Steam Machine Value Already Called Into Question After First Look At How It Handles Demanding Games

The Steam Machine's price has been revealed, and it is somehow even worse than we all feared. $1,049 for the cheapest option. That's more than every other home console on the market, something that's really rubbing people the wrong way after being shown the Steam Machine's specs and how it runs certain games.

One of the big questions people are asking following the Steam Machine's price reveal is, since it costs more than a PS5 Pro, how much more powerful than the latest PS5 is Valve's new hybrid console? Well, that's where things start to get confusing and controversial. Simply put, the Steam Machine isn't more powerful than a PS5 Pro.

How The Steam Machine's Specs Compare To The PS5 Pro

In fact, it's not even close. The Steam Machine's specs are comparable to a base PS5, which, even after PlayStation's price hike, is still significantly cheaper than the cheapest Steam Machine. The PS5 Pro, which, again, is a lot more powerful than the Steam Machine, is $150 cheaper.

Steam Machine Originally Believed To Have Cost $750

Would you have bought one if the price had stayed this low?

You're also going to get a lot more storage with a PS5 or PS5 Pro. The former comes equipped with 1TB, while the Pro has 2TB. The $1,049 Steam Machine has just 512GB. If you want more storage, you're going to have to pay $1,428 for the 2TB model.

How Do Demanding Games Run On The Steam Machine?

Power and storage aren't everything. It's how you use it, particularly the power, and maybe the minds over at Valve have figured out a way to harness that power better than it's harnessed on the PS5 Pro. Well, no, seemingly that's not the case either if early tests showcasing how demanding games run on the Steam Machine are anything to go by.

Cyberpunk 2077 continues to be the go-to for testing just how well a game looks and runs on new hardware, and based on test results shared by Play4Index, it doesn't look good for the Steam Machine. The demanding CDPR title ran at just 28 FPS. Black Myth Wukong, a game that's largely played on PC, was even worse, averaging just 20 fps.

Cyberpunk can run at up to 40 fps on Switch 2. You can currently buy two Switch 2 consoles for the price of one Steam Machine and have a lot of money leftover.

Steam defenders are coming to fight the Machine's corner, but their defense doesn't really hold up. The argument is that the Steam Machine is a PC, and that's why it costs so much more. The thing is, it's not. You can't use your Steam Machine like you would a PC. It's a console running on the SteamOS. If it's less powerful than the latest consoles and has less storage, then the only advantage it has over its console competitors is a wider library. I'd say that's not enough, but despite all of the above, the Steam Machine will almost certainly sell out within minutes of its pre-order window opening.

Steam Machine