We were pumped for the launch of the Steam Machine after visiting Valve HQ late last year. We even wrote up some pricing expectations, which in hindsight look to be the product of incredibly wishful thinking. But we didn’t know what we do now. Due to incredible demand for memory chips of all kinds—DRAM, mostly, but NAND too—for use with AI, the entire PC gaming ecosystem is in sticker shock. Prices are increasing many times overs.
Valve, too, isn’t immune. In a new FAQ, the company highlights how it would’ve liked to have shared prices for its latest products—the Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and Steam Frame—by now. However, the memory crisis has demanding a rethink.
Jacob Ridley
Original estimate: $529 (512 GB) | $649 (2 TB)
Let’s look at memory prices, first off. A 16 GB dual-channel kit of plain Crucial memory used to cost around $50 or less. Today, it’s around $200. Four times as much. One analyst firm today noted memory costs surging up to 90% so far this year. It’s only the start of February, eesh.
The Steam Machine uses SODIMM sticks, usually found in laptops, and generally more expensive for consumers to purchase. Single stick kits are a little more affordable. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Valve switch to single stick RAM in light of current SODIMM prices, as it otherwise has nowhere else to go—the platform supports DDR5 and going lower than 16 GB would be a disaster in the making.
Though you’d expect Valve to pull favourable rates with suppliers compared to the average joe, but Valve isn’t one of the big guys. Similarly, the reports of companies staking out memory manufacturers in Korea in the slim hope of scoring sticks puts any meaningful discount into doubt.
Last year, I guessed $529-$649 for the Steam Machine, on the basis that if Valve charged more, it would land at the same price as some budget PCs with more modern kit. Plus, I went to Valve HQ, and it seemed to me like affordability was a consideration throughout the design. As I said then, an RTX 5060 PC build would set you back around $750-$800.
But that was then. Nowadays, you’re looking at around $900 for something similar and even that’s a rarity. It’s up to $1,000 for an RX 9060 XT, though a more powerful and newer GPU than the one found in the Steam Machine.
Since my original guess, we’ve also heard Valve talk on the potential price tag. Not just the bombshell last night that it’s still trying to figure it out, but that it intends to price the Steam Machine “like a PC, not a console”. Similarly, Pierre-Loup Griffais, one of the engineers behind the project, confirmed that Valve was aiming at price parity with a similarly performing PC (ie a pretty affordable PC), but that pricing was up in the air. And these comments were made before the new year, before memory shortages really hit hardest.
Watch On
All together, it looks like Valve’s best chance of getting a Linux machine into every living room was sometime last year, and now it’s looking for a way to weather the ongoing memory crisis. Perhaps with a view to do something similar to the Steam Deck—keep the Machine around in the market long enough to make an impact and reduce BOM costs. Though unlike the Steam Deck, which enjoyed a rush for preorders on account of its affordability, the same might not happen for the Steam Machine if it’s landing at too high a price and during a slow period in PC sales—which analysts expect we’ll see this year.
I keep revising my guess as I fluctuate between optimistic and realistic.
I’ve just scrolled through Newegg’s prebuilt PCs, going from cheapest first, and you can’t buy a remotely modern gaming PC for less than $750, and I’m being pretty generous with my definition of ‘modern’. That’ll get you couple-generation-old tech and DDR4 (which is fine for gaming but it’s not exactly the latest and greatest). For what Valve’s offering, one-generation-old tech and DDR5, you’d be lucky to find that under a grand on Newegg. I’ve only found that Walmart machine for $900 that dares to include DDR5 for that sorta money.
For the 512 GB model, and I keep revising my guess as I fluctuate between optimistic and realistic, around $899. Charge much more and it would be cheaper to buy a PC with better parts and more storage space. Though if Valve is holding off until, say, June to launch this thing, as the memory crisis threatens to deepen, perhaps we won’t see as many PCs like that $900 one from Walmart—which is a bit of a rarity even today.
For the 2 TB model, I’m wondering if Valve isn’t considering ditching that entirely, with these drives in excess of $200 a piece. I think Valve would have a very hard time selling it for a four-digit sum. Most sensible users would buy the cheaper option and wait until all this blows over to upgrade the storage, right?
How much is it worth to Valve to get more players on SteamOS? That’s likely a part of the discussions ongoing at Valve HQ as it deals with this dire situation. And hey, if you want to blame something for the situation we’re in, you can blame AI.
Nick Evanson
Original estimate: $599 (2 TB)
I have to admit that I was utterly naive to think that the Steam Machine would launch at anywhere near $500. With a discrete CPU and GPU inside (i.e. no all-in-one APU to help reduce costs), it was already going to be a little tricky to keep things nice and cheap. But now that the global memory situation seems to be spiralling almost out of control, there’s zero chance that it will be under $1,000. Yes, even the 512 GB option.
It could be under that price tag, because Valve does have the capital to effectively pre-order a metric shed load of bulk components under contract, for far less money than you and I have to cough up when we need more DRAM or a bigger SSD. However, Valve isn’t pitching the Steam Machine as being a ‘cheap’ gaming PC.
If it does launch with a four-figure price tag, the launch will end up being somewhat of a flop.
Sony and Microsoft can afford to keep console prices relatively low because they were designed from the very beginning to be as cheap as possible to manufacture. And then there’s the fact that they both get additional revenue from game licences. Valve might get a healthy cut of a publisher’s income on every game that it distributes on Steam, but the Steam Machine isn’t a closed platform, or at the very least, it doesn’t look like it will be.
From what I can tell, it looks like you could stick any OS onto the device, and as long as you can get hold of the drivers for all the hardware inside, you could avoid SteamOS and Steam entirely. In other words, Valve can’t guarantee that every Steam Machine it sells will automatically generate income via Steam itself, unlike with consoles.
None of my friends have expressed any interest in buying a Steam Machine and I guess that if it does launch with a four-figure price tag, the launch will end up being somewhat of a flop. There must be some pretty morose people at Valve right now.
James Bentley
Original estimate: No price given
It’s absurd to think of how much PC part pricing has changed in the handful of months since I last made a Steam Machine pricing guess. At the time, I guessed (or more accurately, wished) for console, or slightly above console, prices. With the fast-rising cost of memory and storage, I think we could see prices rising up to the $1,000 mark.
Different tiers of storage, combined with upgradeable memory and storage, certainly help in this regard. It’s not impossible to think Valve could put out a machine under $1,000 with the lowest possible storage and memory, so a buyer can upgrade at a later date.
Valve will have the privilege of direct contact with parts manufacturers, but, in the hardware space, it just doesn’t have the pull that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo do. It can’t estimate sales in the tens of millions, and risking the losses that console manufacturers make may not be sustainable for it. This is before mentioning that console manufacturers specifically target a more affordable price point, where we have heard little in that regard from Valve.
Valve says in its latest FAQ that it can’t say a price until it can ‘confidently announce’ it. This level of uncertainty is certainly a worrying statement on current supply and future acquisition. We don’t know what stockpiling efforts have been made to meet demand, but I’d guess the answer is ‘not enough’.
Andy Edser
Original estimate: $500–$600 (512 GB) | $700 (2 TB)
Andy Edser, Hardware Writer: I cautiously estimated that the Steam Machine would end up with a $500-$600 price tag last year, but that was before the memory crisis turned the PC hardware market into an apocalyptic wasteland, with those of us prepared to navigate it fighting tooth and nail over anything with a DRAM module.
Sure, Valve (and AMD) will still likely be using their considerable industry influence and existing memory manufacturer relationships to minimise the fallout. But at this point, looking at my earlier figures and what Valve has said in the meantime, I’ve almost certainly lowballed it.
$800-$1,000 for the 512 GB version, with the 2 TB version soaring well over a grand. That’s my guess, and this time I’m sticking with it. Unless another hardware shortage occurs, or we all end up underwater in the meantime. In which case, $1,000+ for both, and me crying into my soup. We’ll see.
Dave James
Original estimate: $499 (512 GB) | $649 (2 TB)
I mean, at least Valve is remaining committed to launching all three new Steam-y products in the first half of this year, eh? That’s ‘the goal’ anyways. But if anyone is surprised that the Steam Machine and Steam Frame pricing and launch dates are still up in the air as we get into February, then you obviously haven’t been paying attention to the nightmare state of the PC hardware market right now.
We’ve been tracking memory, SSD, and GPU pricing for the past three or four months and it’s only going one way; it’s rapidly going up. So, what’s Valve to do?
One thing it could do is release the Steam Machine with a special launch price, trading on the fact that it would have got its initial run of memory and SSDs, and yes, even GPU modules, for a completely different price than subsequent orders will end up being if purchased months later. After all, Valve will have secured a certain amount of the componentry on contract in advance of manufacturing and eventual release.
But we’ve been down that road before with the current generation of graphics cards when they launched early last year. The MSRP and launch pricing of every single one of AMD and Nvidia’s RX 9000 or RTX 50-series cards was completely different to what users could pick them up for even just a few hours after the initial release stock had run dry… or retailers and manufacturers sniffed a chance to gouge PC gamers on pricing.
Obviously, with Valve controlling the retail through the Steam store itself it can control those prices to avoid gouging on new gear, but even so, having to spike prices after launch itself will sting.
We don’t really want that to happen here with the Steam Machine and Steam Frame. But we also don’t know if Valve would have had enough of that early, cheaper RAM and SSD stock to fulfil a release in all the territories it has promised. If you do a special launch price, it would have to be across the board.
Valve could still do the launch price dance, releasing the Steam Machine at $699 in limited regions if it wanted; pulling it back to a US-only launch just inside of its first-half of 2026 release window.
But that’s not going to make anyone happy, except for the first few hundred people getting a Steam Machine for a never-to-be-seen again price and re-selling them for over a grand on ebay.
So, I don’t see Valve going down that route. And it’s already said it’s not going to subsidise the devices itself to achieve a cheaper retail price in exchange for the hope of getting more people spending in its Steam ecosystem. Which makes sense, because I guarantee the vast majority of people buying a Steam Machine will already be card carrying members of the Steam community with a huge library of games already on the platform.
I am slowly coming around to the possibility that it might not actually come out at all.
I guess what I’m coming round to is the fact that Valve is royally screwed here.
This is a budget gaming PC, with a specs list that already puts it behind the sub-$1,000 machines that you will find at Walmart and Amazon. So it can’t really go any higher than that and still hope to find a place in peoples’ hearts. I get the argument that finding a gaming PC that smol is tough, but equally if you’re looking for an affordable gaming PC, I would wager price becomes a far more important point than the litre capacity of the chassis.
That makes me think—if Valve actually does release the Steam Machine in the first half of this year at all—it will cost $999 for the 512 GB version and $1,500 for the 2 TB system by way of offsetting the cheaper version. After all, early adopters will pick up the higher capacity model in their droves, because they always do.
But then I am slowly coming around to the possibility that it might not actually come out at all. Already the second coming of the Steam Machine feels fraught, and with component pricing showing no signs of plateauing just yet, I could definitely see Valve putting the mini PC on indefinite hiatus. Then maybe Valve will retire the Steam Machine name entirely as a cursed thing.
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