Valve, like other companies, is stuck with take-it-or-leave it prices.

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.

  • ryper@lemmy.caEnglish
    14·
    20 hours ago

    The Steam Machine uses semi-custom processors. Changing them would have required getting AMD to design new chips, not swapping out off-the-shelf parts. AMD doesn’t yet have an RDNA4 replacement for the GPU, so they would probably only go up to RDNA3.5, and that might not have been enough of a boost to even be worth the trouble.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      541·
      20 hours ago

      The Steam Machine uses semi-custom processors.

      Steam Machine uses old crap AMD had lying around. This is also why it’s not an APU design.