Valve rules out Steam Machine exclusives, warns memory crisis is still getting worse

Valve engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Loup Griffais spoke to Bloomberg about the Steam Machine's philosophy — no exclusives, an open platform, and a grim outlook on hardware pricing. The interviews paint a clear picture of how Valve sees its role in the living room PC space.

On exclusives, Griffais was direct: "Restricting where people can play a game I don't think is a great model, at least for us. We're much more interested in having the whole PC catalog as our 'launch exclusive.'" Aldehayyat added that Valve wants it to remain viable for other hardware manufacturers to offer Steam Machines with higher performance or different feature sets. Griffais framed the long-term thinking around ecosystem growth — a third-party PC maker might ship a meaningful innovation that raises the bar for everyone, which ultimately means more games sold through Steam. On pricing, the news is worse: Aldehayyat said the memory crisis is "still getting worse," and that retail shelf prices are lagging bulk supply observations by three to six months. The Steam Machine currently starts at $1,049 for the base 512GB model, with a 2TB bundle hitting $1,428. Valve has said it would love to make the device more affordable but a price drop isn't coming any time soon.

Valve's no-exclusives stance is a deliberate contrast to Sony and Microsoft, both of which have doubled down on platform-exclusive titles as a competitive weapon. Valve's business model makes this easy to sustain — its 30% cut from Steam sales means it profits regardless of what hardware someone uses to play. SteamOS itself is freely available, and Valve has already shown it's comfortable with competitors like Lenovo shipping SteamOS-based handhelds that outperform the Steam Deck. The memory crisis driving up costs isn't unique to Valve either: Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra has said he expects the RAM shortage to last through 2027, and Epic's Tim Sweeney warned in late 2025 that high-end PC gamers will face elevated prices for several years.

For buyers hoping for a price cut before committing, the engineers' comments offer little comfort. Valve says it's building as many units as memory supply allows, but demand is outpacing what the company can source. Anyone eyeing the Steam Machine as a console alternative should expect four-figure pricing to stick around for the foreseeable future.