Mastodawn

i got a hot take for you.
home game consoles shouldn't exist.

the steam machine (are we calling it the #gabencube?) is long overdue. we should have had that instead of consoles, starting in like... 1999.
the only reason a console exists is because a too-big corporation can artificially deflate the price of a gaming system by locking people in to an unfair ecosystem.
back when having a home computer was unheard of, so you *had* to go to an arcade for that level of computational power, it was good. but it wasn't long before a "home video game console" became just a gimped computer.

moot point now that us peasants aren't allowed to buy computers anymore, i guess.

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Kevin Karhan

Nov 17

@Sh4d0w_H34rt yeah, obviously #Valve will have everything up and running pre-announcement just because that's the norm.

Sadly I don't have contacts at #Celestca, #Winstron or #Foxconn to check back.

But even if we assume #AMD gave them a good deal with some #binned-down chips (cuz the specs hint at that being the case!) I'm convinced they'll easily need more like $500 for mainboard, CPU, GPU, VRAM, case & PSU (#California made #80Plus Gold mandatory!) on top of RAM & SSD.

So I do expect the #GabeCube / #GabenCube / #SteamMachine (2nd Gen.) to cost at least $999,-- and a full bundle with the #SteamFrame or a 4-Pack of Steam Controllers to be close to $1.499,-- which depending on how you look at #GamingConsoles and #PC hardware pricing, would still be in what they claim to be "Not a Console, Entry Level PC pricing"…

Granted I do expect production to be just ramping up cuz otherwise schematics would've potentially leaked beforehand to "certain websites" known to fill in the blanks that #Apple and others leave fir repair technicians.

I mean, I do wish for the Steam Machine to be successful and #SteamOS too.

If Valve were to launch it with #HalfLife3 included they'd certainly steal the crowd from #GTA6...

Either way I hope for the success of it simply because #LinuxGaming really improved and the Steam Frame may just be the better #OculusQuest!

Kevin Karhan

Nov 17

Anyone who thinks the #SteamMachine aka. #GabeCube / #GabenCube will be a $499 thing or even a $749 thing needs to get updated on #pricing for #hardware.

Thanks to the "#AI" #Scamconomy, #PriceFixing and #OpenAI buying 40% of global #DRAM production output due to #Trump's "#Stargate" shitshow and the circular #Scam #economy associated, the 2x16GB #DDR5-SODIMMs (even if those were slow -4800 and not the recommended #Zen4 -6000 speeds) will cost about $250+ as of today.
#SSD|s too - which use the same chip dabs - also climb beyond $100 per TB or > $50 for a 512 GB #NVMe.

So already these components are $300+ as of today, and industry insiders claim this will get much worse so I'm not even shure a $999 pricetag will be possible by Q1/2026. Not to mention the 8GB VRAM of the built-on, dedicaded #GPU!

Espechally since #Valve, unlike #Sony, #Microsoft, #Apple and #Nintendo will not have the capital to order like #RAM Chips or even sticks in decent qualtities right now.

The only reason why noone expects Apple to raise prices is because they already shaft their buyers by overcharging them for their #SolderedDownRAM & #SolderedDownSSDs and they tend to buy not just huge quantites, paying abovemarket, but also fewer, higher capacity chips.

(Video via #GamersNexus)

#Enshittification #AIslop #Scams #Scalping #PriceHike #PriceHikes #SKhynix #Micron #Samsung #AMD #SODIMM #DIMM #RAMpricing #Prices #ConsumerElectronics #Greedflation #USpol