Overview
- Valve says it needs more time to finalize concrete prices and dates for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame, but still aims to ship all three devices in the first half of 2026.
- The company attributes the pause to industry-wide shortages and rapidly rising costs for memory and storage, which have worsened since the products were announced in November.
- Valve reiterates it will price the Steam Machine roughly in line with an equivalent PC build rather than subsidizing hardware, making final retail costs sensitive to DRAM and NVMe market swings.
- New FAQ details confirm user-accessible upgrades for NVMe SSDs (2230/2280) and DDR5 SODIMM memory, with ongoing work on HDMI VRR, upscaling, and ray tracing driver optimizations.
- Reports tie the memory surge to AI datacenter demand and large supply deals, retailer price listings remain unconfirmed, and an earlier AMD remark that shipping was “on track” preceded Valve’s more cautious update.