{"id":1614602,"date":"2026-06-23T10:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T10:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Pv824UHDyiTTkLvX8NeNfM"},"modified":"2026-06-23T10:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T10:16:16","slug":"the-steam-machine-is-the-biggest-victim-of-the-rampocalypse-to-date-and-thats-made-me-unreasonably-annoyed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/the-steam-machine-is-the-biggest-victim-of-the-rampocalypse-to-date-and-thats-made-me-unreasonably-annoyed\/","title":{"rendered":"The Steam Machine is the biggest victim of the RAMpocalypse to date, and that’s made me unreasonably annoyed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’ve just finished reviewing the Steam Machine<\/a>, Valve’s TV-friendly gaming PC for the masses. I think that was the initial idea, at least. Unfortunately, Valve’s magic box has, thanks to the memory crisis, ended up with a price tag that simply doesn’t add up.<\/p>\n

For those who haven’t heard, the base-level, 512 GB, non-Steam Controller<\/a>-including Steam Machine retails for $1,049. Add a controller into the mix, and it comes in at $1,128. Back when we first took a whirl at predicting Steam Machine pricing, our average guess was around $525 for the base model.<\/p>\n

Oh, how wrong we were. To be fair to myself, Valve, and my hardware team colleagues, this was back in November of last year. The pre-RAMpocalypse times, as we now call them. Before the AI server market swallowed memory module manufacturing capacity<\/a>, and consumer electronics began to climb rapidly in price. <\/p>\n

We adjusted our guesses more recently, and actually came kind of close<\/a>, for the most part.<\/p>\n

Still, the final pricing has me all hot and bothered, even if it’s not far off what we eventually predicted. Because the Steam Machine, thanks to some lower-spec internal components now sold for high prices, represents poor value\u2014and I feel like it deserves more than that.<\/p>\n

And I haven’t even got to the 2 TB model I reviewed yet, which is $1,349 without a controller, and a wallet-trembling $1,428 with one. That’s a huge sum of money for a machine that struggles against budget gaming PCs, some of which come from the previous generation.<\/p>\n

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