As Valve confirms Steam Machine will be priced more like a PC than a console, Baldur’s Gate 3 publishing lead says its decision not to sell at a loss “isn’t stupid,” but it is “peculiar”

Baldur’s Gate 3 publishing lead Michael Douse has commented on the supposed price of the Steam Machine.

After a 10-year absence, the Steam Machine is officially back, with Valve’s console-like PC experience set to launch next year. However, since its announcement, speculation over its price has been rampant. While some expected it to be priced more in line with a traditional console, YouTuber Linus Sebastian, AKA Linus Tech Tips, recalled mentioning a $500 price point to Valve, which allegedly didn’t go down too well.

This led Valve to confirm that the Steam Machine price will be “more in line with what you might expect from the current PC market.” This, given how RAM prices are going at the moment, could be significantly more expensive than some are hoping for the console experience with access to Steam.

Reacting to Valve’s statement, Douse took to Twitter to question it somewhat, saying, “I know subsidising hardware is unfashionable now, but surely they’re losing far more than a ~200$ difference by not having people on the storefront, which is essentially a money printing machine.” That does make sense, given Valve likely makes the majority of its money from people buying games through Steam.

Following on, Douse says, “It isn’t stupid to not sell things at a loss, just peculiar in this case.” In response, some users point out that if sold at a loss, it could result in several Steam Machines being bought to be repurposed into a general-purpose computer with far better specs than anything else at the price point, which, unless Valve somehow manages to limit people from purchasing multiple machines, would be an issue. As ever, we need only wait and see what happens.

Baldur’s Gate 3 publishing lead says there’s a reason Steam is so popular: “It’s almost as if it isn’t providing a s**t service.”