Steam Machine RAM Crisis Getting Worse, Valve Engineers Warn Prices Could Rise Into 2027

The memory shortage driving up hardware costs across the industry is still deteriorating, according to the Valve engineers who built the Steam Machine, who say what shoppers see on retail shelves today lags bulk supply by at least three to six months. Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais made the comments in an interview with Bloomberg, with prices likely to climb further by the start of 2027.

The lag is the part that matters, because it means the worst of what Valve is already seeing has not reached buyers yet.

“It’s Still Getting Worse”

Aldehayyat was blunt about the trajectory. “Honestly, it’s still getting worse,” he said. “Just in case people are not aware. What people are seeing on retail shelves right now, from our observations, is lagging what we’re seeing from a bulk supply by at least three to six months.” Since retail pricing trails the bulk market by that margin, the increases Valve is absorbing now are the ones consumers pay in three to six months’ time, which is what puts the start of 2027 in the frame.

The scale caught the company out. “We knew there was going to be an issue with sourcing,” Aldehayyat said, “but the extent was beyond anything we actually expected.” Griffais described a production line running flat out against a hard ceiling: “We’re basically building everything we can get our hands on. We’re limited by memory capacity, for sure.”

No Contracts, No Leverage

Griffais had already described the underlying problem last month in an interview with Gamers Nexus, explaining that Valve has been unable to secure supply contracts with any DRAM manufacturer. “Look, there’s no contracts,” he said in June. “There’s nothing. Like, those guys, they are, they give us a price every month or something and they say ‘You can buy that many’ and it’s yes or no. And if we say no, then they never talk to us again.” Buying on those terms means Valve has no ability to lock in a price or a volume, which is why its output is capped by whatever memory it can secure month to month.

Where It Might End

Aldehayyat’s read is that the pricing situation resolves one of two ways: either prices come down, or the current level becomes the new normal and buyers stop questioning it. Lenovo has made similar comments recently about the shortage worsening before it levels out. The one external factor that could shift things is legal, with a class action filed against the three largest RAM and chip manufacturers, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron Technology, accusing them of colluding to artificially raise prices.

For his part, Aldehayyat framed the hardware itself as the thing to judge Valve on rather than its price tag. “We suspect that the Steam Machine is a really good way to solve a very real problem that people have,” he said. “If that’s borne out to be true, from our opinion, it’s a success.” Whether buyers agree depends on a number that, by Valve’s own account, has not stopped moving.