Valve now says that the delayed Steam Machine PC and Steam Frame VR headset are scheduled to launch sometime this summer. In a Thursday blog post detailing its verification programs for both pieces of hardware, Valve concluded by saying “We’re excited for players to try out your titles on the new Steam hardware once they launch this summer.”
When the company originally announced the machine and frame along with its new Steam controller late last year, it said it would start shipping the new gadgets in early 2026. But in February, the company announced that ongoing memory and storage shortages had forced it to rethink its pricing and shipping plans. And in March, Valve said in a blog post that it would “ship all three products this year” — though the company had initially said in the post that “we expect to be shipping in 2026,” which it removed in an update.
Valve chose to release the Steam Controller on its own, and put it on sale in early May. For machine and frame, while “summer” isn’t really a specific date, it does narrow the window for when the product can finally come out.
Before actually launching the devices, Valve is redesigning the Steam Store and sharing information about verified programs for the hardware so developers can prepare their games. Like Steam Deck, if a game is verified for a machine or frame, the badge indicates that the game should work well without any changes by the user.
For the machine, the requirements to verify a game are “almost the same” as for the Steam Deck. With the machine being “about six times more powerful” than the deck, in theory, many more games would be verified for it. Valve also says it is “testing each title on a machine that is below our performance requirements on deck.”
As for Frame, Valve’s Verified badge will denote games that run well when played natively on a headset – as opposed to games that work well stream For the headset, which is also able to frame. Valve says, “Like Steam Deck Verified, the Steam Frame Standalone Verified program focuses on providing customers with the out-of-the-box experience of the device in standalone mode.”
Now, we just need Valve to share when the Steam Machine and Steam Frame will release and how much they might cost. After seeing Steam deck prices go up last week, I’m getting ready for sticker shock.
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