The Steam Machine and Steam Frame are set to come out sometime this summer, according to a Valve that once said the hardware would launch in early 2026, but I'm not holding out too much hope with memory chips still in short supply.
In a new blog post, Valve promises that both pieces of hardware will begin shipping this summer... so, any day now? The pre-built PC aiming to offer console-level comforts has seen such a big delay largely because of memory chip shortages, fuelled by the non-stop construction of AI slop factories.
The increasing price of RAM and lack of supply has hit other hardware makers in the games space especially hard. PlayStation raised the price of all PS5 consoles a few short months ago, with a whopping $900 price tag for the PS5 Pro. Xbox consoles saw two price hikes in a five month span, and even Nintendo felt the squeeze with a $50 increase in Switch 2 costs.
Earlier in the year, Valve even publicly pleaded for a RAM supplier and later said the ongoing memory drought would probably affect plans to price the Steam Machine as competitively as the company would like to. All that's to say, the lack of pricing in Valve's latest update doesn't exactly inspire me with hope.
Still, there's quite a bit of good news here as well. Valve announced that it's expanding its Steam Deck Verified program to also determine how well games will run on the Steam Machine and Steam Frame.
"The requirements for Steam Machine Verified are nearly identical to Steam Deck Verified, and focus on the customer experience out of the box: Does the default controller configuration work well? Do the default graphic settings perform well? Tens of thousands of Steam titles have gone through the Steam Deck Verified program so for both developers and customers the Steam Machine Verified program will feel very familiar," the company writes.
"Long story short: If your game already runs well on Deck, it will also run well on Machine with no extra work required from you. And if it doesn't run great on Deck because of CPU or GPU performance, it may still run great on Machine. If you have games like this, you don't have to take any action," it continues, explaining that it's already testing all the games that didn't meet Steam Deck's performance requirements. Steam Frame's criteria is also similar.
