A great many of us came away pretty disappointed when the official prices for the new Steam Machines got announced. With hardware prices exploding and the next generation consoles looking more and more likely to enter the $1,000 range, many (myself included) had naively hoped that somehow the Steam Machine would be an affordable way to get into PC gaming. That’s turned out not to be the case, but hey, at least you can make your own Steam Machine now.

As reported by Gamespot, Valve released SteamOS3.8 for free a few days ago. So, if you don’t want to spend over $1,000 for a device that’s maybe as powerful as a PS5, then you’ve got options. Custom-building one’s own PC is certainly going to cost more than an actual Steam Machine device, but at least you’ll be making something more current and more useful long-term. Not the affordability win we’re looking for, but it’s something at least.

At the moment, SteamOS only supports AMD graphics cards and has to be installed via booting from a USB. You also apparently need to adjust some of your PC’s BIOS settings in order to make it work too. Once you’ve got it going, though, your PC will work exactly like the official Steam machines. I feel like I should note that Valve has stressed that Steam Machines are still PCs first, so, depending on what you use your computer for, SteamOS could be a good alternative to Windows 11.

With costs for everything just blowing up across the board, though, I wonder just how much people are going to be willing to buy into the next generation of console and PC hardware. I mean, there comes a point where, no matter how much you enjoy a hobby, it just plain becomes too expensive to keep up with. Gaming hardware is reaching that point, I think. 

Compounding the issue is the broad lack of quality in AAA games these days too. Even if the machines don’t cost you a month’s rent, they still likely won’t be worth buying because there’s likely gonna be hardly any games worth playing on them. Gaming is old now too, with decades of releases for fans to play through. 

We’re already at the point where you’ll never run out of good games to play, so what’s the point in surrendering your hard-earned cash to companies that don’t care about giving you something worthwhile in return? Just something I’ve been thinking about.

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What’s your take on the Steam Machine situation? What about the state of the industry as a whole?

Image is a Valve Steam Deck Promo image