Valve’s Steam Machine finally has a price: a whopping $1,049 for the 512GB configuration or $1,349 for the 2TB version. And those are without bundled controllers, which drive up the cost more.
The prices are so high in part because Valve isn’t subsidizing the hardware, and the company has already indicated that the component crisis forced it to reconsider its initial pricing plans. In an interview with the YouTube channel Gamers Nexus, Valve engineers discussed the reality of sourcing RAM in 2026, with take-it-or-leave-it prices as memory and other components remain in short supply, from only a few vendors like Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix.
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Valve, of course, isn’t the only company in a bind over memory shortages, as the crunch is forcing many hardware makers to make significant pricing changes. Even Apple CEO Tim Cook is warning of incoming price hikes for iPhones, Macs, and other devices. And the RAM crunch isn’t projected to get better anytime soon.
With the current hardware prices there isn’t much profit to gain here.
The main difference to other consoles is that they don’t sell at a loss to keep you in their ecosystem like PlayStation and Nintendo do. Valve could afford the cheap prices of the steam deck since its a bit tricky to use as a normal PC, but the steam machine is literally just a PC, selling it at a loss would be stupid for them.
Valve is a for profit company, they sell their products at the highest price the can get away with.