this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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Valve describes just how brutal RAM negotiations are in 2026 (www.theverge.com)
submitted 2 months ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
146 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Valve’s Steam Machine finally has a price: a whopping $1,049 for the 512GB configuration or $1,349 for the 2TB version. And those are without bundled controllers, which drive up the cost more.

The prices are so high in part because Valve isn’t subsidizing the hardware, and the company has already indicated that the component crisis forced it to reconsider its initial pricing plans. In an interview with the YouTube channel Gamers Nexus, Valve engineers discussed the reality of sourcing RAM in 2026, with take-it-or-leave-it prices as memory and other components remain in short supply, from only a few vendors like Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix.

[...]

Valve, of course, isn’t the only company in a bind over memory shortages, as the crunch is forcing many hardware makers to make significant pricing changes. Even Apple CEO Tim Cook is warning of incoming price hikes for iPhones, Macs, and other devices. And the RAM crunch isn’t projected to get better anytime soon.

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[–] Jako302@feddit.org 19 points 2 months ago (5 children)

With the current hardware prices there isn't much profit to gain here.

The main difference to other consoles is that they don't sell at a loss to keep you in their ecosystem like PlayStation and Nintendo do. Valve could afford the cheap prices of the steam deck since its a bit tricky to use as a normal PC, but the steam machine is literally just a PC, selling it at a loss would be stupid for them.

[–] Addv4@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Not particularly. Steam gets 30% back on all game sales, so if they can make sure the steam machine gets only to people with established steam accounts, then they're probably coming out ahead.

[–] Jako302@feddit.org 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

That's... pretty much my point.

For the steam deck where 99% of people will use it with steam, selling at a loss is acceptable, so they do it.

The steam machine is just a pc, so they can't make sure that people use steam, hence the normal market price.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 2 points 2 months ago

I'm pretty sure the person you're responding to is referring to the fact that in order to buy the steam machine you have to have a steam account in good standing of a certain age. I guess that does not necessarily ensure that the end user will be a big gamer, but it certainly helps.

I'm not suggesting it makes sense to sell it a loss, just providing that information in case people were not aware.

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