Valve's new Steam Machine is set to release at some point next year, but we still don't know one major detail about it – the price. Tech experts have now tried piecing together their own version of the hardware to see how much it could end up coming to, and it's mercifully lower than some analysts have predicted.
As spotted by VGC, YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips (led by Linus Sebastian) has released a new video (below) in which he and his team piece together different PC parts, all picked out to be as close in specification as possible to those that Valve has revealed will be going into the Steam Machine. While they can't get a perfect match every single time, the process still allows them to put together a rough estimate of both the hardware's potential performance and its price.
After picking out everything from a CPU, to a GPU, controller, case, and SSD, it's estimated that based on the lowest historical prices for each different part, the whole thing could be made for $602. However, looking at the current market conditions, still using the cheapest sources, it'd instead come to $910.
Yikes. However, it's noted that deciding not to use some of the big name brands that were picked out (scrapping the AMD Ryzen CPU, for example) could end up saving almost $100, and the potential savings don't stop there.
"Chatting with some industry sources, it's estimated that there's as little as 10% net profit in PC parts, which would put our estimated cost between $700 and $750," Sebastian says. "With that said, Valve benefits from a direct-to-consumer model, meaning that they get to take both the brand and retailer margins. And as we already acknowledged, we did overspend on a number of our components, including the power supply, the motherboard, and the case compared to what Valve would pay.
"With that said, in today's market, I still don't think they're going to get costs under $600 to $650," he continues. "Meaning that the final question is, what kind of markup will Valve target on the Steam Machine?"
Although Sebastian says it's "impossible to say for sure" without listening in on Valve's meetings, he believes the Steam Machine could be priced at $699, pending "no major changes in the market."
Overall, that's a significantly more favorable price than what some analysts have been predicting – when we spoke to some analysts last month, David Cole, the CEO and founder of research firm DFC Intelligence, even estimated that the Steam Machine could cost up to $1,000. Again, Valve is remaining quiet on the details, outside of confirming that "it's more in line with what you might expect from the current PC market" than the console market. Regardless, we definitely can't expect it to be cheap.
