While the Steam Machine and Steam Frame are officially scheduled to land in summer 2026, Valve announced something else entirely in a blog post today. There’s still no word on how much either bit of hardware will cost.
Valve made the big release-window reveal in a developer-focused blog post about Steam Machine and Steam Frame being included in the Verified program, which launches with the Steam Deck and lets players see how well the games will run on the handheld. The verified program will do the same for Steam Machine and Steam Frame hardware. Valve says that for the Steam Machine, the requirements for the verified badge are almost identical to those for the Steam Deck.
For Steam Frame, Valve writes, “Like Steam Deck Verified, the Steam Frame Standalone Verified program focuses on the experience customers will have with the device out-of-the-box in standalone mode. The criteria are also similar: the default graphics configuration needs to perform well, text and UI elements need to be clear and legible on the underlying display, and the default controller configuration needs to work well with Steam Frame controllers. Same testing criteria VR titles “Applies to both non-VR and non-VR titles.”
There has been much speculation about the cost of Valve’s hardware since the Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller were announced in November 2025. The ongoing global memory shortage has caused the prices of gaming consoles and PCs to rise dramatically in 2026, and there is no clear end in sight. Xbox, Sony, and Valve have increased the prices of their existing hardware lines by hundreds of dollars this year, with Valve increasing the price of the Steam Deck by $300. Nintendo plans to follow suit for the Switch 2.
The Steam Controller hit the shelves on May 4 and is priced at $99, which is a perfectly reasonable price for a well-crafted non-PC controller with a touchpad. Of course, it only has kilobytes of RAM, and runs on the rather cool Haptic Scream.
In additional Steam news, the Store homepage looks a little different today. Valve has launched a refresh that aims to organize the chaos of all those game ads with wider, higher-resolution images and more quick-looking descriptions at your fingertips. The Wishlist and DLC sections are back, and there’s a new personalized calendar with even more game promos based on your play history. The Discovery Queue is now viewable in an overlay and has infinite scroll on the homepage.
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