Valve is delaying the release of its Steam Machine suite of devices. After announcing the Steam Machine, Steam Controller and Steam Frame last year, the company aimed to launch all three products by early 2026. The company now cites that the goal is shifting.
In a Steam Hardware Blog post, Valve notes that the goal is now to ship “all three products in the first half of the year.” The release window is now broader and spans up to around June of this year. Valve cites that the decision to delay the release of the Steam Machine revolved around the global RAM shortage.
“When we announced these products in November, we planned on being able to share specific pricing and launch dates by now,” the company says. “But the memory and storage shortages you’ve likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then.”
Pricing of all three devices is also being kept close to the chest. Memory and storage components are increasing in price quickly due to larger corporations hoarding supplies for investments into AI. With this in mind, the Steam Machine’s intended price is likely being impacted, thus Valve must revise the pricing ahead of an official announcement.
Valve’s Steam Machine is a compact, console-like gaming PC. It’s designed to exist within a livingroom space, unlike a beefed-up desktop PC. It’s able to run Steam games natively, powered by a custom AMD GPU providing 4K at 60fps support. Valve claims the device is 6x more powerful than its Steam Deck handheld. The Steam Machine also runs SteamOS, and will support an expanded Deck Verified verification badge for games.
Accompanying the Steam Machine is Valve’s Steam Controller. The new Valve-designed controller offers trackpad support, magnetic thumbsticks and gyro controls to cover a large array of Steam games a player may have in their catalogue. The company also claims it supports a 35-hour battery life.
Finally, the Steam Frame is a new VR headset, designed for VR games and also non-VR titles. It includes camera-based tracking and supports controllers with magnetic thumbsticks as well as full finger tracking. Stream Frame can run titles natively or stream them from a PC using a Wi-Fi 6 connection.
This week, AMD CEO Lisa Su noted that Valve is still on track to deliver its Steam Machine. “From a product standpoint, Valve is on track to begin shipping its AMD-powered Steam Machine early this year, and development of Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox featuring an AMD semi-custom SoC is progressing well to support a launch in 2027,” said Su.
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