As part of a year in review blog Detailing the changes Valve made to Steam in 2025, the company shared a minor update to its hardware plans that doesn’t sound good for anyone looking to buy a Steam Machine, Steam Controller, or Steam Frame in 2026. Specifically, the company is now opening up the possibility that its new hardware won’t ship this year at all.
Back in February, when Valve acknowledged that ongoing memory and storage shortages had delayed the launch of its hardware and could lead to higher prices, the company was still committing to a (fairly wide) window of when its hardware would ship:
“Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed. But we have work to do to set concrete prices and release dates that we can announce with confidence, knowing how quickly circumstances around both can change.”
However, as of the company’s latest release, things sound even less certain. “We hope to ship in 2026, but as we recently shared, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us,” Valve wrote in its Year in Review post. “We will share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!”
While Valve’s air of secrecy can make it easy to read too much into the limited information the company shares, going from “the first half of the year” to “[hoping] to ship in 2026” certainly gives it leeway to not release new hardware this year. And considering the difficulties other companies face in obtaining memory and storage, it wouldn’t be all that surprising.
HP said in February that RAM accounts for a third of its PC costs, and industry analysts expect the RAM shortage could radically alter the PC landscape as companies are forced to raise prices. Valve is already struggling to keep the Steam Deck in stock due to its issues securing RAM, it stands to reason that getting components for even more devices wouldn’t make that process easier. On the other hand, the company hasn’t updated its FAQ regarding launch timing, so there’s still reason to expect the Steam Machine to ship in 2026.
