‘North of a grand is the floor’: Analysts debate whether Steam Machine means PS6 and Xbox Helix will cost $1000+

Analysts have been reacting to the price of the Steam Machine by giving their views on what it will mean for the price of next-gen consoles.

Valve announced this week that the Steam Machine – its compact system designed for playing PC games on TV – will cost $1,049 for a 500GB model and $1,349 for a 2TB one.

The company has conceded that the price is “significantly more” than it wanted to charge, but says it “reflects the price of the components as we’ve secured them over the past 6 months”.

This continued rise in component costs has also seen Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all announcing price increases for their consoles, and analysts have warned that the PlayStation 6 and Xbox Project Helix will almost certainly have a higher launch price than any Sony or Microsoft console before them.

The only thing analysts can’t agree on is whether Sony or Microsoft will step beyond three-figure territory and charge $1,000 or more for their new console.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Aldora CEO Joost van Dreunen said he believed it was certain, warning: “At this rate, the next generation may not even release until 2028, and when it does, north of a grand is the floor. Even existing devices are getting marked up.”

He added: “The memory makers – Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron – are now ‘post-consumer’, which tells you gamers matter less and prices go up. Earlier this month, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma conceded that its upcoming console is going to need a new business model and hardware partners just to ship, and that storage and memory will cost five times more by holiday 2027 than they did in 2024.”

Circana senior director Mat Piscatella told the publication that he wasn’t as certain that PS6 or Xbox Project Helix could cost four digits, but wasn’t ruling it out. “It will possibly (even likely) happen anyways,” he explained. “Given the chaos in the world of components (and lots of other things, for that matter) the future here is beyond cloudy.”

Newzoo market intelligence director Manu Rosier suggested that while there may be versions of each console that do cost more than $1,000, he believes there will still be a base model costing three digits – even if that means $999 – because of the psychological effect a four-digit price has on customers.

“The PS5 Pro is already at $899 after two hikes inside a year, so the distance to $1,000 is short,” he said. “Base next-generation models are likely to hold under $999 for psychological and marketing reasons.

“Premium tiers are a separate question. Component costs sit outside the manufacturers’ control, and there is no sign of an AI-driven cooldown in memory and storage demand. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has already said memory costs will affect Project Helix pricing and availability.”

Finally, Ampere Analysis’s head of games research Piers Harding-Rolls told the publication that he thinks there’s still a chance for next-gen consoles to cost less than $1,000, because Sony and Microsoft have better relationships with component manufacturers with Valve, which needs to make a profit on every Steam Machine sold.

“Next-gen consoles will likely be more expensive, but they have different levers that can be pulled to offset hardware costs, which can support cheaper pricing,” Harding-Rolls suggested.

“Sony has more scale than Valve and is better positioned in terms of supply chain accessibility through its entrenched relationships and broader electronics business. Console companies will be hoping that they can take advantage of improving component inventories and more stable pricing as it gets closer to the launch of next-gen consoles. Market disruption and other factors means this is most likely to be at the end of 2028.”