The Steam Machine is in trouble, could cost $1500 at this rate.
Valve just increased prices of the Steam Deck by nearly 50%, a 1TB Deck is now about $1000 USD.
The Steam Machine has more RAM, more NVME storage and more power than the Steam Deck:
$1000 Steam Deck (top spec):
- 16GB Unified RAM (shared with GPU)
- 1 TB NVME
$???? Steam Machine (top spec):
- 16GB RAM plus 8GB VRAM
- 2TB NVME
Before the cost of RAM and storage went ballistic, the estimated price of the Steam Machine was $600 - $1,100.
But the BASE Steam Deck with just 512 GB of storage is now OVER $600 with this price increase.
Assuming Valve doesn't eat the cost of rising prices on components (and it's not just RAM now), There is no way a Steam Machine is going to sell for $600. In fact, I would not be surprised if they cost more than the leading Steam Deck, which is now at nearly $1000.
And here's the kicker, the longer it takes for the Steam Deck to ship, the higher RAM and component prices are gonna go. Let's hope they pre-built a bunch of them at locked in former prices.
If not, the Steam Machine might be DOA on price alone as it will be out of reach for many gamers.