Valve’s Steam {Hardware} Is not Promoting Too Sizzling. Does it Matter?

Valve’s gaming {hardware} is pricey, and—due to the continuing RAM apocalypse—it’s getting extra expensive over time. You, expensive reader, are most likely asking your self whether or not the $1,050 Steam Machine or $790 Steam Deck is price it. The factor is, even Valve is aware of you don’t really need to purchase Valve’s handheld or PC/console hybrid. That’s not the rationale they exist.

Linux gaming weblog Boiling Steam printed two studies previously week providing some evaluation of Valve’s {hardware} gross sales information. First up, the weblog used “napkin math” to decipher that Valve could also be promoting between 12,000 and 15,000 Steam Machines per week since launch on June 22. The majority of these gross sales ought to account for the cheaper $1,050 512GB Steam Machine in comparison with the $1,350 2TB model. Remember, you may’t really purchase one proper now. You have to enroll in a waitlist after which pray your identify will get known as as much as make a purchase order. Limited provide will inevitably hamper long-term gross sales.

Valve’s console is affected by a restricted provide that can essentially hamper gross sales going ahead. It’s worse information for the Steam Deck OLED. Since Valve raised costs on its handheld, the Deck dropped from the highest 10 promoting objects on Steam. Boiling Steam estimates that Valve’s handheld gross sales have dropped by 80% since Valve hiked handheld costs again in May. That would certainly be an enormous drop, if true. Valve workers clearly doesn’t like how excessive costs have turn out to be. However, these units have been by no means going to promote in addition to different consoles.

Analyst agency IDC and The Verge beforehand reported that Valve had shipped round 6 million Steam Decks from 2022 to the primary months of 2025. Even when the Steam Deck was sitting fairly because the most-sold gaming handheld PC round, Sony was busy promoting round 7.1 million and 6.3 million PlayStation 5 consoles within the third and second quarters of 2022 alone.

Even if Valve’s gross sales information appears to be like dire, it’s important to perceive why these units exist within the first place. Valve needs to push Steam onto as many platforms as attainable. Rhys Elliot, the market evaluation head at analysis agency Alinea Analytics, reported late final yr that Valve ranked in a tidy $16.2 billion in income final yr, due to the 30% reduce on all video games offered on Steam plus its personal merchandise on the platform. The firm itself is a slim operation of roughly 350 full-time staff.

Valve reps have mentioned in interview after interview that they only wish to broaden PC gaming. What that actually means is that Valve needs to broaden entry to Steam. That’s why it promoted the Lenovo Legion Go S handheld in 2025 that ran SteamOS (that system now prices $860 in comparison with its $600 launch value). In 2026, together with the Steam Machine, Valve launched a brand new model of SteamOS appropriate with any PC working AMD {hardware}.

Despite the ballooning value of virtually all PC {hardware}, the primary draw with each the Steam Deck and the Steam Machine is the console-like ease with which gamers can rapidly get into their video games, sleep the units to pause their play, and handle their humongous Steam library with a controller-centric interface.

After the Steam Controller and Steam Machine, Valve has one remaining piece of drugs to launch in 2026, the Steam Frame VR headset. We nonetheless don’t understand how a lot it is going to value, nevertheless it may very well be essentially the most attention-grabbing—although area of interest—piece of drugs of the entire bunch. As for the black field of a console, you may merely use an present desktop as your Steam Machine. I managed to twin boot SteamOS on my residence PC alongside Windows 11 (utilizing two separate drives). This setup means I’m in no rush to purchase a less-powerful Steam Machine. I’m fairly certain Valve’s greater than tremendous with that, as long as I preserve shopping for video games on Steam.