A disturbing trend with the Steam Deck might point toward a rough Steam Machine launch. In a new statement from Valve, the company has confirmed that its products could be sold out for intermittent periods of time due to RAM shortages and price increases.
Steam Deck Sells Out – Valve Confirms Memory Shortage
If you are doing a double take at that headline, I don’t blame you. But it’s true! Despite being widely available for years, the Steam Deck is now sold out. On Steam’s official store page, all three models no longer have any stock in North America. This is quite shocking, considering the handheld console launched way back in 2022 and has never had stock issues this bad before.
Following the Steam Deck selling out, Valve itself issued a response on the bottom of the product page: “Steam Deck OLED may be out of stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages.” Although, as of the time of this article, the LCD version of the Steam Deck is also sold out, so it’s not just the OLED being in high demand.
More importantly, Valve’s statement confirms what many have feared for months now: that the RAM shortage crisis is now directly impacting the stock of Steam products. Following the Steam Deck selling out, many players have now become worried that the Steam Machine release date could be an absolute nightmare to navigate.
Why the Steam Machine Launch Could Be a Nightmare
This isn’t the first time that it’s been speculated that the Steam Machine could be sold out for most of 2026. In a November 2025 podcast, Tech insider Moore’s Law Is Dead actually predicted that the new PC console hybrid would be nearly impossible to purchase after its launch for most players.
“If Valve bought up enough RAM, they could do a normal launch. But then it will sell out and it will be hard to get for a long time. If they didn’t buy up RAM ahead of time, I think they might need to just cancel this.” Obviously, Valve isn’t going to cancel the Steam Machine at this point. But a lot of what Moore’s Law Is Dead speculated is apparently coming true.
Here is why Steam Machine might be really difficult to purchase at launch:
- RAM Shortage and Rising Component Prices might mean Valve has less stock at launch.
- With prices of gaming devices rising, it’s also caused an explosion of demand from consumers who want to buy before costs go up further.
- Steam Machine might now be seen as an actual alternative to custom PC gaming rigs due to component scarcity in the consumer market.
- It’s a new Valve product. With the success of Steam Deck, players really want the next Steam console.
As experts have pointed out, it all comes down to when Valve started the production of the Steam Machine. More specifically, it depends on whether the company bought up enough RAM and hardware components before the worldwide shortage.
Why Steam Machine Price doesn’t matter
Even if Valve did manage to buy up enough RAM before the boom, it will still have trouble making more Steam Machines quickly after the initial stock sells out. Finally, there was a lot of talk about the Steam Machine price and worries that it would be too expensive. However, even if the Steam Machine price is high, I still believe it will sell out instantly.
A good example of this is launch of the Switch 2. When Nintendo revealed the new console would sell for $499, fans initially decried the price as being too high. Despite this, the console pretty much sold out instantly, and continues to perform well at retail.
Demand in the gaming industry has never been higher. The fact that we are in a component and pricing crisis is certainly not helping the situation. If you are a gaming enthusiast, things are going to continue to get more expensive in 2026. And incredibly products will keep selling out at their increased pricing.
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