Steam has announced pricing and extremely limited availability for the Steam Machine, the desktop/living room sibling of the successful Steam Deck. It will be available in 512GB and 2TB versions, priced at $1,049 USD / £879 GBP and $1,349 USD / £1,149 GBP, and availability will be determined by a lottery system that opens today.
Early reviews from critics have been positive, citing the design and form factor as particular highlights, although reviewers said the price meant it was not as competitive with PS5 and Xbox Series consoles as some had hoped.
Users who wish to purchase can register today on the Valve website, with a deadline of June 25 at 10am Pacific time. At that point Valve will run a randomised lottery to assign places in a reservation queue, which it described as "an effort to improve the purchase experience and limit resellers."
"As units become available, people in the reservation queue will receive an email with the option to purchase," the firm said in an FAQ. "We'll send the first batch of those starting Monday June 29th, and intend to get through the queue by the end of the year."
The firm said that its original target price was "no longer viable" due to hardware pricing and availability, and the RRP "reflects the price of the components as we've secured them over the past 6 months." It said that availability was also severely constrained, to the point where it "couldn't source some of our components at all, at any price." RAM and storage costs have rocketed in recent months as AI hyperscalers buy out available supply.
The console is available either standalone or with a bundle including a Steam controller, with the localised prices as below:
Bundle USD GBP EUR CAD AUD PLN Steam Machine 515GB $1,049 £879 €1,039 C$1,509 A$1,609 zł4,389 Steam Machine 515GB + Steam Controller $1,128 £938 €1,108 C$1,628 A$1,728 zł4,698 Steam Machine 2TB $1,349 £1,149 €1,359 C$1919 A$2,109 zł5,739 Steam Machine 2TB + Steam Controller $1,428 £1,208 €1,428 C$2,038 A$2,228 zł6,048
The firm had previously said that pricing would be "pretty competitive" with equivalent PCs. Observers had initially expected the Steam Machine to be a strong competitor for the console market in general and Microsoft in particular, combining the lightweight Linux-based SteamOS with a desktop platform that supports a 20-plus-year old Steam library.
Early reviewers were positive, finding it a compelling device despite the cost. IGN's reviewer Jackie Thomas, awarding an 8 of out 10 score, said that while it was "a bit too expensive to take on the PS5 or the Xbox Series X," it was "an incredible entry-level gaming PC," and "still one of the cheapest and almost certainly the easiest way to get into PC gaming right now."
Rock Paper Shotgun's James Archer Steam Machine review described it as "a discreet but quietly capable companion, more at home under a TV than perched on a desk" that is "truly unlike any other PC you could build or buy," although said that its focus on living-room friendliness meant it didn't have the advanced performance to compete with desktop gaming PCs.
Eurogamer's Chris Tapsell concurred, saying that buyers "could probably build a similar or more performant PC for a similar cost, and then be able to upgrade that indefinitely over time" and judging the device to fall short of the PS5 Pro on cost and performance grounds. "The wizards at Sony and Microsoft might have the edge when it comes to conjuring pure power from hardware with extraordinary efficiency - and in designing a UI and ecosystem around it, in that order," he concludes. "But with the Steam Machine we have something different: a new perspective, and a new standard for living room sort-of-console design."
