I totally get where they’re coming from but sadly it doesn’t change the fact that $1100+ is a tough sell for the benchmarks they’re hitting.

They know it's a tough sell. Fortunately for everyone in the market, you can still find used CPUs/GPUs/RAM pretty easily and save a decent amount if you're ok with building your own.

Valve doesn't need this to do well to survive. And you don't need a steam machine (or any >$1000 machine) to play PC games. Just wait it out or buy used hardware. Hell, even an rog ally x plays just about anything (and also supports steamOS), and you can still get that at reasonable prices.

Given the price of components right now, I don’t know. 1k for that small of a form factor seems acceptable. It’s a nice addition to the living room, could likely play a role in cancelling expensive video streaming subscriptions. Might also run some local LLMs. Seems decent.