It’s now official: the Steam Machine will retail for starting at €1,039, and its price could go as high as 1,428 €. Naturally, Valve’s console won’t be within everyone’s budget.
In an article published on Steam, the American company sought to explain this pricing decision. As expected, memory shortages and the cost of components were cited as reasons. Valve acknowledges that the initial price planned for its console was simply “no longer viable.”
According to IGN, the Steam Machine was supposed to cost $750.
“Just like the other products in our lineup, the Steam Machine is made from numerous components that we source from manufacturers around the world. The price at which we sell our products depends directly on the cost of these components. We believed we had a solid understanding of how these costs would evolve over time when we began sourcing parts for the Steam Machine in 2023. This understanding was based on the consensus surrounding data on PC hardware price trends over many years: prices generally tend to decline over time as new technologies emerge.
The past year has marked a rapid and significant shift, especially regarding RAM and storage components. There are many reasons for this, but all of them directly affect computer hardware everywhere. The overall result is that our initial price target for the Steam Machine is no longer viable. The prices we’re announcing today therefore reflect current global manufacturing conditions. Or, more precisely, the cost of components as we’ve negotiated them over the past six months.
Price wasn’t the only factor affected by this situation: availability suffered just as much. At certain times, we found that it was simply impossible to source some of the required components, no matter the price. Above all, this impacted the number of units we were able to produce before the product launch.”
