Ever since Valve unveiled the Steam Machine back in November of last year, gamers have been waiting with bated breath, not only for the price of the cube to be revealed, but also for it to not be too outrageous. After all, it got announced in the middle of a memory shortage crisis. Now, the company that doesn’t release games with “3” in the name has revealed the official price tags for its living room PC and… oh boy. Let’s just say that the PS5 Pro looks like a good deal in comparison, and that’s just the US$ pricing.
To start, Valve has confirmed that there are four Steam Machine packages in total. The machine itself has two variants, with either 512GB or 2TB of storage, and you can have these with or without a Steam Controller bundled. But the most affordable of the lot, the one with less storage and without a controller, is priced at US$1,049 (~RM4,343). Get a controller bundled and it’s US$79 (~RM327) on top. Same deal with the 2TB model – it costs US$1,349 (~RM5,585), and an additional US$79 for a controller bundled in.
For what it’s worth, Valve says that these prices were not its original intention. In the announcement page, the company says that it started sourcing for parts for the Steam Machine back in 2023, with an understanding of the way the prices of said parts change over time. Thanks to the AI-driven memory shortage crisis, memory and storage prices have “changed quickly and significantly”, making the original price the company had for these cubes “no longer viable”.
Still A Really Steep Asking Price Though
On one hand, that’s a fair reasoning for what the machine is currently priced at. On the other, there’s no stopping anyone from balking at that price tag. As Kratos said in God of War Ragnarok, “intent doesn’t matter, only consequences”.
Either way, “the prices we’re sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing; or more accurately, it reflects the price of the components as we’ve secured them over the past six months”. On the flip side, Valve also points out that the Steam machine is “an extension of PC gaming”, distancing it from the idea of selling it at a loss the way consoles do.
In a similar vein as its Controller though, Valve is limiting the ways people can buy the Steam Machine to curb scalpers. It’s doing so by randomised reservation order, or simply raffling if you’re familiar with that term. That being said, only those with Steam accounts that are in good standing, and have made a purchase prior to 27 April 2026 may enter the raffle. There’s also a limit to one signup per household, and the company says that it will use payment methods, shipping address and other information to enforce this limit.
This naturally only applies to the three markets that the company serves directly, which are North America, United Kingdom + European Union, and Australia. Those in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong will have to deal with Komodo, the official distributor in those markets, instead. Elsewhere, including on our shores, we’re at the mercy of importers. And you know that prices tend to get uglier in the process, assuming they deem margins to be worth the trouble to begin with.
(Source: Steam)
