Valve has once again said that the launch of its new generation of Steam hardware products may be delayed until 2026, and this goal is now only a "hope", not a promise. Affected by the ongoing global shortage of memory and storage chips, the Steam Machine, Steam Frame and new Steam Controller, originally planned to be launched in early 2026, have still not been able to give a clear release date.
According to the latest statement released by Valve in the Steamworks community, the company stated that "we hope to ship in 2026", but at the same time admitted that the tight supply of memory and storage has brought obvious challenges to hardware planning, and further information will only be announced after the internal plan is finalized. In contrast, just last month, Valve insisted that it had not changed its plan to "launch three new hardware products in the first half of this year", which itself was already an extension based on "early 2026" and "first quarter of 2026", and now it has further retreated to the vague statement of "hoping to ship within 2026".
Valve has not yet responded to media requests for comment. As early as when this new hardware ecosystem was initially announced in November 2025, the industry had already noticed that as various AI companies rushed to purchase storage and memory chips, related costs began to rise significantly. Nowadays, all types of hardware manufacturers, regardless of their size, have to re-evaluate the impact of this "memory wave". Even leading manufacturers like Apple have been exposed to have to accept higher prices for memory purchases.
This chip shortage, known in the industry as the "RAM crisis," does not only affect the Steam Machine that has not yet been launched. Valve made it clear last month that this round of tight memory and storage supply will also affect the inventory of Steam Deck OLED, and there will be considerable uncertainty in the supply and pricing of related products in the future.
In Valve's narrative of creating a "new generation of Steam hardware universe", the Steam Machine is seen as the core of the concept of restarting the living room gaming PC, while the Steam Frame and the new Steam Controller play the roles of display and control portals respectively. However, in an environment where the prices of key components are soaring and supply is tight, whether this hardware layout can be implemented as scheduled in 2026 is now a question mark.