AI might be dominating the news cycles at the moment, but in the world of XR, all we’re bothered about is Valve’s upcoming Steam Frame. However, with AI data centres gobbling up storage and RAM, creating shortages for businesses and consumers alike (thus increasing prices), Valve has announced that its plan to reveal the price and launch date of Steam Frame has been delayed.
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AI Encroaches on VR
Whether you use AI technology every day or not (if you even understand it), there’s no denying that global companies like NVIDIA, Microsoft, AMD, OpenAI, xAI, and all the rest are betting big on the technology. Billions are being invested in new data centres to drive Large Language Models (LLMs), and that means they need alot of new hardware. NVIDIA is one of the biggest proponents of AI, greatly shifting its focus and resources. And as widely reported, that’s meant crucial PC components like GPUs are becoming scarcer and more costly.
This has, of course, affected Valve and its plans to launch the Steam Machine, Steam Controller and Steam Frame this year.
Steam Frame Price and Launchest
All of these were revealed in late 2025 as a surprise announcement. At the time, Valve expected to release the Steam Frame in ‘early 2026’, and so we expected a price and launch date by now. Valve confirmed as much this week, saying: “When we announced these products in November, we planned on being able to share specific pricing and launch dates by now.”
The company then clearly explains and puts the issue at AI’s door: “But the memory and storage shortages you’ve likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then,” the blog post continues. “The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame).”
The one ray of light in all of this is that Valve does still plan a full hardware launch in the first half of this year.
“Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed. But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change. We will keep you updated as much as we can as we finalize those plans as soon as possible.”
Steam’s 2026 Hardware
As mentioned, it’s not just going for one hardware launch, it’s planning three: Steam Machine, Steam Controller and Steam Frame. While XRSource is keenly focused on Steam Frame, the long-awaited follow-up to Valve Index, it seems you can’t talk about one piece of kit without mentioning the others.
Reading between the lines, it does seem that Valve is planning – or at least trying – to make all three devices available at the same time. Ensuring that those customers who want to, they can buy into one ecosystem, playing their PC games on a Steam Machine before switching to Steam Frame for some immersive gaming.
It all seems very uncertain at present. Hopefully, Valve will be able to crunch those numbers and come back with a price real soon. The only worry is, how high will the prices now be?
