TECH NEWS – The GabeCube, since Valve’s PC will be a fairly small cube with a partially custom AMD CPU and GPU, isn’t cheap.

Valve has acknowledged that the hardware costs for the Steam Machine are higher than expected. In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said that the company led by Gabe Newell had hoped to launch the console-and-mini-PC hybrid at an entry-level price. However, rising costs made that impossible. The base model of the Steam Machine costs $1,049, and it’s possible that next-gen consoles will also start at $1,000. When asked whether the price of the Steam Machine could drop if component prices fall, Valve did not take a position.

“The biggest factor in cost is the components that make up the device, as well as the cost of manufacturing, shipping, and distribution. As we said before, we really wanted the Steam Machine to be an affordable entry-level PC. We mentioned that in November, and we want it to be affordable for as many people as possible. It’s definitely more expensive than we hoped. It’s too dangerous for us to speculate right now. Anything we say now will probably be an unfortunate statement in the future. We just have to wait and see what the market does because nobody can predict the future. We’d like to refrain from making predictions”, Aldehayyat said.

Designer Lawrence Yang added that, simply put, component prices are currently too high and the components themselves are too scarce to allow them to build what they want at the price and time they desire. He believes this is a common problem for everyone in the industry right now. Ultimately, it’s the player who ends up paying the price once again, no matter how hefty it is.

Source: Gamesindustry, RPS