Valve’s Steam Machine just ran into the RAM shortage and appears to be delayed.
When Valve unveiled the Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller in November, it said to expect shipping in early 2026, with some hacks hearing “Q1 2026”.
Now the company says the rollout has slipped to some point in the first half of 2026 thanks to the memory and storage crunch, and pricing will be revised too.
A spokesValve said: “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 (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame).”
Valve insists its aim of “shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed”, but it is clearly scrambling to pin down a number it can live with.
“But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change.”
That is awkward because pricing was already fuzzy when outlets previewed the hardware. Valve previously said the Steam Machine would be “positioned closer to the entry level of the PC space”, the Steam Frame would cost less than its Index headset at $999, and the Steam Controller would be priced to match rivals with “advanced inputs”.
By early 2026, PC gamers have watched RAM pricing triple and sometimes quadruple as memory makers chase fatter margins in AI servers.
AMD chief executive Lisa Su added to the confusion on an earnings call, saying: “From a product standpoint, Valve is on track to begin shipping its AMD-powered Steam Machine early this year.”
