Valve's Steam Machine may be selling between 12,000 and 15,000 units per week despite its high price

[KennethL]

I don't get the obsession with size. I have a mid-tower PC in my living room behind the TV. If I had a Steam Machine, it would also go behind the TV. Why does it need to be a small cube? I get why you wouldn't want a giant full size tower, but there are plenty of small cases that can still fit a full size GPU.

Some have a nice living room with expensive furniture and a wife who doesn't want a metal box or that ugly PS5 in the living room. A small cube will maybe pass...

 

[KennethL]

I don't have the advantage of scale or negotiating power of megacorps. There is no reason the steam machine, with such pathetic hardware, should cost this much.

Older but custom AMD CPU and GPU.
Custom motherboard. Custom daughter boards.
Custom case. Custom fan and fan shroud.
Custom heatsink.

Valve doesn't get better prices on SSD and RAM than you do.
But their purchaser didn't do a very good job or they thought the prices would drop and they were wrong. Valve knew how much RAM they needed and they didn't order them before they SM was ready.

My employer purchased 300 sticks of SO-DIMM DDR5 4800MTS in June, almost $300 each. In November 2025 the same sticks were $200 each. In May/June 2025 the were $40 each. We don't know when we need them, our customer makes an order and we purchase the hardware so we can build the finished product.

 

[cfenton]

Some have a nice living room with expensive furniture and a wife who doesn't want a metal box or that ugly PS5 in the living room. A small cube will maybe pass...

But it's behind the TV. The only way you can see it is if you're looking from the side. Just get a case with a solid front and it won't even stand out if you are looking sideways behind the TV for some reason.

 

[Squid Surprise]

If someone don't want a console and don't want to use Windows, why not use Linux?

Why don’t they want to use Windows?
It runs more stuff - and runs games better…

It can play most of your games except for anti-cheat multiplayer games.

Windows plays them ALL.

How many games do you need to play? If you are a competitive gamer I would not recommend switching to Linux but the Steam Machine isn't a PC for that. It's a couch gaming PC.

I want to play every game I’ve purchased! Otherwise, why would I buy them in the first place?

I use Linux, a 50% increase in frames on Windows wouldn't make me change to Windows.
I play games on Steam, GoG, Epic, Switch, Wii, WiiU, PS3 and repacks.

Good for you… 4% or so of people agree (that’s Linux’s desktop market share)… the other 96% are being scammed by this!

 

[KennethL]

Good for you… 4% or so of people agree (that’s Linux’s desktop market share)… the other 96% are being scammed by this!

You act like you are threatened by the 4% market share. Stay on Windows if you enjoy bigtech slop.

No one knows the Linux market share. The Linux gaming market share is smaller but growing.

Of course Windows games work on Windows.

Every game I purchase work on Linux.

 

[Squid Surprise]

You act like you are threatened by the 4% market share. Stay on Windows if you enjoy bigtech slop.

Threatened? Why? This is a forum for comments…

No one knows the Linux market share. The Linux gaming market share is smaller but growing.

Statcounter has it at 4.36% and that’s pretty fair… even if it doubled it would still be pretty small…

Of course Windows games work on Windows.

Hence my “why wouldn’t you use Windows”…

Every game I purchase work on Linux.

Good for you… Linux might be 4.36% of the desktop market share… YOU account for less than .0000001%… what makes you relevant?