Valve’s efforts were never supposed to stop the scalping, only mitigate it.
If you wanted one so badly, you probably got into the prenotation lottery. In the case you couldn’t get one, you were put in the prenotation queue meaning that you’ll be probably in for the next wave that shouldn’t take too long to happen.
So who are they selling these to? These scalpers are not the sharpest tools of the shed. But buying one at that price is not much better. You must be a special kind of moron to buy that.
FOMO is strong with a lot of people. A lot of these guys just feel the need to be in the first batch and will buy at any price to be included.
So, as I said, a special kind of moron.
Well, looking at the completed auctions on eBay there are enough people wo are desperate enough.
Selling or trying to sell?
Who TF is buying it at that price?!If you spend US$3,000 on the Steam Machine your brain must be made of tofu.
full of protein? tell me where! I would switch to eat brains of tofu in a blink
Zombie core post
You can build or buy a lot more computer than the Steam Machine for $3000, even at today’s absurd component prices. I’m not quite sure which is more moronic, trying to scalp a Steam Machine for that price or somebody actually paying it.
Yep, even Valve themselves told multiple times “it’'s just a computer”, hence the price that comparable to other prebuild computers. Who in their mind would pay 3x of that?
That being said, Alienware and Razor audience also exists, so anything possible.
Scalpers are low lifes who don’t necessarily know much about the products they scalp. They must have thought it was going to be the same as the last few generations of gaming console releases.
I also believe that the typical potential customer for a Steam Machine will know better.
I’ll always remember going to a rise against concert and scalpers outside were saying “tickets for rise against the machine”, they have no idea what they are selling
Why? It’s not even that compelling at the normal price. If it were 3x the price, who would possibly want to buy it?
The people that bought spacex stock.
Pretty sure these are the occasional individuals, not large scale bot nets.
what??? I thought it’s not even for sale yet?
Correct. They’re not even selling you a physical machine at that price. They’re just allegedly selling you their place in the preorder lottery for the opportunity to buy one.
I can’t imagine how anyone could possibly be that desperate.
I’m surprised that eBay even allows them to because I think that breaks their seller guidelines. I’m pretty sure merchandise that you don’t physically have on hand You must clearly mark as I don’t have this and as a pre-order and any pre-order is required to be shipped out within 40 days of the sale happening.
I can’t imagine anyone on eBay is able to actually confirm they’ll have it in 40 days
I should be shocked, but I’m not… Some people go to great lengths to get pokemon cards.
I mean, sure. I have tons of rare knives, too. But a PC is a commodity item; it’s easily susbtituted with any other which is really the whole point of the architecture to begin with.
I think the Steam Machine is neat. I’m still not paying $3000 for one.
While Valve only officially supports 3 devices, it is possible to install its image on any PC (or just run Steam on Linux). But quite a few Steam users don’t realise that.
This may go down as one of the biggest tech flops of all time. Just couldn’t have picked a worse time to release it.
There’s always a bigger flop. Apple Vision Pro is 3 times the price and less use than Steam Machine. Most people reportedly just leave it as a dust gatherer after the honeymoon period is over.
And then we have the OG Steam Machine. It’s a weird product that no one wanted, it isn’t different like a console is, and it isn’t better than a PC can be. It’s a product that isn’t build by themselves, but a joint venture with hardware maker.
Then we have NFT. You can’t top that.
I would argue that at least the Vision Pro offers something no other Apple product does.
The Steam Machine is a compact PC and its largest customer base are people who are invested in Steam, and thus they already own a PC.
It’s the form factor that’s different here. Steam Machine is for the living room like a console, most people build a PC station and use it with a desk. Steam Machine is getting into the market of couch gaming and that’s what they aim for with the form factor and the ease of use. There is market here, but the price is the one thing that failed.
I was always more interested in the Steam Frame. That will be my first VR-device ever, and i’m hyped for that.
The Machine has one advantage: Valve will probably keep it on the market for quite a while. When prices get a bit more “normal” again, i’m sure they will reduce the price to match the new reality. The Machine is really more like a PC for people who don’t have the tech skills to setup a DIY PC, and that’s what people are paying for.
Yeah I don’t get why more people don’t understand its just a prebuilt PC with SteamOS.
Because most prebuilts are not designed to be placed in the living room (neither dimensionwise nor acousticwise) except if you pay a shitton for a device with an uncommon form factor, and then you have to configure everything yourself. The Steam Machine combines the form factor of a small, very silent HTPC with enough performance to use it for gaming in an all-in-one package - that definitely is an attractive prospect, and it’s the reason it’s seen with different eyes, even tho - objectively seen - it’s specs arent great at all.
