Valve's "Steam Machine" gaming PC will be in trouble if this RAM pricing crisis worsens — should we expect gamers to foot another unwanted bill from AI-obsessed megacorps?

In another example of the many ruining it for the few, PC gamers might have a bright light on the horizon dimmed by the ever-increasing greed of massive corporations chasing a new trend: enterprise-grade artificial intelligence. Valve, the venerable brand behind the largest digital PC games platform of Steam, is planning to take another gamble in the hardware space, but it's looking riskier than ever.

This time, the problem shifts from cryptocurrency devotees vacuuming up the world's fair share of graphics cards to AI fanatics driving up RAM prices and ruining any concept of affordability for hobbyists building custom gaming desktop PCs. While GPU prices are showing signs of returning to earth, memory prices are surging to a horrific peak.

Expanding DRAM panic has some fans understandably nervous about the presumed price of Valve's Steam Machine. Its pre-built gaming PC could end up falling too far from its implied benefits as an affordable entryway for novices if it ends up being more expensive than alternatives, regardless of your plans. So, how will RAM prices affect Valve?

First, Valve hasn't confirmed any prices to date. However, our early analysis of the Steam Machine estimated a range between $650-$750, with my personal estimation resting more on that lower end for a theoretical SKU shipping without the new Steam Controller. There's no reason to expect Valve to subsidize the cost of the Steam Machine, but it aimed to deliver "a good deal" in line with the pre-RAM-crisis PC market.

The "pre-crisis" part is the key here. Whatever conversations we could have had around the Steam Machine's pricing have potentially been ruined by skyrocketing RAM prices, but there are some possible workarounds that might already be in place. For example, Valve is working with AMD on a custom Zen 4 APU (processor), similar to what was made for its excellent Steam Deck handheld PC, and if that already made it to mass production, enough units might be able to support prospective sales for a while.

The kind of long, skinny RAM sticks that you might be familiar with aren't identical to dedicated memory embedded as a tile within a System-on-Chip (SoC) processor like AMD's custom APU for Valve, but both are threatened to face scarcity as the new year is about to begin. Popular RAM manufacturer Micron has already shut down its Crucial consumer memory arm, for example.

Micron dropping long-service RAM customers in favor of "supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments" is possibly the most concrete example of enterprise AI swaying brands into following suit after megacorps like Microsoft invested $80 billion into data centers. Basically, artificial intelligence detacenters require a lot of RAM, and it's being gobbled up with priority over consumer sales.

Will the RAM crisis affect the Steam Machine?

So, I can see it going a couple of ways for Valve: If it's sitting on a stockpile of APUs with embedded RAM in anticipation of the Steam Machine's launch phase (based on its experience with the Steam Deck), it might remain reasonably priced for a while. On the other hand, Valve might have just missed its window of opportunity and is about to be burned with price hikes.

Could Valve have been waiting to gauge the community's response before committing to shipments? Maybe, but I don't buy into the theory that AMD has an enormous minimum order requirement, which is something that floated around after Xbox sidelined its first-party handheld in favor of a partnership with ASUS on the Xbox Ally X.

The overarching theme is that Valve will eventually need to eat these costs if the RAM crisis doesn't settle down — and the AI "bubble" doesn't show any signs of bursting. To be clear, if we're exclusively considering enterprise-grade implementations, I don't think it's going to burst, at least not in the same way as ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews appeal among the general population might.

Furthermore, I don't believe Valve would offer a "barebones" variant of the Steam Machine with missing parts and ask consumers to provide anything like a separate SSD for storage, because that goes against the purpose of the whole project: a console-like gaming PC that needs almost no configuration.

However, I do think that my aspirations of a $650 Steam Machine SKU without the Steam Controller are starting to look painfully unlikely, thanks to this gross RAM crisis we're suffering through.

Valve isn't a publicly traded company, so its risks are its own to take, but anything above $750 will struggle to appeal to newcomers and experienced gamers alike — and I just want more people to enjoy PC gaming. Are you planning to buy a Steam Machine or do you prefer building your own desktops? Let me know in the comments!

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