The big news this week in PC gaming was the reveal that Valve's Steam Machine PC-console hybrid costs $1049 for the cheapest model, a figure that sent shockwaves through the gaming community despite the fact that component and thus hardware prices have been historically high for quite some time.
The rapid proliferation of AI data centers has driven the cost of memory through the roof, and when you couple that with global economic instability and high inflation, well, you have both video game consoles and gaming PCs with exorbitant price tags both on store shelves and on the second-hand market. Still, $1049 for the entry level model in a lineup of PC-only gaming consoles is a tough pill to swallow no matter how much we've all got used to everything being ridiculously expensive, but don't expect Steam Machines to drop in price any time soon.
Talking to Digital Foundry, Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais is asked if there's any chance Steam Machine costs will drop when the current RAM shortages are resolved, and he dodges the question but argues that from a business perspective, the current price doesn't make sense.
"There's no point for us to keep hardware at a high price," he says. "It's meant to be an enabler of a stronger connection between people and their games, and not something that we're trying to sell to people for other reasons... [For us], the cheaper the better."
Meanwhile, another Valve engineer on the Steam Machine's hardware team, Yazan Aldehayyat, straight-up downplays the idea of a price drop any time in the near future.
"It's obviously hard for us to predict the future, but we're not optimistic it's going to happen any time soon. Other people in the industry have said as much.
"Obviously, we would love to be able to make the Steam Machine more affordable and reach more people, but I don't want to promise to people that it's coming soon," adds Aldehayyat. "I wouldn't say that this is something that's going to resolve very soon."
If you want something slightly more concrete, or at the very least specific, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra recently estimated that the ongoing RAM shortage will likely continue through 2027 before "gradually" improving in 2028. That doesn't help much if you're looking to lock in a Steam Machine pre-order soon, but it's good to have some idea of when things might start to normalize... well, in terms of the cost of gaming hardware anyway.
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