Valve Begins Shipping Steam Machine on June 29 at $1,049 Base Price

Valve will begin shipping its Steam Machine on June 29 at a base price of $1,049 without a gamepad and $1,128 when bundled with one. The company adopted a randomized purchase queue to make the buying process less frustrating and more fair. The device measures smaller than a PlayStation 5 and runs cool and quiet.

It runs Linux in desktop mode and supports any modern gamepad for navigation without a mouse or keyboard. Keyboards, mice, speakers, headsets, USB hubs, two monitors, and an external Blu-ray drive all functioned when connected in testing. The default resolution is set to 1080p.

Valve stated it negotiated with suppliers to sell components at cost amid a global memory supply shortage. The company secured roughly two-thirds of its planned stockpile. Performance tests showed smooth frame rates at 1080p upscaled to 4K using AMD FSR across multiple titles, including Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Returnal at 1440p medium settings, Forza Horizon 6 at 1440p high settings, Cyberpunk 2077 at upscaled 4K high settings, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider at true 4K medium settings.

Alan Wake II ran at an 847p base resolution via the Epic Games Store using Heroic. Valve said AMD FSR 4 upscaling will arrive in a future update and a graphics driver update is expected to improve ray-tracing performance by as much as 20 percent in some games. Valve fixed spontaneous reboot, freeze, and graphical error issues one day after they were reported.

Sleep mode preserved game sessions in three tests but lost them in three others, and in one case left the television on overnight. Powering on the device with a Steam Controller or Bluetooth pad wakes connected HDMI-CEC devices. The Steam Machine can be remote-controlled and stream games to or from a Steam Deck or other Steam computer, though it cannot be remotely woken if already asleep and does not automatically download games while powered down.