If I were to hazard a guess, Valve was apprehensive about releasing the steam machine/frame this year because the high memory prices would mean that they'd have to price the steam machine/frame pretty high as well. However, once they saw how the steam deck was selling like hot cakes even after a $300 bump, they're deciding to go for it anyway.
I wonder what price they'll target. For the specs I think its worth around the same as a PS5 so maybe around 600-650 but everything points out at this not happening.
I think in the end this will sadly be bought by scalpers, rich people and YouTubers. Sucks, I was really excited for it.
I don't think $600 - $650 is very likely considering you can't even get a Steam Deck for that price anymore, and that's surely a much cheaper device. Personally I think with the Steam Deck at $800 - $950 this more powerful machine must be around $1500.
I don't think its success is a given anymore because it's clearly not going to be a "bargain" which is what many people expected, and the people who can casually overspend on this probably already have a much better computer.
Yeah there's, unfortunately, no way this lands under $1,000. I'd expect to see it land at pre-built gaming PC prices. Like you said, between $1500 (generous) and $2,000 is what I'd expect. 16GB DDR5, 8GB VRAM, and 2TB SSD today is nearly a 2,000 dollar machine from regular OEMs.
I really just want the Frame, I'm already convinced (before the price hikes) that the Steam Machine was going to be way too high based on their comments to press.