The Steam Machine, Valve’s PC/console hybrid, appears to be facing delays due to ongoing RAM and storage shortages. The company has yet to explicitly push for the release of its console, but the wording of the Steam Machine release window has been changed from “early 2026” to “first half of the year.” Valve said it planned to share pricing and release date for the device now, but rising hardware prices have forced it to “revisit” those details.
Valve said in a blog post published on Thursday that it has not yet finalized pricing and release date details for its upcoming line of Steam devices: Steam Machine, Steam Frame VR headset, and next-generation Steam Controller. The company cited ongoing memory and storage shortages and rising prices as reasons for the delay.
“When we announced these products in November, we planned to be able to share specific pricing and release dates now,” Valve said in an update. “But since then, the memory and storage shortages you may have heard about across the industry have rapidly intensified. The limited supply and rising prices of these critical components means we have to revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially for Steam Machine and Steam Frame).”
Steam Machine is a PC/console hybrid
Photo Credit: Valve
Steam hardware may be delayed
Valve didn’t specifically mention that the release of new Steam hardware has been delayed, but a slight change in the wording of the release window suggests the devices may have moved beyond the company’s original release plans. When Valve announced the Steam machines, headsets, and controllers in November, it said all three new devices would be available in “early 2026.” Now, the company says it plans to launch them “in the first half of this year.”
“Our goal of launching all three products in the first half of this year has not changed. But we still have a lot of work to do to determine specific pricing and release dates that we can confidently announce, while being mindful of how quickly things change on both fronts. We will update you as soon as possible to finalize these plans as soon as possible,” Valve said.
A day before Valve updated the Steam Machine, AMD CEO Lisa Su said the device was expected to launch in “early 2026.” Steam machines run on custom AMD CPUs and GPUs.
Steam engine pricing
Back in November, Valve said the Steam Machine would be priced the same as a PC with “the same performance level.”
“I think if you build a PC out of parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that’s the overall price window that we’re targeting,” Valve programmer Pierre-Loup Griffais said at the time. “Ideally, we’d be pretty competitive with this and get a pretty good deal, but as we speak, we’re working on refining that and it’s hard to really know what the price is going to be right now because there’s a lot of different things moving around.”
Valve seems to be having a hard time determining the price of a Steam machine. The cost of PC hardware has soared in recent months as RAM and storage prices rise and shortages are triggered by AI demand. The Steam Machine will compete with the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X, both of which start at around $500 in the US. Releasing a PC/console hybrid priced well above that would likely create a high barrier to entry for potential customers.
The Steam Machine, Steam Frame headset, and next-generation Steam Controller were released in November. Valve’s new console is essentially a PC running on SteamOS, but allows users to install the operating system of their choice – you can also run Windows on it if you want (but why would you?). The device supports 4K, 60fps gaming and comes with up to 2TB of SSD storage.
In the latest update, Valve also confirmed that the Steam Machine’s SSD storage and memory will be upgradeable.
