Valve time strikes again. Three months after announcing a trio of new hardware products, including the Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Steam Controller, Valve has published a blog post detailing their delay. The new hardware was meant to arrive in the first quarter of this year, but this has now been “revisited” to the first half of the year due to the “memory and storage shortages you’ve likely heard about”.
The Steam Machine is likely the major catalyst behind the decision, as the sharp rise in RAM and storage prices could force a rethink for a living room box that was intended to bridge the gap between consoles and entry-level PCs. With RAM and storage prices doubling, tripling or even quadrupling over the past three months, even the relatively modest base model with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 512GB will now cost significantly more to produce.
For context, the cheapest 16GB DDR5 SODIMM kit has more than doubled in price on Amazon UK, from £67 on Valve’s November announcement date to £148 today. A 512GB 2230 NVMe SSD of the type used by Valve in the Steam Machine has also rocketed up in price, from £54 to £88 in the same time period. If we look at 2TB drives, it’s a steeper climb, from £129 to £244.
Valve isn’t paying consumer prices from Amazon, of course, but these price surges are a worldwide affair that have affected nearly every part of the PC industry. The situation could even postpone the release of the next generation of games consoles.
While the Steam Machine is the most obviously affected, the Steam Frame VR headset is also a miniature Snapdragon-powered gaming PC, with its own 16GB of LPDDR5X memory and 256GB or 1TB of storage, and its pricing will therefore need to be reconsidered. Previously, Valve had indicated that it expected the Frame to undercut the Valve Index in price, which retails for £919. The Steam Controller is the only member of the trio relatively immune to the current climate, though its launch is necessarily tied to the other two products.
Valve’s post states that it expected to be able to share pricing and availability data by now, so it will be interesting to see how long it will take the Washingtonian firm to release revised information. In the meantime, you can check out the recent blog to see a few more frequently-asked questions answered, on topics including RAM/storage upgradability, ongoing support for the Valve Index and expected Steam Machine performance figures, with more blogs to come over the coming weeks.
