Valve’s Steam Machine may not launch this year

Valve still can’t reveal details about the Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller launch dates, which were originally scheduled for early 2026. In a new post, the company now says “we hope to ship in 2026” due to the ongoing shortages of memory and storage chips, but that timeline sounds like quite a downgrade from the company’s earlier promises.

As recently as last month, the company explicitly said it had not changed its plans to ship all three new hardware products “in the first half of the year,” even though that itself was a change from its original goal of “early 2026” or “Q1 2026.” Now, it’s not clear if the Steam Machine will arrive in 2026 at all.

We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us. We’ll share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!

Valve didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. Right around its original November reveal, it became clear that memory costs were starting to skyrocket as AI companies started buying up as much of the chips as they could. Hardware makers of all sizes are having to grapple with what that means for their products, and many of the biggest hardware players aren’t immune; even Apple is reportedly being forced to pay higher prices for memory.