Valve expects to share Steam Machine and Steam Frame news soon

Valve says its upcoming Steam Machine and Steam Frame projects remain in development as the company works through shifting hardware timelines and a global memory shortage that is affecting everything from Steam Deck to future devices. In a new interview with IGN, Valve programmer Pierre‑Loup Griffais said progress is steady even if the company isn’t ready to commit to firm dates.

Griffais noted that Valve is “hard at work on trying to get them out the door” and expects to “roll out some news soon,” but reiterated that there are “no exact details about the timeline to share today.”

The broader challenge facing Valve is the ongoing memory shortage, which has pushed component prices higher and constrained supply chains across the industry. Griffais said Valve’s strategy is to diversify suppliers wherever possible. “We’re trying to make sure to keep options open and to work with as many different manufacturers as we can,” he explained, warning that relying on a single source would leave the company “downstream of potential shortages” in ways that could affect continuity of supply and end‑user pricing.

According to Griffais, this strategy has been part of Valve’s hardware philosophy from the beginning. “From the get‑go, we’ve been trying to make sure that we have many options,” he said, calling it “really useful in this kind of climate” because it allows the company to work with “all the big players and some of the smaller ones as well.”

He compared the current memory crunch to the microcontroller shortage during the COVID era, which hit industries from automotive to consumer PCs. Valve was able to keep products shipping then because it had designed for flexibility. “We were able to navigate that and keep some supply in a climate where maybe some other players were not able to do that,” Griffais said. He expects Valve to approach the memory shortage “the same way,” even if the underlying conditions are “pretty global” and difficult for any manufacturer to fully avoid.

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KitGuru Says: It sounds like we can expect more Steam Machine and Steam Frame news as we get closer to the Summer. Unfortunately, there is still no word on how much this will end up costing amid all of the memory price adjustments going on week-to-week. 

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