Valve wants to lower Steam Machine price, but warns memory shortage will continue

Complaints about a high Steam Machine price have tempered the excitement ahead of its release date. With reviews questioning whether its specs and performance justify the cost, Valve has responded. The company acknowledges the criticism, but gives a sobering prediction about the memory shortage.

A price drop is possible but unlikely

Valve engineers Pierre-Loup Griffais and Yazan Aldehayyat recently spoke to Digital Foundry. The site asked Griffais if more ample component supplies would allow for a Steam Machine price cut. He responded, “There's no point for us to keep hardware at a high price.”

Griffais explained that the point of the hardware is to form a “stronger connection between people and their games and not something that we're trying to sell to people for other reasons.” Accordingly, as far as its cost, “cheaper the better.”

Unfortunately, his colleague Aldehayyat doesn’t anticipate market conditions improving in the near term. Digital Foundry notes the recent comments from the Micron CEO, hinting that inflated memory prices won’t ease until 2028 at the earliest. The engineer agrees with that assessment, adding, “I wouldn't say that this is something that's going to resolve very soon.”

How the memory crisis impacted Valve

Gabe Newell’s company hasn’t revealed the original target cost of the mini PC. However, it suggested that the system suffered roughly the same percentage increase as the Steam Deck handheld. That would have made the now $1049 512GB model without a controller around $750.

A $750 price would have been compared more favorably to console alternatives. After the most recent adjustments to the PS5 MSRP, the digital version is $599. Reviews expose how Steam Machine performance can struggle at 4K in some games, but otherwise is in the same class.

With Microsoft announcing another Xbox price increase, there are fears that Sony and Valve could follow suit. Valve is even more vulnerable to the memory shortage, reportedly unable to secure long-term contracts with DRAM giants. Given its open ecosystem, it’s also hesitant to subsidize the Steam Machine, which benefits competing consoles.