Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week(boilingsteam.com) |
Steam Machine: Between 12k and 15k Units Sold per week(boilingsteam.com) |
[1] The unit mix would be what valve picked as the initial mix and not necessarily the market average. Also, the sales numbers would include the steam controller if you selected that option but I don't know if there is good data on whether any of the initial reservations had the steam controller.
It seems pretty clear it’s about how many units Valve is selling (charging for, shipping) and explicitly not about reservations or demand.
Valve is being smart here. It is far better to be supply constrained at launch than to have enough capacity to meet initial demand (and then far too much capacity when demand slows over time).
Maybe its what will make Linux more mainstream!
I've been of the belief that 2026 has been year of the Linux desktop. As a user of MacOS for work and Linux at home, and being a former user of Windows for decades for video games, Linux has come so far that I think it has surpassed the mainstream OSes in terms of experience. The barrier to entry isn't really troubleshooting anymore, it is that we don't have any dominant desktop environment. Which is "bad" for adoption, but has been great for iteration by teams who are not bogged down by the need to support legacy users who don't want things to change.
When I heard the news for playstation my mind instantly jumped to silly digital prices for games forever. I look at the nintendo switch store and they will sell a digital copy for new retail price for years after even if you can pickup a used copy on ebay for half the price or less.
As for the desktop experience, having access to linux is way better than windows.
They looked at the global chart, but did they take into account that the Steam Machine isn't available everywhere?
It's also a single point in time while the chart is constantly changing. Right now for example the Steam Machine is in 3rd place behind Palworld, while in their calculation it was above it.
We can debate if it’s the most efficient use of money for a technical person, but it’s indisputable that many people get enough value to pay for the prebuilt.
You can get a better deal on some consoles at the moment, but I wouldn't count on that to last. The Switch 2 has a price increase scheduled. The Xbox line has a price increase scheduled. PlayStation did one earlier this year. Rather than being a permanent situation this feels like everything going up, just irregularly rather than smoothly, so sometimes one thing feels like a better deal, sometimes another, but it's not obvious that any of them are much better on a longer time frame.
The Steam Machine is what got noticed, and earthed a lot of anger about prices, but it's not particularly out of line or especially expensive. The whole market is screwed up.
At this rate, the Steam Machine will probably turn out to be a modest success. Remember, it's a PC, not a console. Unlike a console, it doesn't need to use hardware sales to convince game developers to ship games for the platform; the PC platform does not depend on the Steam Machine selling like hotcakes. Also unlike a console, Valve isn't selling these at a loss; Sony can sell you hardware at a loss because they claw that money back via online subscriptions and platform licensing fees. Valve will likely be happy enough if they can sell 100,000 by the end of the year, and based on these estimates they may already be about halfway there.
https://80.lv/articles/former-valve-developer-claims-steam-l...
owning 'the list' for a thing makes a company, it's why billboard still has any relevance.
I was never able to afford mac products as a young person, and now that I can, I wouldn't part with linux.