed to succeed the failed Steam machines of the past, right? It was supposed to come in at a nice little form factor. Something that could compete with consoles. Something that would be affordable, at least affordable in line with console alternatives out there. Maybe not as powerful as the PS5 Pro, but around that ballpark, right?

[00:01:59]And it would give people their first taste of PC gaming. It would give them their first taste of Steam OS and, you know, Proton and Linux. And I thought it would be a massive game changer in the industry. But then comes the RAM shortage. Obviously with AI data centers popping up and basically vacuuming up all the RAM. Um it kind of threw a spanner into the works for Valve and there were there they have been and they still are faced with a choice. Should we delay the Steam Machine until things cool down a bit or should we release it and face the consequences of maybe not hitting the price point that we were wanting to? The fans are not going to like it but like what can we do other than delay this thing? Well, they've had to make that choice. And apparently two months ago, the internal price for the Steam Machine topped $949. That was a few months ago, and things have changed since then. Things have went up even more. So, we could be in for a rude awakening when the price for this thing comes out. And if you've been following the Steam Deck subreddit, things like that. A lot of the communities, like a lot of the community is basically essentially saying that the Steam Deck is dead now. It's dead in the war. It's no longer a good value proposition.

[00:03:05]you're not getting like good performance, good value for this thing for the price you're paying. It's at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to performance for handheld gaming PCs. Um, there's not really much worse than this.

[00:03:16]Um, and it's one of the most expensive ones. You can get an ROG Ally, Xbox Ally for a,000 bucks now instead of this and get at least a pretty decent performance bomb, right? And USB 4 um to be able and two USBC ports to basically dock up multiple monitors and eGPU if you wanted. The Steam Deck, you can't really do that. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the Steam Deck and I hope the price comes down. Um, but yeah, it's not looking good for the Steam Deck and I don't think it's going to look good for the Steam Machine either. If it if this P if this price 949 comes to pass, if it ends up being over $1,000, $1,100, 1200 who, you know, at that point we're getting to the territory where we go like, hm, should we just try and like build a gaming PC from used parts at this point? I mean, you probably can build a pretty decent PC and at least you'll have the choice of upgrading it. You can install Bazite onto it. Um, and basically have your own DIY Steam Machine if that's something you wanted to do. Well, let's get into the article and see what they had to say. So, the Steam Deco lead returned in stock yesterday, well, with a catch. The price was significantly increased in all regions. This doesn't bode well at all for the upcoming Steam Machine as according to a tidbit shared by known leaker Brad Lynch, its price will be much higher than expected. Now, he's had this to say. Take this with a grain of salt because it was just whispers in my ear, but back when I was told a figure for what Valve's estimated price he'd have to set for the starting price of the Steam Machine, it was still higher than today's Steam Deck prices, the leaker said on X. Considering the Steam Deck OLED 1 TB model is now priced at 949, it's now 100% clear how the Steam Machine is not going to be a cheap gaming system. Um, despite this information, some are still clinging to clinging to the hope that the Steam Deck price may be Valve's attempt to keep the cost of the Steam Machine down. It's true. They could potentially be trying they might swallow some of the costs. I mean, somebody left an amazing comment in my video yesterday. Let me go find it. Here it is. Fish Boy Blue. He said, "I got to chime in here and say that all signs point to where Valve has enough constant income to push the Steam hardware as a as loss leaders. They make 30% off of every single sale on Steam.

[00:05:27]So getting more people on their platform when the rest of the gaming market skyrocketing is not or um yeah is not a good move. I personally think this is a massive missed opportunity with today's climate. Next year's climate might be different but only time will tell.

[00:05:40]Either way I can only assume and I can see some massive missed opportunities happening. I do not have access to their books. So yeah, basically he says raising the raising I think he made maybe made a mistake in his comment there, but basically saying they he's basically saying they should be focusing on getting more people on their platform so they could make that 30% profit on every piece of software sold cuz remember they're primarily a software company. Valve makes obviously makes the platform Steam, which is the number one platform that PC gamers use to buy their games, the majority of their games. They make a massive profit literally for doing nothing. All they do is bring invite developers to come list their games on Steam. Developers do because it's the biggest platform that people want to use and download and sell their games, buy their games on. So they have that advantage. They have like a they are the market dominant market, you know, platform for PC gaming. So they're making money for free, money for nothing by just allowing people to sell their games on their platform and they make 30% of every every piece of software sold. So, they're not really like hardware really isn't a massive thing for them. So, they can afford to sell the Steam machine at a loss um at a small loss kind of like Sony and Nintendo do, you know, cuz they make the majority of their money selling software and services. They can afford to sell the Steam Machine or even the Steam Deck at a loss. And then from all the new users that are coming on and buying a Steam machine, they'll make that money, recuperate that money on software sold.

[00:07:06]And we're talking about like, you know, if 30% of games that every game that someone buys, that's a lot of money.

[00:07:12]That adds up a lot. And I'm sure they could easily recoup that money um that they lose on selling the Steam Machine at an affordable price. So why don't they why don't they? So, here's I'm thinking maybe fingers crossed people are still pretty hopeful that maybe they're they're going to eat they're eat some of the price or some of the cost of the Steam machine just, you know, to basically give it a good solid launch and then they might really raise the price down the line. But either way, I think the most important thing is getting people on their platform to buy games so they can make that money through software. And how are you going to get hardware into people's hands? By selling it affordably. That's why PlayStation's been so successful. That's why Nintendo's been so successful with the Switch is by offering an affordable experience, right? The Nintendo Switch is still the most affordable option out there right now. Um, as far as handheld gaming goes, $449 for a Switch, too, which is pretty damn impressive. Um, and you're looking at the Steam the Steam the Steam Deck, $789 for the base version. I think I know what I'd want to do if I was a new consumer into handheld gaming. I think I'd go for a Nintendo Switch. So, yeah. Basically, someone asked, you know, is it a possibility that they might eat some costs um um or they've raised the Steam Deck price increase to eat to allow it to eat some of the costs of the Steam Machine? And Trevor Stone says, "I have no idea. I doubt it, but I also haven't been told any insidefo except for the tibbit blah blah." While the state new Steam Machine was a great idea on paper, it couldn't have been announced at a worse time.

[00:08:37]Obviously revealed back in November alongside the new Steam Controller and Steam Frame VR headset right during the initial phases of Ramageddon. The system was supposed to launch in early 2026, but the worsting prices of RAM storage force valve to delay a system that is going to struggle considerably on the market with it with its now almost certain very high price and the performance it will deliver with it somewhat dated hardware. Again, the Steam Machine's going to be coming out.

[00:09:01]It's not going to be like one of the most powerful devices out there. The PS5 Pro, I think, is going to be more powerful than the Steam Machine. It's definitely not going to be leading in any sort of performance category. Don't get me wrong, it's going to have the best operating system out there. let's be honest, Steam OS and Linux, but it's not going to be leading in any sort of performance metrics. And coming in at a price that's well over $1,000, it's again, it's pushing it squarely into PC, gaming PC territory to where you can just build a gaming PC that's modular, that's upgradeable as opposed to just buying this, that's something that's, you know, that's got bespoke hardware that you're not going to be able to upgrade over time. It would be different if they released the Steam machine with like upgradeable components, right?

[00:09:40]where you could swap out the APU in a couple of years, upgrade the your base Steam machine, but you can't. It's it's a consumer device. It's more or less a console with a desktop operating system.

[00:09:51]And at first, like if you'd asked me last year, I would have said it's genius, you know, like I think that's why I think Xbox are going in the right direction with the new Project Helix, you know, giving us basically a console package. Um, a gaming PC in a console package, a console price point. I think it's absolutely genius. But with Ramageddon now with prices going up by that much selling this at like 1,200,300 is just it's it's a hard sale for the majority of people and it's the majority of people is where they were kind of hoping to that's the sort of market they were hoping to dip into. Um so yeah it couldn't come at a worse time. Let me know how much you'd be willing to pay.

[00:10:30]Are you willing to pay 1,100 for the Steam Machine? Are you willing to pay 1,200, 1,300, 1,500 for this thing? Uh, depending on what accessories and what variant of it you go for. Um, let me know down below in the comments.

[00:10:43]Consider liking, subscribing, clicking the bell icon. It really helps out a lot. Apologies for the double glitch there. I'll fix that for next one. But yeah, thank you so much. I'll see you in the next one. Take care. God bless.

[00:10:54]Peace out. Have a great one. I'm blessed. Okay, bye.

[00:11:07]Boys, boys.