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- Valve has announced that the Steam Machine is set to release in the summer
- The price still hasn't been announced, but analysts suggest it could start at USD 1,200
- The Steam Machine recently passed Vulkan conformance tests, suggesting it's closer than ever to release
The RAM crisis has kept Valve's hands tied, preventing it from launching the Steam Machine for months; instead, it has been stuck planning its launch date and pricing. Fortunately, there's been a significant update on its arrival, but with one key factor missing.
Valve announced that the Steam Machine will launch alongside the Steam Frame this summer, as per its latest Steamworks Development post. However, the price of the Steam Machine or its exact release date has still not been announced, as a result of the ongoing RAM crisis.
It's worth noting that the Steam Machine passed a Vulkan 1.4 conformance test, as reported by Game Rant, which heavily implies it's in the final stages of development (and at this stage, ready for launch), as these tests are done to ensure the hardware meets particular graphics compatibility standards.
While it appears as though everything is prepped on the hardware side for launch, Valve is clearly still not ready to commit to a price tag yet, or at the very least, isn't confident in an announcement — and to make matters worse, analysts are already indicating that the console-like PC won't launch at an affordable price.
Speaking to Eurogamer amid the recent Steam Deck price increases, analyst Mat Piscatella highlighted the difficulty in giving a definitive answer on the Steam Machine's price, but has a prediction based on the current market conditions.
"My confidence in this estimate is not high. If forced, I'd say that I'm assuming a $1,200 US launch price for the base version of the Steam Machine at the moment," Piscatella said.
"This market is not behaving normally, meaning that there are several external forces impacting it that do not allow for high confidence forecasting," which points towards the significant issues caused by memory shortages and external economic issues.
"I don't think the potential price for price increases impacting video game hardware stops at Valve, of course. We could see other price rises across both PC and console products, depending on what happens in the macro environment."
Both Valve's public trade records and Steam backend changes have given strong indications that the company has been actively working on getting the Steam Machine ready for a long while, and it's the same trend of activity noted before the Steam Controller's launch.
The issue is that the longer the time goes by without a price announcement, the less confidence it will instill in consumers that the Steam Machine will be priced in an affordable region.
It's hard to predict exactly when Valve will finally announce a fixed release date or price, especially with how impactful the RAM crisis has been — potentially even forcing last-minute changes — but at the very least, it's now slated to arrive during the summer.
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