When Valve launched the Steam Machine last month, the reviewer consensus was clear: It’s an elegant piece of hardware that has clear performance shortcomings... and a tragically high asking price. Its $1,049 starting price does no favors for its already iffy value proposition. I ended that story dreading how much it would actually retail for in the Philippines. Now with major Filipino gaming retailers DataBlitz and GameXtreme both opening pre-order books for the Steam Machine, our worst suspicions have been confirmed.
Pre-orders for the Steam Machine are an eye-watering P94,995 for the 512GB model bundled with one Steam Controller. Valve officially prices this bundle at $1,128 (P69,160). In other words, be prepared to fork over a P25k premium if you really want the Steam Machine right now.
This isn’t the first time Steam hardware got slapped with exorbitant upcharges upon becoming available in the Philippines. Earlier in June, DataBlitz and GameXtreme also managed to secure stock of the Steam Controller, only to sell it for P15,000 and P18,000 respectively. For context, Valve’s official price for the Steam Controller sits at $99 (around P6,000 as of writing).
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GameXtreme in particular landed itself in hot water over its prices. It initially opened Steam Machine pre-orders last week for a higher price of P110,000, attracting backlash from Filipino gamers. The retailer has backpedaled since then, matching DataBlitz’s (still high) price of P94,995. It received similar criticism for stickering the Steam Controller at P18,000 last month—triple that of Valve’s suggested retail price.
Despite the sky-high price, it hasn’t stopped the Steam Machine from selling out locally. Both retailers’ websites show that stock for Valve’s mini PC has sold out. We can only hope that these machines are on their way to gamers with deep pockets and not scalpers planning to squat on them for who knows how long.
The Steam Machine’s local price reveal also stirred up discussion on how else you could spend that much money if you wanted to get into gaming. Understandably, many gamers have suggested just sticking to console gaming. But there’s also the fact that for almost P95,000 you could build yourself a proper mid-range gaming PC (with some smart budgeting, of course).
So far, neither retailer has indicated a timeline for a second batch of Steam Machines, or if they will be securing stock of the 2TB model of the mini PC. Will you still be trying to secure your own Steam Machine in the future, or are these prices just asking too much for so little in return? Sound off in the comments.
