Valve delays Steam Machine and says it is reconsidering pricing — critical component shortage and costs behind the move

When Valve unveiled the Steam Machine and Steam Frame in November 2025, many expected them to arrive during the first quarter of 2026, even though the company hadn’t given a specific date yet. However, it seems that this is no longer the case, as Valve said on its blog that the current memory shortage is forcing it push back the planned launch schedule and look at the pricing for the living room PC console.

“When we announced these products in November, we planned on being able to share specific pricing and launch dates by now. But the memory and storage shortages you've likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then,” Valve said on the Steam Hardware blog. “The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame).”

Still, the company says that it plans to ship all three products — the Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller — during the first half of the year. However, it also said that it is “being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change.” The current memory shortage, driven by AI data centers’ massive demand for HBM, is pushing many PC makers to the edge, with both manufacturers and system integrators announcing price hikes to deal with the situation.

Furthermore, smaller industry players without deep pockets would likely have a hard time acquiring chips from the big three manufacturers, with one memory chip maker rep saying that, “relationships with memory suppliers matter in a crunch.” And while Valve’s Steam Deck single-handedly revived the handheld PC gaming market, it’s still a relatively niche manufacturer compared to traditional PC makers like Asus and Dell (which have already announced massive price hikes).

The company has previously said that it won’t subsidize the consoles and that it’s priced close to an entry-level PC. Before the chaos of the memory shortage, this meant it would’ve cost around $550 to $600. But with the price of DRAM and NAND skyrocketing, especially affecting RAM kits, SSDs, and discrete GPUs, we’re no longer sure if this would still be possible. There have been leaks showing the Steam Machine priced at more than $1,000 for the 1TB version, but this came from a third-party retailer and not directly from Valve.

At the moment, the final price of the Steam Machine is still up in the air. However, we still expect it to land in retailers sooner rather than later. After all, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said during the company’s earnings call that “from a product standpoint, Valve is on track to be shipping its AMD-powered Steam Machine early this year.” So, hopefully, we’ll just have to wait a few more weeks or months before we finally know the retail price of the much-awaited PC console and it becomes available from our favorite store.

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