Valve has revealed the price of the Steam Machine, ahead of its release.
As seen on the official Steam store, the standard Steam Machine will come in four versions, priced as follows:
- 512GB model – $1,049 / £879
- 512GB with Steam Controller – $1,128 / £938
- 2TB model – $1,349 / £1,149
- 2TB with Steam Controller – $1,428 / £1,208
Other than the storage size, both models have identical specs, though the 2TB model will also include two extra faceplates, red fabric and solid walnut.
Whereas the recently released Steam Controller was sold on a ‘first come, first served’ basis, which led to scalping issues, this time pre-orders will be going into a randomised queue.
Users will be able to register their interest for any of the Steam Machine models from now until June 25, at which point all pre-orders will be randomised and placed into a queue. Valve says it hopes this method won’t “reward bots” and will ensure everyone has a fair chance to order one without having to “schedule their life around that moment”.
Users will still be able to pre-order a Steam Machine after the June 25 window closes, but at this point their order will simply be added to the end of the queue.
Valve has confirmed that the price is higher than it had originally planned, with the ongoing surge in component costs affecting matters.
“Steam Machine, like our other hardware products, is made up of many components that we source from manufacturers around the world,” the company said in a blog post. “The price at which we sell our hardware is a direct result of the cost of these components.
“We felt like we had a good understanding of how those costs might change over time when we first started sourcing them for Steam Machine back in 2023. That understanding was born from the many years of data we all have about the evolution of PC hardware prices – primarily, that it tends to get cheaper over time as new technology arrives.
“Over the past year or so, that has changed quickly and significantly, most visibly for RAM and storage components. There are a variety of reasons, all of which are affecting hardware products everywhere. The overall effect is that our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable.
“So 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 6 months.
“Price wasn’t the only thing impacted by all of this – availability was as well. There were periods where we found we couldn’t source some of our components at all, at any price. More than anything else, this has impacted the number of units we’ve been able to produce for launch.”
Engineer Yazan Aldehayyat also told Eurogamer that while the original price was never officially confirmed, the final price is “significantly more” than it had envisioned.
