Valve has revealed one of the key reasons for the high cost of the Steam Machine. According to company engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais, the manufacturer faces serious difficulties in purchasing RAM and effectively has no opportunity to negotiate with suppliers.
Griffais said that memory manufacturers offer Valve fixed supply terms, leaving no room for price discussion.
They just name a price and a supply volume. This offer can either be accepted or rejected. If we refuse, they might not come back to negotiations at all.
The situation reflects general trends in the computer hardware market. Memory manufacturers are increasingly reorienting towards corporate clients and infrastructure for artificial intelligence. For example, Crucial has already stopped producing consumer RAM, focusing on supplies for businesses. At the same time, a significant portion of Samsung and SK Hynix's products are purchased by technology giants such as Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google for building new AI data centers.
The high price of the Steam Machine has previously raised questions within the community. Insider KeplerL2 recently stated on social media that Valve either has a very high margin on the device or the company is seriously overpaying component suppliers. Another well-known insider, Moore's Law is Dead, suggested that users would benefit more from assembling a PC themselves for a similar amount, getting a more powerful system.