Valve suggests memory crisis is "still getting worse," admitting, "we're limited by memory capacity, for sure" - GamesIndustry.biz

What the report says

GamesIndustry.biz reported that Valve is facing worsening pressure in securing memory and storage components for its Steam Machine hardware, citing comments made by Valve engineers in an interview with Bloomberg. The company said it had expected supply challenges because of heavy demand from AI-related data centers, but the scale of the shortage exceeded its expectations.

Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais said the company is producing as much hardware as available components allow and acknowledged that memory capacity is a limiting factor. Another Valve engineer, Yazan Aldehayyat, described the supply situation as continuing to deteriorate, adding that retail pricing and availability appear to trail bulk market conditions by several months.

According to GamesIndustry.biz, Valve says the memory and storage crunch will not change the Steam Machine roadmap. The company also expects pricing to settle over time, either through reduced component costs or through today’s elevated costs becoming the market norm. The Steam Machine, positioned as a desktop or living-room counterpart to the Steam Deck, was recently announced in 512GB and 2TB versions priced at $1049 / £879 and $1349 / £1149.

The report noted that availability is highly constrained, with initial access handled through a lottery and later buyers directed to a waiting list. Analysts who spoke to GamesIndustry.biz characterized the device as likely to remain niche because of its cost and form factor, while Valve has acknowledged that the hardware is more expensive than it wanted. The situation highlights how AI infrastructure demand is affecting consumer gaming hardware supply chains.