Leaker Hints at Astronomical Steam Machine Pricing

Recent moves indicate that Valve is planning an imminent launch for the Steam Machine, but more recently, Valve increased the pricing of its existing Steam Deck hardware across the board by as much as $300. Following the announcement of the Steam Deck price changes, notable industry insider, Brad Lynch, who has previously supplied accurate leaks regarding Valve products, compared the updated Steam Deck pricing to what he had heard about the starting price of the Steam Machine. According to the leaker, the planned Steam Machine pricing from two months ago was “still higher than today’s Steam Deck prices.”

The implication seems to be that the Steam Machine pricing towards the end of March was higher than the current $949 top-tier Steam Deck OLED, and that the current Steam Machine pricing would likely be even higher, thanks to ongoing memory and general hardware shortages and price hikes over the ensuing months. Best-case scenario, Lynch means to say that the Steam Machine’s prior pricing was higher than the entry-level 512 GB Steam Deck OLED, which starts at $789. Of course, while there is speculation that the Steam Machine will launch soon, there has been no official confirmation to support this, and the same is true for pricing. Valve has previously said that it would not be pricing the Steam Machine as aggressively as it had priced the Steam Deck initially, but it may be reconsidering that approach if Steam Machine production units start piling up and hardware prices continue to increase.