Valve announced Steam Machine pricing and everyone's mad at the wrong people.

🫧 Open on Bubbles Let me explain — and to start with, no, I'm not thrilled it's starting at $1,049. But I'm also not surprised, and the discourse around it is missing the actual story so badly it's almost impressive. When Valve announced the Steam Machine back in November 2025 , the internal target was reportedly around $749. That was the goal. Then RAMageddon happened. DDR5 that was sitting at $80-120 for a 32GB kit at mid-2025 lows is now $300-500. DDR4 — the supposed "cheaper" fallback — went from $55-70