Steam

its new Project Helix is ​​a direct torpedo to Valve’s Steam Machine

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Microsoft has revealed the code name of its next-generation console, a hybrid system between console and PC that will be able to run games from both ecosystems. Project Helix arrives at a turbulent time for the industry: global RAM memory crisis, Valve fighting to launch its own Steam Machine and PlayStation rethinking its presence on PC. Helix Project. Asha Sharma, new CEO of Xboxhas announced that the next Microsoft console receives the internal name of Project Helix. Sharma assured that the device will be a leader in performance and will allow you to play both Xbox and PC titles, thus confirming the rumors that have been circulating for months about hardware that blurs the line between both platforms. The next Game Developers Conference, between March 9 and 13, will be the scene of the first conversations with partners and developers. What does it have? Beyond Sharma’s statements we can scratch some more information: the heart of the system is a semi-custom SoC from AMD whose internal code name is Magnus. According to AMD CEO Lisa Su, during the presentation of fourth quarter results As of 2025, development of the chip is progressing well to support a 2027 launch. Leaks point to a combination of Zen 6 CPU cores and an RDNA 5-based GPU, with up to 48GB of GDDR7 memory. These are specifications that, if the estimates so far are correct, would exceed those of the future. PlayStation 6. How it works. The device will essentially function as a gaming PC whose main interface will be the Xbox Full Screen Experience, already released on the ASUS Xbox Ally laptop. From this interface, designed to replicate the simplicity of a console, the user can choose to jump to the Windows 11 desktop and install Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Battle.net or any other software from the Microsoft ecosystem. PCs of a lifetime. That Xbox is a PC at its core is not a new idea. The original 2001 console already had an Intel Pentium III and an Nvidia GPU, a configuration much closer to the computer world than to the proprietary chip that defined Sony or Nintendo consoles at that time. All subsequent generations have maintained the x86 architecture, and both Xbox One as Xbox Series X They use AMD SoC with architecture shared with Ryzen and Radeon. What changes with Helix is ​​the software layer: where before the operating system was a closed environment, now there is a complete Windows under the shell. Listen, Valve. The comparison with this console that immediately comes to mind is Valve’s Steam Machine, announced in November as a compact desktop PC powered by SteamOS, the Linux-based operating system that already powers the Steam Deck. Valve works in the opposite direction than Helix: part of the Steam catalog, it works on Linux and offers the possibility of installing Windows as a secondary option. The destiny of both machines is the same: to dynamite the boundaries between console and desktop PC. Valve suffers. The Steam Machine is going through its own ordeals. Valve announced in February a delay in its release schedule (originally, first quarter of the year) and the need to review the price, citing the global shortage of memory and storage as the cause. The analysts They project a price of between $400 and $500 as the optimal range, although the most recent estimates raise the range above $750, a territory that distances it from direct competition with Sony and Microsoft consoles. Valve, which has ruled out selling hardware at a loss, is at the mercy of the components market. The memory crisis Due to the demands of the AIs, it is the great backdrop of this battle. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron have turned their production lines towards high-margin HBM memory consumed by artificial intelligence data centers, leaving DRAM and NAND Flash destined for the consumer market in the background. The consequences are already being felt: manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, HP and ASUS have warned of increases of between 15% and 20% in the price of their equipment for this year. Exclusive worlds. The franchises that for decades defined Xbox’s identity have begun to come to PlayStation, a decision that Sharma herself has acknowledged wanting to review. Meanwhile, Sony abandons publishing games on PCwith the intention of reinforcing the attractiveness of its exclusives. But Xbox is betting on the opposite. It seems clear that Sharma (who has no experience in the video game industry) does not conceive Helix as a traditional console, but as a platform whose success will depend on alliances with digital stores and the integration of services such as Game Pass. In Xataka | There is brutal competition for our attention. And there is someone losing that battle in a bloody way: the consoles

Steam Deck is out of stock, and PS6 and Switch 2 are already shaking

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Considerable tension in the video game industry at a point in which it is perhaps not going through its healthiest moment. The last slap that shakes a sector that already balances in a moment of perfect storm is the shortage of DRAM chips, driven primarily by the demands of the artificial intelligence industry and its demands regarding data centers. Valve has already announced that hard times are coming for its warehouses and stocks, and rumors about changes in stock, prices and launches of Switch 2 and Playstation 6 are constant. The first, the Steam Deck. If you tried to buy a Steam Deck from the United States last week, you would see the ‘Out of stock’ message. Was a disappearance without warning and that affected the 512 GB and 1 TB OLED models (the 256 LCD has not been available for several months). It is something that, at the moment, only affects to Valve’s home country and Canada: In most European countries and some Asian markets it is still available. With a brief note, Valve has confirmed it from the website: The component crisis due to the demands of the AI ​​market has left the console models that were still available out of stock. And remember that when the LCD 256GB stock runs out, that will be all for that model. At the moment there are no clues about when the missing consoles will be back on sale or if prices will increase. Delays at Valve. There is another consequence of this component crisis: the delay of the company’s next releases, the Steam Machine, the Steam Frame and the new Steam Controller. In it steam hardware blog The company acknowledged that it was not able to offer prices or launch dates, despite the initial intention to launch them in the first quarter of the year. The launch window was moved from “beginning of 2026″ to “first half of 2026”. As for the price, which remains unknown, the analysts’ first intuitions set it for the Steam Machine between 700 and 800 dollars. Since then, subsequent calculations have skyrocketed beyond a thousand dollars. Could be, As some analysts commentthat Valve is prioritizing the available memory stock towards the Steam Machine, leaving its laptop on a secondary level, and hence the lack of stock? In any case, the second-hand market rubs his ditto. The devastating DRAM crisis. The problem behind this shortage is the supply crisis of DRAM, a type of memory present in computers, consoles or smartphones. The three manufacturers that control 90% of production (Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron) have been overwhelmed by demand for artificial intelligence data centers. Some reports speak of something that goes beyond a conventional cyclical shortagewhich points to a necessary reformulation of needs and prices. The problem is that manufacturing HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), the high-density and extremely high-performance variant that powers the AI ​​centers, makes Samsung and company have to limit DRAM production, and LPDDR5 production, the standard used by devices like the Steam Deck, plummets. Consequence: DRAM prices increased by around 50% throughout 2025, with another 30% increase in the fourth quarter of the year, followed by a further increase of around 20% so far this year. The situation does not seem to be going well finish in the next few months. Collateral damage 1: PS6. Bloomberg was the one who gave the alarm voice: Citing sources close to Sony, he revealed that the company was thinking of delaying the launch of PS6 until 2028 or 2029. If this last possibility happens, we would be in the longest interval between Playstation generations in history: nine years. Beyond the wait it entails for the players, it also disrupts developers’ plans and projects which, according to most sources, would have planned their launches around 2027. Technically, and although with PS6 we are in rumor territorythe console would arrive equipped with 30 GB of GDDR7 RAM, fourteen gigabytes more than PS5. At a time when Samsung has sold all its production capacity by 2026 and Micron has confirmed which does not have the capacity for new contracts until 2027, mass manufacturing PS6 is unfeasible. At least with PS5 there is no need to worry: Sony has confirmed which has enough memory to cover its needs for 2026 and 2027, which also guarantees that there will be no price increases. Collateral Damage 2: Switch 2. The ballot that Nintendo has in its hands is even more problematic, because Switch 2 It is already on the market, but it may have no choice but to raise the price in 2026. Bloomberg reported it in the same PS6 article, also citing people familiar with the crisis. Significantly, Nintendo was one of those responsible for the memory supply during 2025 being strained: its splendid launch and sales are, in part, responsible for the current situation. According to different sourcesNintendo would currently be paying 41% more for the 12 GB of RAM that is in each Switch 2 unit, compared to the cost anticipated in its original projections. Maintain current price would suppose a loss of $50 per unit sold during 2026: a drain (the console has already sold almost 18 million units) that not even the Japanese giant can afford. At the moment there are no official decisions, but the president of Nintendo recognized that “the current memory market is very volatile”: in the presentation of results admitted that the increase in component prices “exceeds our expectations”, although also that the company has accumulated inventory and closed long-term supply agreements. Nobody escapes. We have before us the three great sectors of the world gaming: PC, home console and hybrid consoles. All three have the same problem, and it cuts across the most powerful companies, which tells us not about a specific crisis, but about one that has structural overtones, and that goes beyond the video game sector. For example, PC users are already facing price increases or manufacturers like Dell and Lenovo considering reducing the RAM of your laptops mid-range. … Read more

Valve has just announced a delay and price increase for the Steam Machine

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Valve’s plans to revolutionize desktop video games face the reality of the component market. The company has confirmed the postponement of Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Steam Controller, initially planned for the first quarter of 2026, due to the global shortage of RAM and storage. The announcement comes accompanied by a warning: the initially announced prices will be revised upwards, which puts at risk the strategy of competing directly with traditional consoles. What we believed. The official presentation of Valve’s hardware took place in November 2025when the company simultaneously unveiled three devices aimed at expanding its ecosystem beyond the traditional PC: the Steam Machine console, the Steam Frame virtual reality headset, and a new iteration of the Steam Controller. At that time, information provided to media It targeted a launch in the first quarter of 2026. Our love broke. However, Valve has had to recalibrate its expectations. According to the statement, the company acknowledges that it hoped to announce definitive prices and specific release dates at this point, but circumstances in the component market have prevented this. “The limited availability and rising prices of these critical components mean we must review our exact shipping schedule and pricing,” they admit. A little later. The new time frame now extends to the first half of 2026, a deliberately vague formulation that contrasts with the initial precision. Valve emphasizes that it maintains its goal of distributing the three products within that period, but warns about the volatility of the scenario: they need to establish prices and dates that they can announce with confidence, aware of how quickly circumstances can change. The RAM crisis. The problem affects the entire technology industry. Memory manufacturers have experienced a unprecedented price increase: according to data from the component market, the cost of RAM modules has multiplied by three or even four from the beginning of 2026. This escalation responds to a strategic reorientation of the major producers such as SamsungSK Hynix and Micron, which prioritize the manufacture of high-performance memory for artificial intelligence servers, a segment that offers higher profit margins. It was seen coming. Already in November, when Valve presented its hardware, the warning signs were evident. By then, the company recognized that setting prices was complex because “the market is a little strange” and “memory prices are going up as we speak.” What seemed like temporary turbulence has been consolidated as a structural trend. It is a crisis that evokes the semiconductor shortage that shook the industry between 2020 and 2022, causing delays in the launch of consoles and widespread price increases in graphics cards. The current phenomenon presents, however, a peculiarity: it is not about interruptions in the supply chain, but rather a deliberate decision by manufacturers to redirect productive capacity towards the lucrative AI market, leaving the gaming industry in the background. What is known about the machine’s hardware. The Steam Machine, the star product of this trilogy, will be powered by an AMD processor, as confirmed by the semiconductor company’s CEO, Lisa Su, during the presentation of quarterly results: “From a product perspective, Valve is on track to begin shipping its AMD-powered Steam Machine early this year.” That statement, which sounded reassuring then, now takes on an ironic tone: the hardware is ready, but the economic context is not. During previous sessions with specialized media, the company indicated that the Steam Machine would be placed “close to the entry level of the PC space”, a formulation that suggested that it would compete directly with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in terms of price, rather than with high-end PC configurations. This approach clashes head-on with the current reality of the components market: competing with consoles means achieving very tight margins in a closed ecosystem where Sony and Microsoft can assume initial losses. Valve lacks that flexibility, and the increase in memory and storage costs threatens to place its products in a price range that would distance them from the average consumer. In Xataka | Panic of a ridiculous death among RAM manufacturers: they fear that technology companies will “monopolize” and they are already putting controls

Valve has been charging a 30% commission on Steam for twenty years. Now it’s your turn to explain why before a judge.

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Valve will have to defend its business model before the British courts after the Competition Appeal Court of London authorized on January 26 a class action lawsuit that could cost £656 million, about $900 million. The accusation: the American company abuses its dominant position in the PC games market with commercial practices that keep prices artificially high and limit competition between digital distributors. The demand. Vicki Shotbolt, activist specializing in digital rights and CEO of Parent Zonefiled the legal action in June 2024. It represents approximately 14 million British users who have purchased video games or additional content through Steam since 2018. The case is based on three arguments: first, it questions the 30% commission that Valve charges on each transaction on Steam. The prosecution considers this fee excessive and maintains that it has a direct impact on the final price. The second argument attacks “price parity obligations”: contractual restrictions that would prevent studios and distributors from offering their titles at more competitive prices on other platforms. Valve would have intervened in specific cases when detecting more aggressive discounts outside of Steam. The third point points out a retention mechanism: whoever purchases a base game on Steam must purchase all subsequent downloadable content exclusively on that platform. Other cases. The British case is not an isolated episode. In the United States, independent studios Wolfire Games and Dark Catt Studios filed antitrust lawsuits against Valve in 2021. They were initially dismissed, but the plaintiffs reformulated their arguments and resubmitted them in 2022. A court ordered the two cases to be merged. Since then, any developer, publisher or individual who has paid commissions to Valve on sales since January 28, 2017 can join. David Rosen, founder of Wolfire Games, explained which took legal action after Valve’s direct intervention when it tried to offer lower prices on other platforms. In August 2024, four players from California, Florida, and Missouri filed a separate lawsuit accusing Steam of “strangling competition with blatantly anti-competitive pricing restrictions.” Antitrust. The lawsuits against Valve are part of a broader pattern of antitrust litigation. The most relevant precedent is the confrontation between Epic Games and Apple: the developer of ‘Fortnite’ implemented an alternative payment system that avoided the 30% commission of the App Store. Apple won most points in the litigation, but had problems in certain states such as California. The case against Google had a more forceful outcome: Epic demonstrated that the company had illegally monopolized the Android ecosystem, which will force Google to allow competing app stores on its devices until November 2027. Antitrust. The lawsuits against Valve fit into a broader pattern of antitrust litigation. The most relevant precedent is the confrontation between Epic Games and Apple: The developer of ‘Fortnite’ implemented an alternative payment system that avoided the 30% commission from the App Store. In May 2025Fortnite returned to the Apple store. The case against Google had a stronger outcome: Epic managed to prove that the company had illegally monopolized the Android ecosystem, which will force Google to allow competing app stores on its devices until November 2027. The magnitude of Valve. Steam hosted more than 19,000 video games during 2025, generating total revenues of $11.7 billion. The income that Valve obtains exclusively from its commissions on sales increased from 1.1 billion dollars in 2015 to an estimated 3.2 billion in 2024, tripling in less than a decade. Additionally, Valve produces approximately $50 million in revenue per employee, an exceptional figure even in the technology sector. The London court has not yet set a date for the trial, which will determine whether these practices constitute abuse of a dominant position. If the lawsuit is successful, the affected British users could receive compensation for the extra costs that, according to the accusation, they have been paying for years. In Xataka | Amazon wanted to surpass Steam and spent 15 years spending 250 times more. It has only served them to enter into crisis

The first video game made entirely with AI comes to Steam. The players’ rejection has been almost unanimous.

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The video game industry receives a controversial experiment that some already describe as dystopian, although in reality it has much of a privileged look at a reality that is, potentially, around the corner. ‘Codex Mortis‘ is a title that is openly presented as the first video game developed entirely using artificial intelligence, which has released its demo version on Steam and has immediately unleashed a divided (but mostly hostile) response among the gamer community. What did you sew? The project, signed by a developer who signs with the pseudonym Grolaf, has generated controversy for its shameless proposal (a clone of the acclaimed indie hit ‘Vampire Survivors’, one of the great surprises of recent years, but replacing the delicious retropixelated aesthetic with the blurry and rough aesthetic typical of generative systems). But also, as it could not be otherwise, it has reopened the debate about the ethical and creative limits of AI in video game development. It comes at a time when major studios are facing similar accusations and sectors such as voice actors are organizing strikes against these technologies. I don’t like it. In the Steam community reviewsthe demo registers only 60% positive ratings among around thirty reviews, with comments that range between technical curiosity and, above all, outright rejection. The press has not been much more generous, and some means gives it the dubious honor of being “a foundational milestone of poorer AI.” Various websites They have collected opinions from players as strong as “games are ART. They need soul, life, virtue. Something that AI will never be able to capture”, which define the game as “machine-generated garbage.” How it was born. ‘Codex Mortis’ was developed over three months in which Grolaf exclusively used artificial intelligence tools to build all elements of the game. The developer used ChatGPT to generate the images and Claude Code to write the code. As a programming language it used TypeScript, instead of traditional engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine. The technical architecture is supported by libraries such as PIXI.js for graphics and Electron for desktop execution, a decision that apparently makes it difficult to correct errors, since the developer does not fully understand, by his own admission, how the systems generated by the AI ​​interact. The lightning that does not stop. The negative reaction to ‘Codex Mortis’ is not isolated, but the latest episode in a battle that has been shaking the industry for months. In November, for example, ‘Arc Raiders‘, Embark Studios’ extraction shooter, received a score of 2 out of 5 from Eurogamer exclusively due to its use of AI-generated voices. This rating sank the title’s Metacritic from an impressive 94 to 86, sparking a debate on whether the use of AI should be considered in critical assessments. Controversy escalated when the game received a single nomination at the Game Awards, leading many gamers to accuse the awards of deliberately punishing the title for its technology. Another case: ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’ included clearly AI-generated assets (with characters with the typical six fingers, among other visual irregularities characteristic of AI). The scandal forced Activision to issue supporting statements given the disclosure policy on the use of artificial intelligence that Valve requires to include in games sold on Steam. Rejection among professionals. The State of the Game Industry 2025 survey from the Game Developers Conference reveals a drastic change in the perception of AI by professionals: just 13% of developers consider that generative AI will have a positive impact on the industry, falling from 21% the previous year. The percentage of those who see it negatively shot up from 18% to 30%. The most revealing part of the study is who adopts these tools: 50% of the professionals are from Business and Finance, followed by 40% in Production and Marketing. However, among programmers and artists, the true creators, adoption is significantly lower. 87% of developers surveyed expressed concern on the impact of AI on the industry. In Xataka | Someone put ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other AIs to play a kind of Risk. The results could not be more different.

BYD CEO is clear about why the company is losing steam in China

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Wang Chuanfu, president and CEO of BYD, has publicly acknowledged for the first time the reason behind the company’s sales decline in the Chinese market. During an extraordinary shareholders meeting held on December 5 in Shenzhen, the CEO bluntly admitted that the manufacturer has lost the technological advantage that differentiated it from the competition. According to local media, Wang said that they had lost that ‘wow factor’ in the domestic market, in reference to the impact that their innovations previously generated. The underlying problem. The local media China Securities Journal collected the statements of the head of BYD, who stated that the drop responds to two main factors. On the one hand, he admits that BYD’s technological advantage is no longer as pronounced as in previous years, which has reduced the surprise effect of its products in the market. On the other hand, the CEO acknowledged that unresolved practical problems persist, such as the slow charging speed of its vehicles in low temperature environments, a critical aspect for users in certain regions of China. The numbers confirm the trend. In November 2025, BYD sold 480,186 new energy vehiclesthe highest monthly figure of the year, but which represented a decrease of 5.25% compared to the same month in 2024. It is the third consecutive month of year-on-year decline. Domestic sales were particularly weak, at 348,300 units, a drop of 26.81% year-on-year. In contrast, exports exceeded 100,000 units per month for the first time, reaching 131,700an increase of 297% that has become the company’s main growth engine. We have already seen how they have broken into Europe. For BYD and the rest of the Chinese manufacturers, it is important to continue consolidating their foreign business for two main reasons: to continue feeding their factories and to increase their profit margins in the face of a China that seems to live in a constant price war. The competition tightens. Chinese manufacturers such as Geely, Changan and Chery They have intensified their offensive with efficient hybrid and more affordable electric models, eroding their market share. Furthermore, the homogenization of products in the industry has made it difficult for BYD to stand out like before. In September 2025, SAIC Motor even temporarily surpassed BYD in monthly sales, according to they counted from CarNewsChina. BYD’s response. Wang Chuanfu hinted that the company is preparing “heavy technologies” that will be announced soon, although it did not offer details. The CEO stressed that BYD’s strength lies in its team of approximately 120,000 engineers, who will be key to regaining technological leadership. The company plans to intensify its investment in electrification and smart technologies over the next two to three years. Self-criticism included. Wang also made an exercise in self-criticism by admitting that favorable market conditions in previous years generated a certain complacency in the areas of marketing and merchandising, as they point out from CnEVPost. And now what. BYD revised its global sales target for 2025 downward, from 5.5 million vehicles to approximately 4.6 million. Between January and November, the company accumulated 4,182 million units soldwhich represents 90.9% of the adjusted objective and a growth of 11.3% year-on-year. Figures that contrast with the spectacular expansion rates of previous years: 218% in 2021, 209% in 2022, 62% in 2023 and 41% in 2024. Stella Li, its vice president, already warned us during the Xataka Awards gala We will soon have very interesting news from the manufacturer. So we can only wait to see what the firm’s strategy will be to alleviate the effect of competition. In Xataka | The world’s rare earth reserves, laid out in this graph showing the brutal dominance of a single country

a years-long plan to bring Steam to all devices

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Valve is executing one of the most ambitious strategies in recent software history. While Microsoft tries to convince the world that Windows on ARM is ready and Qualcomm promises raw powerGabe Newell’s company has taken a shortcut: Instead of waiting for developers to port its games, it’s funding the technology that makes that unnecessary. You want your Steam library to work on any device without anyone having to lift a finger. The precedent: Proton. To understand the magnitude of the movement, we must look back. A decade ago, playing on Linux was almost utopian. Few developers ported their titles to the Penguin OS, Microsoft has been cornering the PC gaming market for a long time. However, Valve changed this forever from the software side. It was thanks to Proton, a compatibility layer derived from the old Wine that translates Windows instructions so that Linux understands them. This was the cornerstone of the success of the Steam Deck– Proved that you don’t need Windows to run titles of all types, including many AAA. Now, Valve wants to repeat the move, but changing the objective: from desktop PCs to mobile chips. The architect in the shadows. It was Pierre-Loup Griffais, leader of SteamOS, who confirmed to The Verge in an interview that Valve has been “secretly” financing several projects since 2016. The most important currently is «FEX-Emu». What is it? FEX is an emulator which translates the instructions of the x86 processor (the language of traditional Intel and AMD chips for PCs) to ARM64 (that of current mobile phones). The combination: Valve is integrating it into a specific version of Proton for ARM. The goal, according to Steam’s Linux OS boss, is to “remove barriers so users don’t have to worry about which games work.” Obsession with efficiency. Obviously, these investments are not philanthropy, but pure industrial necessity. The company prepares hardware that needs this technology to exist, such as the future Steam Frame viewer. But there’s more: Griffais explains that ARM chips are superior in efficiency for low-power devices, something that has opened the door to speculations of all kinds. An ultraportable with Steam smaller than the Deck? Who knows. Without the compatibility layer of FEX and Proton, these devices would be born without a catalog. With it, they could run thousands of PC games from day one, also adding Android games through another protagonist of recent days: “Lepton”. Yes, multiplayer titles with anti-cheats deep, like ‘Fortnite’. The democratization of gaming. The revolutionary thing about these emulators is that, as they are open source tools, the benefit is universal. It already allows run recent games like ‘Hollow Knight: Silksong’ on an Android mobile without an official version existing. Even manufacturers like Xiaomi have gone ahead with initiatives like “WinPlay” that allows Play Steam titles on your HyperOS devices. Valve is paving the way so that any powerful device, whether tablet, mobile phone or ARM laptop, can be a potential Steam Machine. This contrasts with the efforts of companies like Microsoft, whose emulation layer, Prism on Windowscontinues fighting with the game compatibility. The master plan. It is none other than running SteamOS everywhere. Valve wants SteamOS to be the default operating system for gaming, regardless of the silicon underneath. We have already seen the first steps with the arrival of SteamOS to third-party consoles and the announcement of the Steam Machine desktop By eliminating the barrier of chip architecture (x86 vs ARM) and operating system (Windows vs Linux/Android), the firm ensures that its store is the only constant in a fragmented hardware future. And that only implies one thing: that users spend money on it. A win-win in every rule. Cover image | Valve In Xataka | The video game industry seems to be clear about where its next boom is: in games “for couples”

Breaking the console market seemed impossible. The Steam Machine has the potential to do it: Crossover 1×31

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The arrival of the Steam Machine It took us all by surprise a few days ago. The console and PC hybrid developed by Valve may become a real meteorite for traditional consolesbut be careful because not everything has been said. Valve, which became famous after the development of the mythical ‘Half-Life’ended up becoming the great PC video game distributor of our time thanks to Steam. Although they already tried to attack the gaming PC market with their Steam Machines a decade ago, now the approach is very different. That first attempt came too soon, but things have changed a lot since then. Valve has made its Steam OS operating system (based on Linux) an excellent alternative to the one offered by Windows on PCs. Above all thanks to Proton, the layer that allows you to play Windows games on Steam OS as well as on Windows… or even better. We have seen the first clear example of the experience that Valve could offer in this sense in the Steam Deckwhich have been a modest success (about 6 million consoles sold), but which have sparked interest in portable consoles that even Microsoft has decided to manufacture with partners like ASUS. Now the Steam Machine proposes to be a promising alternative to the Xbox Series S/X and the PlayStation 5 and combine the best of both worlds: a console-type experience and almost the entire catalog of video games available in the world of Windows PCs. The only question is whether he will make it, and that’s where enters the price factor. It is a fact that we will know at the beginning of 2026, and it will be from then on that we will know if this machine works or not. We are talking about all of this precisely in this Crossover 1×31we hope you enjoy it! On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | The question is not whether Tim Cook will soon stop being CEO of Apple, but who will succeed him: Crossover 1×30

There are people making all kinds of theories to know the price of the Steam Machine. And no one is very optimistic

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The Valve’s Steam Machine has been received as a manna for the somewhat disastrous hardware landscape of the industry, with Switch 2 turned into a completely isolated system and aimed at its circle of consumers and Sony and Microsoft giving the impression of being somewhat lost in a scenario that is little or nothing exciting. In these comes Valve, which has already turned the concept of the portable PC upside down with its Steam Deckand now proposes a consolidated PC, completely oriented to work with Steam and ready to steal space from traditional consoles. Of course, there is a question that no one dares to answer completely: and the price? There are more and more theories. Not at losses. Valve has discarded compete in price with traditional consoles. The company confirmed that its new Steam Machine, scheduled for early 2026, will not follow the subsidized pricing model that characterizes PlayStation and Xbox. This means, as explained by one of the engineers responsible for the design of the machine, Pierre-Loup Griffais, that the device will align with “what would be expected from the current PC market”, explicitly rejecting the idea of ​​selling at a loss to expand market share and be more attractive to the general public. Frustrated expectations. The gaming community did its calculations: one of the most widespread bets said that Valve would take advantage of its 30% commission for each game sold on Steam to offer affordable hardware. These illusions have had to be qualified: youtuber Linus Sebastian revealed on his WAN Show that when he was in a meeting with Valve itself and suggested a price of $500, “no one confirmed anything, but the energy in the room completely changed.” That is, the youtuber thinks that Valve’s intentions point to a higher price. The current projections They place the Steam Machine between $750 and $900, very far from the $549 for the standard PlayStation 5 or the $599 for the Xbox Series X. Even the base model, cheaper and with 512GB, could exceed $600. Disappointing precedents. The original Steam Machines, launched in November 2015 after two years of delay, They barely reached 400,000 units sold throughout its commercial existence. The concept shipwrecked for multiple reasons: SteamOS ran on Linux, drastically limiting the catalog of compatible games; the product lacked a defined identity (it was, at the same time, too rigid for PC users and excessively complex for console consumers); and the proliferation of manufacturers led to a chaotic range of prices, from $499 to $1,500. In 2018, Valve quietly deleted any mention of the product from its store. How the subsidized price works… Yes, Valve has already said that it will not apply. But an approach is useful to understand what options Valve has on the table. The console industry traditionally operates through a model of hardware sold at a loss, which is recovered through the console business ecosystem. For exampleMicrosoft sold the Xbox 360 with a deficit of $125 per unit, while Sony absorbed losses of $240 to $300 with each PlayStation 3. The economic recovery It is obtained later, from commissions usually of 30% on each game sold, from subscription services and from official accessories. Microsoft publicly acknowledged in 2021 that each Xbox was still trading at a loss. The component crisis. But there is another reason to expect a high price for the Steam Machine, and that is that the rise of artificial intelligence has unleashed an unprecedented crisis in the memory market. There is data which speak of year-on-year increases of 171.8% in DRAM prices. Samsung and SK Hynix satisfy only 70% of orders, prioritizing HBM memories for AI data centers. AND are predicted serious shortfalls in DRAM, NAND Flash and hard drives during 2026, in a crisis which can last until 2029. The conspiracy of prices. The combination of unsubsidized hardware and expensive components puts the Steam Machine in an ambiguous position. Valve now has unthinkable advantages in 2015yes: in-house manufacturing, SteamOS refined thanks to the commercial success of Steam Deck, and a much broader compatible library. However, some analysts They warn that success will depend largely on the final price. Without the possibility of competing economically with traditional consoles, the device could remain half-hearted in commercial terms.

The Steam Machine’s key to eating the market will be the price. And there Valve has an ace up its sleeve

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The video game world is revolutionized. It’s not every day that a new “PC-console” is announced, but even rarer is that the device comes from Valve. They have just presented the Steam Machinea console-shaped PC that has been posed as a direct threat to Xbox and PS5but also for the Windows PC itself. Much has changed since Steam Machines from a decade ago and, with the new model, Valve will not take timid steps. Steam Deck has shown them that they have a lot to say in the field of hardware, but as always, success will depend on the price of the Steam Machine. It has to be attractive to gain a foothold. And Valve has a wild card called 30%. The price of the Steam Machine and the 30% wildcard A decade ago, Valve already took a hit with the first Steam Machines. He said that they were a timid bet because Valve developed the system, but between the fact that there were not so many games available for it (based on Linux) and that the machines were not designed by Valve, but rather delegated to companies like Asus and AlienWare (which set prices that were not competitive), well the thing ended… badly. The situation has changed a lot by three factors: In the shadows they continued to develop the Steam OS systemmaking it compatible with both Linux and Windows games. They launched a Steam Deck with which they have shown that they know how to make competitive hardware. Although threats such as Amazon and Epic Games have appeared, their platform remains the undisputed queen when we talk about PC gaming. The Steam Machine will arrive (accompanied by a new controller and a virtual reality viewer named Steam Frame) at the beginning of 2026. We do not know the specific date, nor the price. And, of course, once the initial excitement of the announcement had passed, the conversation turned to theorizing about the price of the Steam Machine. Here I want to be cautious because whenever hypotheses are launched about the price of hardware there are a lot of factors that come into play. We can take the components as a reference and say “To build a PC like this is about 700 euros”but then there are the design costs (it is very small and that increases the price), development, logistics… The last time the price of a console was theorized was with nintendo switch 2and their 470 euros They ended up surprising (although the 90 of some of their games were more surprising). Therefore, I don’t want to venture to say whether the Steam Machine will cost more or less. There are some clues. The Verge is one of the media outlets that has had the machine nearby and claims that Valve plans a price “similar to a PC with similar features.” From the middle they point about $800, but that’s only in components (without the system and other costs, for example), but the components are customized and look like versions of laptop CPUs and GPUs, not the ones we can buy for a desktop. From the technical media Digital Foundry take for granted that the range will be between 500 and 600 euros, but again: it is difficult to estimate because there is not much to scratch. Now, my reflection is that, if the objective of Steam is to punch the table and wants to take part of the pie from both the consoles Like the PC itself, the Steam Machine will be sold at a loss. Because? Because if there is a company that can afford it, it is Valve. For starters, it’s a private company. Gabe Newel, Valve’s boss, owns 51% of the shares. This implies that they do not have to give explanations to shareholders. This is why we do not have public figures for Steam profits or Steam Deck sales (although it is esteem which dominates the -small- consolidated PC market). But the reason why Valve can sell a console at a loss, or not care so much about not making money per machine sold, is because all the ones they sell have Steam as launcher and store, and the company keeps a significant percentage per game sold on the platform. That percentage is around 30%which implies that if a million copies of a game are sold, Valve’s share of the pie is considerable. And, although not all games sell millions, thousands of video games are released every month. that “solely” for setting up the servers and hosting the games developed by other companies. Besides, there is the matter of the stickersa market in which Steam also keeps a good percentage of each transaction. AND It is something that moves dizzying figures. On the Steam Machine, as on the Steam Deck, you can run games from platforms such as GOG, Epic or Rockstar, but in the end The PC marketplace par excellence is Steam. It is the mainstream platform and each of those Steam Machines will be a window to a store that has offers every now and then and that is very well positioned at a time when console games are more and more expensive. The consoles themselves are much more expensive than when they were launched five years ago. Therefore, although it is impossible to guess a price for the Steam Machine, as I said, If there is someone who can sell their machine at a loss because it will recover the difference with the software, that is Valve. And if they launch an affordable machine, with the market as it is, they can deal a tremendous blow to their direct competitors: consoles. But also to the PC itself. In Xataka | There are more and more physical video games that are paperweights. It is a tremendous problem for video games as art.

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