Steam Machine price announced and even Valve admit it’s too expensive

Valve has revealed the price of two different Steam Machine console models and explained why they’ve been forced to sell them for more than they originally planned.

If Valve had only unveiled the Steam Machine price at the same time they announced the hardware late last year, then it would’ve been considerably cheaper than it’s ended up being.

Thanks to the increasing cost of memory and storage (because they’re being stockpiled for use in AI data centres) they had to change their plans at the last minute, with rumours that Microsoft and Sony are having similar problems with their next gen consoles.

After Valve suddenly increased the price of the Steam Deck for the same reason, it became clear that the Steam Machine is not going to reach mainstream prices. And now we know for certain, as the cheapest version of the device will cost £879.

What is Valve’s Steam Machine?

The Steam Machine is a concept Valve first came up with back in 2013, of creating a cross between a console and a gaming PC, that can play most Steam games but is easier to maintain than a PC and has a greater variety of games and upgrade options than a console.

Originally, Valve allowed other manufacturers to create their own Steam Machines, with different specs, but after the idea never took off they resurrected it last year, as a single device made by Valve themselves.

There are four separate bundles available for the current Steam Machine, with two different models: one with 512GB of storage and the other with 2TB. The latter costs a staggering £1,149 or £1,208 with a Steam Controller.

That’s more than even the £789.99 PS5 Pro, which is the most expensive console ever made and only aimed at hardcore users. The price seems to immediately shoot down any hopes Valve had of the device being adopted by anyone but (rich) enthusiasts, which in itself undercuts the whole point of the concept.

£1,000+ is perfectly normal for a gaming PC but at this price the benefits of the Steam Machine are greatly reduced and if you’ve got that sort of money you might as well just buy a gaming PC tailored to your own specific needs.

How to pre-order a Steam Machine

If you’re still interested, the Steam Machine isn’t currently available for pre-order but there is a waiting list that you can join any time up to June 25 at 6pm BST. At that point Valve will randomise the list and an unspecified number of lucky fans will be invited to pre-order the model of their choice.

It’s not quite that simple though as to join you’ll also need a Steam account (that doesn’t have any bans associated with it) and you’ll need to have bought at least something from Steam at some point before April 27, 2026.

It’s worth bearing in mind that Valve is traditionally not very good at handling pre-orders and there are a lot of variables in the process, that are no doubt going to lead to frustration. The most important issue is the question of how much stock Valve have and how much of it is going to be allocated to countries that are not the US.

As for the release date, there’s still no real clue, other than Valve vaguely implying it’ll be late summer. The earliest possibility seems to be sometime in July, but it could easily be much later.

A new blog post on Steam explains that not only is the Steam Machine more expensive than originally intended but there’s going to be less stock of it available than originally expected.

‘Steam Machine, like our other hardware products, is made up of many components that we source from manufacturers around the world. The price at which we sell our hardware is a direct result of the cost of these components,’ reads the blog.

‘We felt like we had a good understanding of how those costs might change over time when we first started sourcing them for Steam Machine back in 2023. That understanding was born from the many years of data we all have about the evolution of PC hardware prices – primarily, that it tends to get cheaper over time as new technology arrives.

‘Over the past year or so, that has changed quickly and significantly, most visibly for RAM and storage components. There are a variety of reasons, all of which are affecting hardware products everywhere. The overall effect is that our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable. So the prices we’re sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing; or, more accurately, it reflects the price of the components as we’ve secured them over the past six months.

‘Price wasn’t the only thing impacted by all of this: availability was as well. There were periods where we found we couldn’t source some of our components at all, at any price. More than anything else, this has impacted the number of units we’ve been able to produce for launch.’

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