Valve’s Steam Machine finally has a price, and its far steeper than anyone was likely imagining. That goes for Valve, too, with the company indicating that its original target was significantly less, and would’ve made a lot more sense for the hardware on offer.
Speaking to both IGN and Aftermath, engineers from Valve indicated that the Steam Machine’s price increased similarly to that of the Steam Deck, whose own price was increased by around 35% for the base model (and closer to 50% for the 1TB versions). Assuming Valve is talking about the lower figure of the two, some quick math suggests that the Steam Machine was likely originally priced at or around $750, a figure that was widely guessed at the time.
But that was in November 2025, when the now-apocalyptic RAM crisis was just starting. Since then, memory prices have surged globally. The United States of America has fared best, with an average 163% increase, while other regions, like Japan and the UK, have seen increases of 619% and 219% respectively, Regardless of where you live, building a PC has become prohibitively expensive, with few signs suggesting that is changing soon. And unfortunately for Valve, it got caught in the storm at the exact wrong time.
The Steam Machine was never expected to be a cheap device. Even Valve has played down console comparisons, pointing towards its ability to be a fully featured desktop PC along with a living room gaming device. But at over $1,000 for its entry-level model (which ships without a controller), it has become an expensive luxury that struggles to justify its cost through performance alone.
As Digital Foundry breaks down in its extensive performance review, the Steam Machine struggles to keep up with the base PS5 in many games tested, while just equaling it in others. There’s caveats to those results (consoles have settings that PCs sometimes can’t replicate, for example), but you can expect to have a similar game-playing experience to a PS5 that costs, right now, half the price of the Steam Machine. And if you want some extra graphical grunt, the PS5 Pro is a much more powerful platform, and still cheaper. At an original price of $750, the Steam Machine made a lot more sense.
Valve’s Steam Machine isn’t a console. It isn’t subsidized as one. It can do a lot more than any on the market, too. But it’s also an expensive way to play PC games, and one that doesn’t make as much sense anymore in the current market.
