Valve says it considered a barebones Steam Machine with the RAM and SSD left empty, but dropped the idea because it could not find a workable way to build and sell one for mainstream consumers. The decision comes as the machine is up for pre-order and is drawing attention for costing far more than a PS5 Pro while offering less raw performance.
The reason the idea came back at all is the one thing Valve could not ignore: RAM and SSD prices have climbed sharply over the past nine months, helping push the Steam Machine’s price point higher than many buyers expected. That has made the stripped-down version look attractive to DIY-minded PC users who would rather add their own parts than pay for memory already installed.
Yazan Aldehayyat said Valve spent a lot of time thinking about the option, but the company had to think through the whole chain: building the system, testing it, taking it apart and then shipping it again without damage. He said the disassembly is easier than on the Steam Deck, but “definitely more difficult” than working with a standard full-size desktop PC. In his view, the smaller the system gets, the harder it becomes to take apart.
That detail matters because Valve did not design the Steam Machine as a simple shell with empty slots waiting for buyers. The SSD slot was intended to be easy to reach from the start, but the SODIMM slots were placed much deeper inside the system. That layout makes sense for a finished product, yet it is exactly the sort of design that turns a lower-cost kit into a packaging and support problem. Valve also said it did not have time to test single SODIMM versus dual SODIMM performance in the limited window it had with the review unit.
Pierre-Loup Griffais said the barebones idea came too late in development to work out, after Valve had already ruled it out early and only revisited it because of the memory situation. Aldehayyat said Valve does not expect to have a solution right now, though it may eventually come up with one or even partner with somebody to sell parts. For now, the answer is blunt: the cheaper version that some buyers wanted is not on the table, and the company is betting that a finished Steam Machine is the only version it can realistically put in front of ordinary customers.
