The price of Steam Machine was predictable. The worrying thing is what it tells us about PS6 and Xbox Helix

After announcing it in November of last year and keeping it in a dangerous limbo due to component crisisValve has confirmed the Steam Machine priceending weeks of rumors with a result that surprises few. that the Steam Machine had ballots to cost 1,000 euros, it was not a surprise (and even more so after the stratospheric Steam Deck price increase), but the worst is what is advancing for the next generation of consoles.

Nails PS6 and Xbox Helix that they should be a generational leap and that are being given the price of the most expensive consoles in history.

The 1,000 euros. When Valve announced the PC, it did so without a price. He invited experts to his offices so they could try out some games, see the machine both inside and out, and experience what the new Steam Machine could do (because there were already some that They failed more than a decade ago) could offer. The price debate immediately arose and, when doing the math, it was estimated among the 600 and 800 euros in the most pessimistic estimate.

Reality has ended up far exceeding that forecast because the 1,039 euros are for the version with 512 GB of storage, the 2 TB version goes to 1,359 euros and then you have a pack with the controller for both configurations. Clearly, it is a very high price and, although it has the advantage of the form factor and a dissipation that seems very efficient, there are no performance advantages over a piece-based PC.

It’s not ‘next gen’. Because, beyond the price, something that is being discussed is that the performance is nothing like the other Thursday either. Gamer Nexus either Digital Foundry They have already been able to get their hands on the system and the conclusion is that the performance (roughly) is similar to a 12 GB RTX 3060, an RTX 3050, an Arc A770 or an RX 6600. We are not talking about cutting-edge hardware at all. Not at all.

It’s something that depends on the game and its optimization, but that’s where the shots go. And, if we want a simpler comparison, putting it next to a PS5 In performance mode (prioritizes FPS rate), making the game’s visual specs on Steam Machine match those of PS5, performance is very, very similar.

Sometimes above PS5, sometimes below. We are talking about the base PS5, the one from 2020, not the PS5 Pro. More than 1,000 euros to move around the performance of a six-year-old machine is not good news.

PS6 and Xbox Helix, when. The more than 1,000 euros with the component crisis (which will last a few more years) no one will lower it to us anymore, but… what about the new generation consoles? We have been in the current generation for six years and it is an open secret (in the case of Xbox it is not even a secret) that both Microsoft and Sony are working on their new machines.

If everything had continued as it seemed, PS6 and Helix should have seen the light between 2027 and 2028. PS5 has a good sales pace with 90 million units sold and ‘GTA VI‘ is postulated as that title that will allow the Sony machine to have a final run before the next generation. The problem is the same one that Valve has faced: the component crisis.

A few weeks ago, Asha Sharma, CEO of Xbox, pointed out that at the beginning of 2027 they would send the Helix development kits to companies, which indicates that we would see the machine at the end of the year or the beginning of 2028 and something more important: the console was going to be expensive.

Rposing things. Since then, the wheel has continued to turn and Microsoft itself has spoken again about Helix, pointing out that what they wanted to achieve at the hardware level was getting out of hand because it is more expensive every day to set up a platform. Sharma commented that mass audiences “won’t spend thousands of dollars on a new generation of consoles,” so they were rethinking things with “radically different business models,” whatever that means.

What is clear is that assembling a console that represents a generational leap compared to what we have had since 2020 is not cheap for companies that have to calculate the price/performance ratio very well and, although consoles are not the main source of income for the video game divisions of Sony and Microsoft, they cannot go to wild losses either.

Hold on a little longer. The bad thing is that hope is not something that is in the equation at a time when we see that a machine like the Steam Machine, with its more than 1,000 euros, hopefully equals the performance of a base PS5. And that anticipates two futures: new consoles that are more powerful and much more expensive than current ones or hybrid consoles that rely on streaming gaming, which would further complicate the already damaged preservation scene.

A third option? May both Microsoft and Sony hold on to their current generation a little longer. It is something that would be easier for Sony, which has the PS5 Pro on the market and much more stock than Microsoft, but by holding PS5 longer and delaying PS6 it would be able to take advantage a little more of a current generation that feels wasted in some aspects and, above all, it would be giving the component market time to recover.

If not, consoles costing more than 1,000 euros at launch will be the new normal.

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