Overview
- Valve began emailing successful reservation holders and started initial Steam Machine shipments on June 29, which immediately triggered resales of reservation confirmations and promised transfers on eBay.
- Sellers are listing reservation slots and promised transfers for roughly two to three times Valve's MSRP, with many listings in the $1,600–$3,200 range and some reports of listings reaching up to about $3,700 and a subset marked sold.
- Valve used a randomized reservation draw, limits of one system per household, and Steam account eligibility to curb scalping, but those controls have not stopped people from flipping their purchase slots on marketplaces.
- Most resale listings represent a promise to transfer a future purchase rather than hardware in hand, which creates real scam and fulfillment risks and may run into account or shipping complications for buyers.
- The pressure comes from higher component costs for RAM, VRAM, and NVMe driven by AI and data center demand, and Valve says cancellations and later restocks could move more people forward in the queue and relieve some resale pressure.