Evaporated steam
Valve’s Steam Machine was poised to expand on the success of Steam Deck, but it’s currently in limbo, and so is the deck.
Credit: Valve
Valve’s Steam Machine was poised to expand on the success of Steam Deck, but it’s currently in limbo, and so is the deck.
Credit: Valve
But Valve’s push to compete directly with Microsoft and PC hardware makers has hit a wall, at least so far: Big costs are rising and supply is growing for all kinds of PC components, especially memory and storage chips.
The problems that began to affect the PC component market in late 2025 are now being felt throughout the consumer technology industry. Chipmakers are all chasing the generative AI gold rush, which has huge demands on storage, memory, GPUs, and even CPUs. That means less manufacturing capacity for the components that go into consumer-grade hardware and more of a fight for the remaining supply. Already driven up by the Trump administration’s illegal tariffs, prices are now driven up by shortages instead.
This has been especially difficult for anyone trying to build cheap or low-margin hardware. Game console price discounts, Thanks to the death of Moore’s Law, it is now a thing of the pastgave way to the price walks instead of. Companies like Raspberry Pi and Framework have raised prices several times this year; even Apple, which has historically been able to provide affordable prices for components due to its large size, has had problems.
For Valve, these issues have not only delayed Steam Machine indefinitely (“first half of the year” is still the plan, giving Valve two months to figure it out), but also made the 4-year-old Steam Deck largely unpurchasable. Third-party handheld manufacturers have raised prices and delayed products indefinitely, taking away another potential source of first-time SteamOS users.
It was always difficult to see how the steam engine would turn out it competes with consoles on priceand even though consoles cost a fair amount now than they did a few years ago, that’s probably still true. Even so does launch, and even if Valve can keep it in stock, it might not be available at a price most people are actually willing to pay.
