Yeah this was predictable. Certainly not a good sign for next gen PS6/XBHelix. It’s crazy how a $220USD NSWLite now sounds like a bargain in 2026… nearly a fifth the average cost for current gen systems. Wow.

CAD 1,509 to 2,038 here, you can buy a better pre-build gaming PC for that, or gaming laptop... Or PS5 + Switch 2 for CAD 1450 ;) (and that's the one with disc drive)

Heck, just checked EB Games here and for about the same price as the entry level Steam Machine, without a controller and with just 512GB of storage, you can get a Digital PS5 and a Switch 2.

Hilarious. I mean, those specs were always bad, but if the price was right, sure, maybe someone would buy it. But this...just bugger off Valve.

5600X, 2x8GB DDR4, RX 9060XT and 512GB NVME is around $990-1000. And that is ~ 60-70% faster than GabeCube.

Think of it this way… when it gets a price rise to £2500 4 months after it launches these prices will seem like a steal. Invest now and you too can feel like a winner.

Soooo what's a comparable GPU to the PS5 Pro? I wanna see how far $1049 goes on PCPartPicker.

A 9060 XT 16gb is a good match for the PS5 Pro.

In the UK I could build a 9060XT 16GB machine for a similar price to the Steam Machine, if I go with a Ryzen 5000 series, DDR4 build. 

The 9060 XT will beat the steam machine by about 50% and the 16gb of vram will help massively with how long the device will still be viable for AAA games.

This won't be the end of it either. Price coud keep rising and PS5 Digital may see its price increased to $700 next year, then $800 a year later, yay! PC with their system RAM requiirement and large game file sizes should have it worse.

But all of that is more evidence that the established console/PC installbase will remain active for a loooong time. Future games should be very scalable and the next crossgen period might span the entire generation lol. PS6 might be a luxury item throughout, and highhend PC's will be mythical.

Nintendo has it worse than anyone because the Switch 1 hardware is obsolete, so the large install base won't amount to much in the near future. They're going to need to sell Switch 2 hardware at a significant loss or potentially suffer a serious decline.

Hate to say it but the only good value system seems to the NS2, and even that a lot of people think is expensive.

Even after the price rise the Japanese language model is still only $370. They are probably losing over $100 per unit on that.

The estimated cost of the Switch 2 manufacturing was $330 before the memory crisis. 12GB LPDDR5x has risen from about $40 to $140+. The NAND in it has also increased.

Switch 2 production probably costs them close to $500 now.

"12GB LPDDR5X DRAM, the memory type utilized in flagship smartphones, has more than tripled from $39 to $145—a considerable increase of 272%. Simultaneously, NAND flash storage prices for 256GB have risen from $13 to $51, marking a 292% jump."

https://www.valuethemarkets.com/cryptocurrency/news/analyzing-the-impact-of-rising-memory-chip-costs-on-iphone-pricing

DDR5 has risen significantly more in price than the GDDR6 used by PS/Xbox.