Don't you just love the price of everything skyrocketing because of AI?
The starting price of the Steam Machine is $1,609 AUD here in Australia, with Valve saying the pricing is “significantly more” than it originally planned for.
The whopping $1,609 AUD price tag — or $1,049 USD in the USA — comes without a controller and offers up 16GB DDR5 RAM, 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, and a 512GB SSD. That same machine with a Steam Controller is $1,728 AUD.
Valve will also offer up a Steam Machine with 2TB of SSD storage for $2,109 AUD without a controller, and $2,228 AUD with one.
Wishlisting of all the Steam Machines can be made here.
Valve was upfront about the new hardware costing consumers more than it had originally planned.
“Our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable,” it said in a statement.
Speaking with Eurogamer, Valve engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said the pricing was “significantly more” than Valve intended, adding, “it’s hard because I don’t think we ever really had an official price or anything like that – I think we had some ideas – but it’s really difficult to quantify it.”
Skyrocketing costs of both RAM and SSD storage are a result of an ever-increasing demand for the items in AI data centres, which also require a ton of water and energy to function properly.
Are you looking to buy a Steam Machine given its pricing? Why or why not? Sound off in the comments section, below.
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