Friday, March 6th 2026
Steam Machine May Be Delayed After All—Still Shipping in 2026
Valve's announcement of the Steam Machine has generated a lot of excitement amongst PC gamers and apparently more than a little consternation in the ranks of traditional console makers, although the recent announcement that pricing for the upcoming living room PC is delayed due to the RAM shortage has poured a bit of cold water on things. Adding to that disappointment, Valve recently softened its promise to deliver the Steam Machine and Valve Index in "early 2026" as it had initially promised.
In a recent Steam Year In Review news post, Valve says that "We shared recently that there have been challenges with memory and storage shortages, but we will be shipping all three products this year. More updates will be shared as we finalize our plans." Notably, however, this previously read "We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us," according to VideoCardz, but the verbiage has since been changed. The Steam Store page for the Steam Machine only lists "coming soon" in the release date section, but it's also curious that Valve seems steadfast in its plans to release the Steam Frame, Machine, and Controller simultaneously, despite the potential delays in delivering the hardware.
Sources:
Valve, VideoCardz
In a recent Steam Year In Review news post, Valve says that "We shared recently that there have been challenges with memory and storage shortages, but we will be shipping all three products this year. More updates will be shared as we finalize our plans." Notably, however, this previously read "We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us," according to VideoCardz, but the verbiage has since been changed. The Steam Store page for the Steam Machine only lists "coming soon" in the release date section, but it's also curious that Valve seems steadfast in its plans to release the Steam Frame, Machine, and Controller simultaneously, despite the potential delays in delivering the hardware.
45 Comments on Steam Machine May Be Delayed After All—Still Shipping in 2026
I don't think we should expect a launch in 2026. And the hardware they want to release in the Steam Machine becomes more outdated every month that is passing. They have a lot to think about.
Is that STEAM OS that big of a deal that some ppl would pay that much of a premium for it with a weaker hardware?
Dunno, personally I would rather build a modern budget small-ish form system with a dedicated GPU at least and toss it next to my TV if thats what I really wanted..:oops: 'Heck probably even some gens older second hand build would be better than this thing and cheaper..'
Valve reminds me of the Nothing Phone. Its launch. Remember? They generated “news” until even the last possible interested party in the countryside was informed about them. I knew beforehand where this would lead. It will be similar with Valve.
With a friendly smile,
Fred.
Still occasionally using the original steam controller and steam link. Good kit.
It might also be worth the mention that people who would even consider a Steam Machine are the type of people who are far too intimidated by the idea of building a custom PC, and as such any considerations of custom builds being outright better are moot to those buyers.
Linux was popular on Steam Deck because of the ability it has to go to sleep. Something Windows is horrible with. Steam Deck in that regard acted more like a Nintendo Switch.
Steam Machine isn't for those intimidated by building a PC. While Linux gaming is easier then in the past on Steam Deck it is far from perfect. You still have to be willing to tinker and mess around with the settings. If you want more then Steam on it you have to do a deep dive into Linux as a whole.
Steam Machine is aimed at people that simply want an easy to use Steam Box in their living room. To play games either more causally or to play multiplayer games with the family.
If this gets much closer to 2027 only way I would consider it at all is with like a $400 or less price tag or if they upgraded the gpu at least to say like a RX 9060. DRAM and Storage pricing regardless of hardware is still going to be DRAM and Storage pricing. Might as well not waste it on older hardware and put it to good use on updated newer hardware. Especially considering the 9000 Series uses GDDR6 memory just like a RX 7600 series does.
I feel you can do far better in custom. I'm not really interested in this. But if I was afraid of my PC's innards, I can see how I might be.
2) Radeon 760M (8x CU RDNA 3.0) iGPU in Ryzen 5 8600G has enough power to play a LOT of games.
Of course not the bloated ones from last 4 years where even rtx 5090 strugles.
Pros:
iGPU - simplier (and cheaper) motherboard, simplier (and cheaper) cooling
soldered memory - faster memory
shared memory - some thing do not have to be here twice (saves transfers over PCIe)
Cons:
iGPU - lower performance than (not the low-end) dGPU
soldered CPU a memory - once its set, its forever as its usual for consoles
shared memory - may or may not be enough for OS, game and graphic data
PS: I do not mind it having iGPU.
I would like to have it more memory, more powerful and less obsolete GPU architecture.
Overall Linux adoption is far faster than specific SteamOS adoption meaning that Valve doesn't want to sell millions upon millions of devices, just to show the way.