YouTube star LinusTechTips has revealed that Valve wasn’t overly impressed with his suggestion of a $500 price tag for the dubbed Steam Console.
On November 12, Valve stunned the internet by unveiling their desktop gaming PC, the Steam Machine, alongside a brand-new Steam controller, and a VR headset. The new system is Valve’s first bit of new hardware since the Steam Deck, which they’d promised to follow up on with a second Steam Deck.
The gaming PC is slated to launch in 2026, and has “six times” the power of the current Steam Deck. It will be powered by an undisclosed AMD CPU and GPU capable of running games at 4K and 60fps. The Steam Machine will have 512GB and 2TB models, with both expandable via MicroSD.
There hasn’t been a price point mentioned as of yet, with Valve keeping that under wraps for now, paving the way for many predictions.
LinusTechTips weighs in on Steam Machine price
Some have stated that they believe the gaming PC will cost in a similar range to the current PlayStation and Xbox consoles. That includes LinusTechTips, who suggested a $500 price point to Valve themselves.
“I can’t tell you what the price will be, because I literally don’t know,” he said on the November 15 episode of the WAN show.
“When I said I’m disappointed it isn’t going to follow a console pricing model, where its subsided by the fact that manufacturer is going to be taking 30% of every game sold on it over the lifespan of this thing, because I feel that would be a more meaningful product, they asked what I meant by console price and I said $500. Nobody said anything, but the energy in the room wasn’t great.”
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Linus also believes that the Steam Machine would have a hard time justifying a price point north of $600.
“Even if the Steam Machine is like at $600 or $700, it isn’t going to have any justification for it,” he added, arguing that the PS5 Pro is a much more powerful piece of kit.
He also noted that the Steam Machine won’t have a disc drive, which is another selling point for some of the consoles on offer today.
The price of the new device isn’t likely to be revealed until just before it goes on sale, similar to how Xbox handled their handheld – the Xbox ROG Ally X.
