Timing couldn't be worse for the Steam Machine, given that next year will see an increase in RAM prices. Unless Valve has planned ahead, the Steam Machine will cost more than they initially would have thought it would cost when they started planning to make this Steam Machine.

Yeah, it's insane how much the prices have gone up, percent-wise we're looking at an increase like that of GPUs during the Covid-19 pandemic and crypto boom of 2020-2022. I mentioned this earlier in a post, but when I built my rig in July 2023, my RAM cost me around 290$, the same exact kit now goes for well over 600$ (around 630$ in today's exchange rates). Some of those who "built a cheaper PC with their own parts" even picked DDR4, knowing full well that it costs half as much. Regardless of arguments around whether or not you need DDR5, the fact remains that the Steam Machine it, and costs double that of DDR4. 

More and more articles and whispers are quoting Valve internal sources or adjacent sources, all stating the same thing; this won't be priced like a console, it will be priced like a PC. One source mentioned that the hardware won't be "subsidized" - indicating that Vale intends to make a profit off of each sold unit from the start, that simply does not equate to 500-600$ with today's prices (tomorrow's prices are likely to be even worse, when all is said and done).

Slowgamer has caught on too now

https://www.eurogamer.net/steam-machines-price-will-be-more-in-line-with-current-pc-market-valve-says

Time to revise my prediction upwards, no longer think it will be in the 500-699 range, which means not worth it to me with those specs.

When further asked if the Steam Machine was "going to be a subsidised device", the Valve developer said its "more in line with what you might expect from [the] current PC market", again saying the team wants to ensure it is a good deal for consumers in relation to its performance. "You know, you have features which are actually really hard to build if you are making your own gaming PC from parts," Griffais further explained. "Obviously the small form factor and I think the noise level that we achieved (or lack thereof) is really impressive. We're excited that people are going to find out how quiet this thing is.

"But also, some integration features like HDMI CC, being able to turn on your TV, turn off your TV… that's all hard to do, but more importantly you can turn on the machine from your controller, which is not something that's straightforward depending on the kind of PC you have… so, being able to sit down on your couch, press one button on your controller and the whole thing lights up like you would expect for a thing that's in your living room, I think that's very valuable.

"There's not really a price point to that, because it's not something that exists in the PC market right now."

Closing, Griffais said there will be those among us who are perfectly happy to build a PC from scratch themselves. However, Valve's Steam Machine will be a "nice baseline offering", letting users access "some features which are really hard to get to otherwise".

Sounds like a bunch of excuses to be as expensive as a pre-built gaming PC.

Yeah this isn't aimed at the console market. 

They have already increased.

https://x.com/scaling01/status/1992012052249100521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1992012052249100521%7Ctwgr%5E83e360f9dca36506476f0c427e43f3a77f243970%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fvideocardz.com%2Fnewz%2F64gb-ddr5-6000-memory-kits-now-priced-near-radeon-rx-9070-xt-and-above-playstation-5

Good lord........it almost feels like DIY PC gaming is getting a death sentence. Motherboard sales are apparently going down dramatically, and CPU/GPU prices are expected to increase soon.

Better buy your pre-builts now! Steam Machine will practically feel like a god send at anything less than $1K.

Either this device gets delayed or it is DOA. Couldn’t have chosen a worse time to enter the hardware industry.

On a side note: Hopefully these shortages won’t have an impact on PS5/NS2 pricing? I’ve heard rumblings that Microsoft will be dropping another price hike on XBSXS in response to the recent chip shortage.

Think of any kind of device that uses RAM and assume that it will be affected down the road.

Off the top of my head: Cars, Laptops, Smartphones, Smart TVs, Game Consoles, medical equipment, anything that requires memory is going to be affected either directly or indirectly.

It was bad enough that 2 of the big 3 RAM manufacturers were dedicating a substantial amount of resources to these AI data centers, that up to 40% of the world's supply of RAM will be going to them. Now that the final of the big 3 is COMPLETELY removing itself from consumer products, they were also big on SSD manufacturing, that's going to make things even worse.

Some retailers around here have seen a 50% drop in motherboard sales in the past month, it's really bad. And GPU prices will jump again, I think AMD is hiking their prices today (literally today). It's disastrous. I'm glad I have a rig that will be good for years yet, but I dread having to upgrade anything in the near future, or if something croaks on me and needs replacement. 

Edit; I just looked around a bit - in my first post in the thread, I mentioned the RAM-kit I have costs 600 dollars now. Well, it costs 680 dollars today, that's almost 15% up in the past two weeks, and things will only get worse. 

Well… good thing I already got my Switch 2 and PC lol. Guess I get to avoid these price hikes for a bit.

Though something tells me Microsoft higher-ups foresaw these chips shortages bring a major issue down the road for hardware sales. Them being the biggest business involved in the AI industry, this wouldn’t surprise me much at all. Their defeatist rhetoric may have merely been an excuse, not something these talking heads actually believed.