Valve has yet to announce the price of the Steam Machine, but issues with the company’s other hardware may indicate upcoming issues. Valve’s new console-like PC was announced late last year, alongside a new Steam Controller and the Steam Frame VR headset, but its price has yet to be revealed due to ongoing hardware shortages.
While no new word regarding the Steam Machine has arrived, Valve has provided a concerning update on the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck store page now reads, “Steam Deck OLED may be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages.” This isn’t necessarily surprising given the ongoing issues with electronic components, but an existing supply chain becoming affected does not bode well for Valve being able to keep up with Steam Machine demand.
Valve’s Steam Deck Is Suffering From Supply Shortages Caused By The AI Industry
Valve’s impressive portable PC appears to be just the latest victim of the shortage. RAM is the most affected component, with existing supplies skyrocketing in price in recent months, but other pieces of hardware are becoming hard to acquire as well. Valve’s notice on the Steam Deck page indicates that NVMe solid-state drives are in notably short supply as well—both Steam Deck models use such SSDs.
Shortages are affecting more than just gaming; impacts are felt broadly throughout consumer electronics markets, and it’s all downwind of “AI” development. RAM is being purchased en masse by tech companies to fuel production on their large language models—OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, etc. Tech companies buying out such supply chains has already made building a gaming PC prohibitively expensive, will potentially affect the price of current-gen consoles, and may now prove an issue for Valve’s Steam Machine.
It’s Going To Be Difficult To Get A Steam Machine
New gaming hardware launches are already notoriously finicky—it was hard to get a Switch 2 last year, and the experience was even worse for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S launch, which came during a similar shortage caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. Valve has already delayed announcing the Steam Machine’s price because it’s reevaluating costs, but if it’s also having issues with production of the Steam Deck, the most recent iteration of which came out over two years ago, then it is unlikely that supplies of a new device will be able to meet demand.
The only silver lining to the Steam Deck being out of stock intermittently is that Valve has potentially shifted its resources to the Steam Machine to make its launch as smooth as possible. Withholding its price point is still concerning nonetheless. The Steam Machine is likely to be in high demand, especially if it’s revealed to have an agreeable price tag. It aims to bridge the gap between the convenience of a console and the capabilities of a PC, but if the Steam Deck supply issues are any indication, it may be exceedingly difficult to acquire a Steam Machine at launch.
- Date Founded
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August 24, 1996
- CEO
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Gabe Newell
- Subsidiaries
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Campo Santo