The Return of the Steam Machine

[Old_Hunter_77]

Considering how well Yotei did on PS5, and eventually Tokon, I wouldn't call Sony "irrelevant". There are also people still buying this console just to play GTA6, Madden, etc.

I know there are more pc users out there now, but still, most people just want to sit on their butts and have their game work immediately. At an affordable price.

But Yotei will come to PC, and GTA6-Madden are all PC.
Sony is not "irrelevant" in the gaming landscape in a commercial sense- what I mean is, they have made the value of PlayStation console and the ecosystem of PlayStation less relevant to new gamers. At least I can say that if I were asked by anyone looking to get into gaming "what console should I buy" 5 years ago I might have strongly recommended a PS4 but now I would not recommend a PS5 (only to those who play games with other PlayStation users or who are hardcore FromSoftware fans).

 

[BrawlMan]

But Yotei will come to PC, and GTA6-Madden are all PC.

We'll just fine by me. It just means more people get to taste greatness (Yotei). Though GTA and Madden have been on PC for a long time already. How do you think GTA got started in the first place? Madden has been PC friendly since the start of the HD era. All that, and still plenty of people buy these consoles for just one or two games.

I might have strongly recommended a PS4 but now I would not recommend a PS5 (only to those who play games with other PlayStation users or who are hardcore FromSoftware fans).

And yet, I still find plenty of people wanting or getting either a PS5 or Switch 2 for various reasons. Or they're looking for niche japanese third party games. People can make their choices, but I still see plenty of people who don't want to mess with a p c or just want to sit on their butt, and make sure the game works the instant they get it in

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

People can make their choices, but I still see plenty of people who don't want to mess with a p c or just want to sit on their butt, and make sure the game works the instant they get it in

Totally- but that takes us back to the Steam Machine, with the promise that it will be plug 'n' play, like a PS5. Best of both worlds (tremendous Steam library + console convenience).

Now- if indeed the price is significantly more than a PS5, then that knocks it way down the recommend order for me and most, of course. If this thing demands $1000 then the use case narrows down a LOT.
Apparently memory component prices are flying and that may end making any Steam Machine or PC build costs vary a lot. These were, for a while, the cheapest parts of a PC so if they impact cost then all buying habits change.

 

[BrawlMan]

Now- if indeed the price is significantly more than a PS5, then that knocks it way down the recommend order for me and most, of course. If this thing demands $1000 then the use case narrows down a LOT.

Valve pretty much implied it's going to be the price of most high end PCs. You're looking at a $800 minimum at best.

 

[Gordon_4]

Totally- but that takes us back to the Steam Machine, with the promise that it will be plug 'n' play, like a PS5. Best of both worlds (tremendous Steam library + console convenience).

Now- if indeed the price is significantly more than a PS5, then that knocks it way down the recommend order for me and most, of course. If this thing demands $1000 then the use case narrows down a LOT.
Apparently memory component prices are flying and that may end making any Steam Machine or PC build costs vary a lot. These were, for a while, the cheapest parts of a PC so if they impact cost then all buying habits change.

I'd be very shocked if it costs $1000.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Linus's prediction is a $699 price tag. Lines up pretty closely to my predicted price of $750. I would be pretty disappointed if it cost more than $800. It's possible given current ram prices are ridiculous (looking at $900 for 64 gigs of ram in some cases), but would really make it non-viable for the market they're targeting.

 

[Gordon_4]

Linus's prediction is a $699 price tag. Lines up pretty closely to my predicted price of $750. I would be pretty disappointed if it cost more than $800. It's possible given current ram prices are ridiculous (looking at $900 for 64 gigs of ram in some cases), but would really make it non-viable for the market they're targeting.

Jesus Fuck, I just checked my PC Case Gear, and 64GB of DDR5 is going for, drum roll please.......lowest price is $999 with the expensive sets topping out at $1700. For reference, I could also buy a PC bundle that includes a 9800X3D, an X870 Mobo, a 2TB Samsung SSD and 64GB of ram for an extra five hundred bucks. Which is a lot, but when you look at the cost per item breakdown, the RAM costs as much as the CPU, Motherboard and SSD combined. And if you only need 32GB of RAM, there's a similar bundle with a 1TB SSD instead for about $1800.

What the actual fuck is this shit?

 

[laggyteabag]

Yeah, all depends on the price.

If it is like £1000, it will have a very limited audience.

Somewhere around the £600 mark would be fair.

I have a pretty strong gaming PC, but I would actually be pretty interested in picking one of these up for my livingroom, and possibly as something that I could travel with.

 

[Satinavian]

As a PC gamer with a proper PC who hasn't had a TV for the last 15 years, i am utterly not interested.

This things seems more for console gamers who get access to the whole Steam library.

 

[Chimpzy]

Jesus Fuck, I just checked my PC Case Gear, and 64GB of DDR5 is going for, drum roll please.......lowest price is $999 with the expensive sets topping out at $1700. For reference, I could also buy a PC bundle that includes a 9800X3D, an X870 Mobo, a 2TB Samsung SSD and 64GB of ram for an extra five hundred bucks. Which is a lot, but when you look at the cost per item breakdown, the RAM costs as much as the CPU, Motherboard and SSD combined. And if you only need 32GB of RAM, there's a similar bundle with a 1TB SSD instead for about $1800.

What the actual fuck is this shit?

It's cuz the AI companies are buying up DRAM and NAND en masse to feed into their data centers. Just read something this morning about Microsoft entering into a contract with a NAND manufacturer for like 40% of their output. And it'll probably get worse because apparently the manufacturers have never considered expanding their capacity due to not being considered profitable enough, so, assuming they will even expand and this trend continues, it'll be a while before any new fabs are built, longer yet before they're up to speed.

 

[Worgen]

Yeah, all depends on the price.

If it is like £1000, it will have a very limited audience.

Somewhere around the £600 mark would be fair.

I have a pretty strong gaming PC, but I would actually be pretty interested in picking one of these up for my livingroom, and possibly as something that I could travel with.

Totally agree.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Jesus Fuck, I just checked my PC Case Gear, and 64GB of DDR5 is going for, drum roll please.......lowest price is $999 with the expensive sets topping out at $1700. For reference, I could also buy a PC bundle that includes a 9800X3D, an X870 Mobo, a 2TB Samsung SSD and 64GB of ram for an extra five hundred bucks. Which is a lot, but when you look at the cost per item breakdown, the RAM costs as much as the CPU, Motherboard and SSD combined. And if you only need 32GB of RAM, there's a similar bundle with a 1TB SSD instead for about $1800.

What the actual fuck is this shit?

I'm so glad I built my PC last year and didn't wait. After the insanity of graphics cards, the one saving grace of PC builds was cheap memory.
At this point it's legit a bad idea to build a PC for gaming. Even if the Steam machine is over $800, it may make financial sense to buy one instead of building a PC, but that would not be for any virtue of Valve, but just by the crazy circumstances of PC business right now

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Only a month after the reveal and I wouldn't be surprised if the current iteration of the steam machine doesn't get released.

I was pretty excited for it (despite really not needing one), but the state of the PC consumer hardware market is totally fucked right now, and I'm not sure that Valve can get the necessary hardware to even build this thing, much less offer it at any kind of reasonable price, given they've already said they're not willing to take a loss on the hardware.

I'm so glad I built a new PC a year ago.

 

[Chimpzy]

Only a month after the reveal and I wouldn't be surprised if the current iteration of the steam machine doesn't get released.

I was pretty excited for it (despite really not needing one), but the state of the PC consumer hardware market is totally fucked right now, and I'm not sure that Valve can get the necessary hardware to even build this thing, much less offer it at any kind of reasonable price, given they've already said they're not willing to take a loss on the hardware.

I'm so glad I built a new PC a year ago.

As I mentioned before, I was planning a new build for next summer, but got spooked into already buying some parts when prices started rising (and then bought everything else, because yeah, why wait). And good thing too. The RAM I bought in early november for a little over 300, which I already felt was steep, is now closing in on 800. It's insane.

On a related note

You Might Soon See 8GB Laptops Everywhere, as Manufacturers Are Likely to Make High-RAM Configurations Unaffordable

Memory shortages are anticipated to pose constraints on laptop manufacturers, as a new report states that 8GB memory will become common.

wccftech.com

I love how the AI boom that caused RAM sticks to increase in price to a insane point where consumer electronics are regressing 5-10 years back to lower RAM configurations in order to make the devices affordable, but that ultimately also makes these devices with lower RAM less efficient at running AI LLMs on their SoCs.

Developers will have to relearn the dark magic of efficient memory management. Or, more likely: "have you considered subscribing to our AI-powered cloud streaming platform?"

Embrace the terminal. Embrace enshittification.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

I'm so glad I built a new PC a year ago.

Ditto.
I got a perfect little PC for my needs with parts I paid a reasonable amount for. With that and a Switch 2, for the first time in a while I'm not feeling restless about not having the equipment to play what I want or feeling bad about not using something I paid a lot for. But for sure I would not buy or build a PC now and the sad thing is we have to hope for an economically devastating AI bubble burst for PC building to be viable again.

 

[Gordon_4]

As I mentioned before, I was planning a new build for next summer, but got spooked into already buying some parts when prices started rising (and then bought everything else, because yeah, why wait). And good thing too. The RAM I bought in early november for a little over 300, which I already felt was steep, is now closing in on 800. It's insane.

On a related note

You Might Soon See 8GB Laptops Everywhere, as Manufacturers Are Likely to Make High-RAM Configurations Unaffordable

Memory shortages are anticipated to pose constraints on laptop manufacturers, as a new report states that 8GB memory will become common.

wccftech.com

I love how the AI boom that caused RAM sticks to increase in price to a insane point where consumer electronics are regressing 5-10 years back to lower RAM configurations in order to make the devices affordable, but that ultimately also makes these devices with lower RAM less efficient at running AI LLMs on their SoCs.

Developers will have to relearn the dark magic of efficient memory management. Or, more likely: "have you considered subscribing to our AI-powered cloud streaming platform?"

Embrace the terminal. Embrace enshittification.

Equally hilarious will be the absolute reaming Microsoft are going to get because Windows 11 run like shit on 16GB equipped machines. They'd need to strip the OS back considerably - as many have done with debloated versions - to make it run remotely acceptably on 8GB. So that might be a weird sort of fringe benefit.

 

[meiam]

I wonder if you could see motherboard specifically made with the idea that you'd have a crap ton of 8 gb RAM or something show up to get around this problem (like have 8 of them or something).

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Or, more likely: "have you considered subscribing to our AI-powered cloud streaming platform?"

Embrace the terminal. Embrace enshittification.

Compute-as-a-service. The death of personal PCs. Want to play a game, render a movie, do anything more tasking than reading a webpage? Pay up.

 

[Gordon_4]

I wonder if you could see motherboard specifically made with the idea that you'd have a crap ton of 8 gb RAM or something show up to get around this problem (like have 8 of them or something).

Most motherboards that aren't tiny support up to 4 DIMMS as a rule. So yeah, they could just fill them up but that maxs you out at 32GB

 

[Chimpzy]

Eh yeah, never mind the consumer pc market, it's looking like the entire consumer electronics market is boned. Or at least everything that uses memory. So consoles, phones, tablets and other smart devices, you name it.

"No stock": Samsung raises DDR5 contract price by over 100%

Samsung has reportedly increased the contract price of DDR5 memory by over 100%. Claiming that there is no stock, the Korean Giant has pushed the contract price of DDR5 DRAM near $20. OEMs are likely to pass this price hike on to the consumers in 2026.

www.notebookcheck.net