Valve has announced in a blog post that they have to re-evaluate the price and shipping of the Steam Machine and Steam Frame.
The rising costs of RAM around the world, due to the implementation of high-use Artificial Intelligence data centers, have made Valve miss its announcement goal. They had originally planned to reveal the price point and launch date in early 2026, but they missed that goal. “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. The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing,” said Valve in its blog post regarding the Steam Machine and other new devices.
In the original announcement for the Steam Machine, released back in November of 2025, they claimed that all of the hardware available would be released in the first half of the year. Although they still hold to that promise, as it says in the blog post, they will have to work on a lunch date and price point that Valve can be confident about. “Being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change. We will keep you updated as much as we can as we finalize those plans as soon as possible.”
The fan reactions to this news can only be described as mixed, with some glad that Valve won’t release an unfinished product, while others are only mad about the chokehold AI has on the market. Steam user Azzy said “bit of a shame that the releases will be delayed, but I’d rather wait for a fairly priced product, than to get the result of a panic in an unstable market that being said, I don’t see how an early 2026 release is possible with the current instability of the pricing, but good luck to the team at valve!”
Steam players and non-PC owners can only wait for more news from Valve about the highly anticipated Steam Machine and hope the price of RAM and processors goes down in the near future.
