Price of PC for the new Steam Machine: what it implies for Xbox

Steam Machine aims at PC price and opens a new scenario for Xbox.

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The announcement of Valve’s new device has reignited the debate on whether it can truly compete with traditional consoles. Beyond the specs, the big question mark right now revolves around its price and how it will fit into a market where Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo have been setting the pace for decades with very different strategies.

The first clues don’t point to an aggressively low price. According to content creators and various media outlets, the business model won’t follow the usual path of consoles, but rather that of PCs, which could completely change its possibilities against Xbox Series and other platforms.

Valve rules out a subsidized price for Steam Machine

The information comes from an analysis by Linus Tech Tips, later picked up by VGC, which states that Valve does not plan to sell its device at a reduced price, as Microsoft and Sony do with their consoles. On the contrary: the goal would be to position it at the level of an equivalent PC, without relying on game sales or subscriptions to offset hardware losses.

• According to LTT, Valve takes this approach to avoid interfering with its partners’ margins and because they consider Steam Machine to be, in essence, a complete PC, not a traditional console. In practice, this means its cost could be higher than that of the Xbox Series X, and certainly far from affordable alternatives like Xbox Series S or Nintendo Switch 2.

The context doesn’t help to think of low prices either: in recent years, both Microsoft and Sony have adjusted their prices upward, and yet they still offer competitive value thanks to their software and service ecosystems. If Valve plays in a different league and opts for a completely independent price, the question is clear: will it really enter the same category as Xbox, or will it remain as an option closer to the PC market?

We’ll have to see how it ultimately positions itself, but for now, everything points to a powerful device with a cost that could leave it out of the traditional console territory. For Xbox, this reinforces the role of Series S as the most accessible option and Series X as the power reference in the domestic market.