Several months after its November 2025 introduction, you can finally buy Valve’s Steam Machine. However, you might want to brace yourself for the high price — while expected, it’s not the budget-friendly living room PC some had been hoping for.
The new device is available today starting at $1,049 for a model with 512GB of storage, and $1,349 for a 2TB version with two extra faceplates. You can also purchase either variant bundled with the new Steam Controller for an additional $79.
Valve hopes to combat resellers and scalpers through a reservation system. Reserve a Steam Machine before June 25 at 1PM ET and the company will randomly place orders for reservations and waitlists. If you make it through the reservation queue, you’ll get an email when your turn comes to complete the purchase. Those relegated to a waitlist will have to be patient until more units become available.
The first Steam Machine units ship June 29, Valve says. To reserve, you’ll need a Steam account in “good standing” that has purchased at least one item before April 27, 2026. Only one reservation is allowed per household, but you can request multiple models if you’re willing to wait for whichever configuration is available.
The Steam Machine is built around a custom AMD processor that is much faster than the Z1 chip found in the Steam Deck, with benchmarks on par with some Ryzen 7000 CPUs. It comes with 16GB of RAM and 8GB of video memory. Early reviews state that it delivers the same ease of use as the Steam Deck, but that its price makes it a tough sell for enthusiasts who can build their own living room PCs.
Why is the Steam Machine so expensive?
Valve sees it as a PC, not a console
The $1,049 starting price for the Steam Machine is significantly higher than some expected, with early unofficial estimates pegging it at around $700.
However, Valve reiterates that it sees the device as an “extension of PC gaming, not as a console.” In other words, the company is not taking a loss on the device and making up for it through game sales or subscriptions. It wants to make a profit on the hardware, even if that makes a PlayStation 5 Pro look more attractive at first glance.
Like much of the technology industry, Valve is also grappling with soaring costs for memory and other components as the AI boom leads to shortages. While it’s not known what the company wanted to charge last November, it most likely had no choice but to adapt.
Valve knows that some potential buyers either can’t afford a Steam Machine or aren’t willing to wait, and to that end allows anyone to install SteamOS 3.8 on PCs with AMD GPUs. If you already have the components available, you can replicate the core experience without paying a premium.
Credit: Jonathan Fingas / How-To Geek. Published Jun 22, 2026.
