I really don't get the target audience for this product. Judging by these prices, I really don't think they're going to appeal to console gamers who can get a system for $300-500. PC gamers can just build their own rigs so the Steam Machines are pointless for them too. I think the only reason people aren't labeling this as the Ouya 2.0 is because of the massive goodwill Valve has accumulated over the years. They'll get a few sales from the Valve faithfuls and tech geeks but I don't see it doing well beyond that. 

Thoughts?

I honestly thought that Steam machines were gonna be these $500 pcs made by valve's specifications that were more powerful than regular $500 PCs... Instead what we got are just normal gaming PCs (most are over-priced) with the "steam box" label on them and the FREE steam OS... Yea, its gonna flop considering PC gamers are not idiots that don't know how to build their own PCs

I hoped that there would be set, perhaps tiered, specifications, and that games would be optimized for that like on consoles. But if it's just going to be anything that runs Steam OS...

I honestly don't know who their demographic is, the people who love consoles already have the consoles, and the people who love PCs have PCs.
Also their business model is just bad, and wouldn't make sense to people that aren't informed.

I wish SteamOS the best, but I won't buy a SteamBox, I'll rather build my own following Valve's guidelines.

Steambox will out sell PS4 and WiiU. What are you talking about?
Has a lot of first party titles and 3rd party support.

I'll probably get one eventually. It makes sense if you want PC performance on your living room widescreen TV. Most people don't have their PC hooked up to their main TV.

Just you wait ... It'll be the biggest pile of crap that you've seen so far in your life as well as mine as far as electronics come. This is coming from one of the more dedicated PC gamers as well as steam customer. Valve fucked up so bad with the platform before it even released. This move is practically worse than all of the EA's COMBINED! Who the hell wants an inferior PC that plays less games while getting bad reputation in the process just because some dickish OEM's decided to jack up the price of their steam machines ?

I see no future in the platform cause most devs will just ignore it like any other linux distro. SteamOS is irrelevant right now in gaming and will still suck in the future. Hell there's probably more reason for me to buy a WII U than getting a steam machine. This thing will literally fail so hard like no other platform I've seen so far.

I want to believe in Valve but pulling stupid shit like that just makes me lose faith in them. If Valve wants my respect again I implore them to stop development of steamOS and call off the OEM's to cancel the god damned platform for GOOD.

Edit: They won't be seen as a part of the master race to me but I would put them lower than console peasants. They'd be serfs in my opinion. Having low quality games does not equate to being better than a console peasant. 

No thats the beauty of it. It costs Valve next to nothing and they lose little when it flops but gain a lot if it succeeds. Plus I doubt Valve will be affected PR wise by the steam machines. Idea with potential, poor execution.

I just think it will depend on the price. If it's above $600, I don't see many people buying them, other than Steam fans.