As part of the Year in Review blog detailing the changes Valve is making to Steam in 2025, the company has shared a minor update on its hardware plans that doesn’t look good for anyone hoping to buy a Steam Machine, Steam Controller, or Steam Frame in 2026. Notably, the company is now opening up the possibility that its new hardware won’t ship at all this year.
In February, while Valve acknowledged that memory and storage shortages had delayed the launch of its hardware and could lead to higher prices, the company still committed to a (fairly wide) window of when its hardware would ship:
“Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed. But we have to work on solid pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, keeping in mind how quickly the circumstances surrounding both of those things can change.”
However, according to the company’s latest post, things seem even less certain. “We expect to ship in 2026, but as we recently shared, memory and storage constraints have created challenges for us,” Valve wrote in its Year in Review post. “We will share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!”
While it may be easy to read too much into the limited information the company has shared due to Valve’s confidentiality, the move is moving from “first half of the year” to “first half of the year.”[hoping] “To ship in 2026” certainly leaves room for not releasing new hardware this year. And given the difficulties other companies are having in sourcing memory and storage, it wouldn’t be surprising at all.
HP said in February that RAM accounts for one-third of the cost of its PCs, and industry analysts expect the RAM shortage could fundamentally change the PC landscape as companies are forced to raise prices. With Valve already struggling to keep the Steam Deck in stock due to issues with securing RAM, it stands to reason that sourcing components for even more devices won’t make that process any easier. Again, the company hasn’t updated its launch timing FAQ, so there’s still hope for the Steam Machine to arrive in 2026.
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