One of Valve’s engineers has stated that the RAM and memory crisis is only getting worse, raising concerns that the Steam Machine‘s price could increase rather than be reduced. The Steam Machine was officially released on June 22, with surprising price tags starting at $1,049 USD. While the high price did not stop the flood of pre-orders, it sparked many discussions about the future affordability of gaming.
Shortly after revealing the prices, Valve officially explained why the Steam Machine is so expensive. According to the company, the ongoing RAM and memory crisis, along with the higher-than-expected costs of most components, left it with no choice but to release the console at a price close to its production cost. Now, one of Valve’s engineers has shared new comments on the situation that do not exactly paint a bright picture for the future of the Steam Machine.
It Is Still Getting Worse, Says Valve Engineer
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Yazan Aldehayyat, one of the engineers involved in the Steam Machine’s creation, said, “Honestly, [the memory crisis] is still getting worse.” He also added, “Just in case people are not aware, what people are seeing on retail shelves right now, from our observations, is lagging what we’re seeing from a bulk supply by at least three to six months.” While he did not say it directly, Aldehayyat’s comments could hint that Steam Machine prices are unlikely to go down and might even become more expensive, as key components are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain.
Click on the game with the higher OpenCritic rating.
Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who interviewed Aldehayyat, said the engineer believes “the pricing will eventually fix itself. Either prices will come down, or this kind of pricing will become normal if the memory crisis never abates.” Supporting Schreier’s point, there are currently rumors that the PlayStation 6 will be more expensive than the Steam Machine. A similar scenario is expected for other upcoming video game consoles, such as Xbox’s Project Helix.
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Valve’s strategy seems to be keeping the Steam Machine’s price as close to the production cost as possible without subsidizing it. However, pricing is not the only production issue at the moment. Pierre-Loup Griffais, another Valve engineer interviewed by Schreier, said, “We’re basically building everything we can get our hands on.” Elaborating on his point, Griffais added, “We’re limited by memory capacity, for sure.” In other words, even if Valve manages to keep prices at their current levels, it could still face major production issues for the Steam Machine due to the ongoing industry-wide memory shortage.
Of course, the two Valve engineers interviewed by Bloomberg believe that the number of units sold won’t determine the Steam Machine’s success. Aldehayyat said, “We suspect that the Steam Machine is a really good way to solve a very real problem that people have. If that’s borne out to be true, from our opinion, it’s a success.” According to Schreier, the problem he referred to is the lack of open-source PC gaming in the living room, which Valve’s home console is believed to solve, albeit at a very premium price.
