The Steam Machine, Valve’s ambitious new venture into living room console gaming, was supposed to begin shipping in “early” 2026. That’s no longer the case. The company announced on Wednesday that its original launch plans have been pushed back to later in the year due to memory and storage shortages as companies race to pivot to AI.
“When we announced these products in November, we planned on being able to share specific pricing and launch dates by now,” Valve wrote in a new February 4 blog post. “But the memory and storage shortages you’ve likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then. The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame).”
The plan is still to ship the Steam Machine, a new Steam controller, and the new Steam Frame VR headset within the first half of 2026. That suggests the first units should still arrive in players’ hands sometime before June 30. But Valve adds that market conditions are currently shifting too quickly to confirm “concrete pricing and launch dates” at the start of 2026 as previously planned.
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