After its triumphant announcement last year of three new hardware products—Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and Steam Frame—Valve initially set its sights on a release in the first half of 2026. However, with the global AI industry's frenzied demand for memory and storage components, the resulting component shortages seem to be overwhelming Valve. In the latest...Official review articleValve has backtracked on its release date from the originally confirmed "first half of the year" to "hoping to ship in 2026," which has raised concerns that these highly anticipated new hardware products for the Steam ecosystem may face delays or even cancellations.
From "First Half of the Year" to "Hope": Valve's Official Stance Has Clearly Softened
According to a recent "Year in Review" blog post by Valve detailing the changes to the Steam platform in 2025, the official team shared a small but unsettling update when discussing hardware plans.
Back in February of this year, when Valve first acknowledged that the ongoing shortage of memory and storage components had impacted its hardware plans...This could lead to price increases.At the time, the official statement remained relatively clear: "Our goal of launching all three products in the first half of the year remains unchanged. However, we still need to work hard to finalize the specific prices and launch dates that we can confidently announce."
In its latest article, Valve's tone became more uncertain: "We hope to ship in 2026, but as we recently shared, the shortage of memory and storage components presents challenges. We will share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!" This shift from a clear "first half of the year" to a "hope for this year" with a fallback option undoubtedly casts a shadow over the timely release of the hardware, and clearly provides Valve with a loophole that may prevent it from launching new hardware this year.
The crowding-out effect of AI infrastructure and the soaring cost of memory have become a fatal flaw.
Valve is known for its tight-lipped secrets, making it easy for outsiders to over-interpret its limited public information. However, considering the supply chain challenges currently facing the entire tech industry, Valve's delay is not surprising.
The current arms race in AI data centers is directly consuming a large amount of memory and solid-state drive (SSD) production capacity in the market. For example, HP pointed out in February this year that memory now accounts for a full third of its PC construction costs, and many industry analysts also expect that memory shortages will force companies to raise product prices, thereby completely changing the ecosystem of the PC market.
In fact, Valve is already struggling to maintain a stable supply of its existing Steam Deck product due to difficulties in securing sufficient memory. Under these circumstances, procuring enough components for three additional new devices would be exponentially more challenging.
