It looks like Valve has delayed its new Steam Hardware
It looks like Valve’s Steam hardware is no longer launching “in the first half of this year
It looks like Valve has delayed its new Steam hardware, but things aren’t as bad as they first seemed. Initially, Valve’s new “Steam Year in Review” post stated that “We hope to ship in 2026”. Now, Valve has updated its post to clearly state that they “will be shipping all three products this year”, putting to rest any “delayed to 2027” rumours.
We shared recently that there have been challenges with memory and storage shortages, but we will be shipping all three products this year. More updates will be shared as we finalise our plans.
– Valve
While Valve hasn’t delayed its new Steam hardware products until 2027, it looks like it will miss its “first half of this year” launch window. Valve has changed its messaging here, and it sounds like gamers will be waiting a lot longer for Valve’s new gaming hardware than expected.
Memory and storage shortages
“Memory and storage shortages” have become a problem for Valve in 2026. Last month, Valve confirmed that its Steam Deck OLED could be “out-of-stock intermittently” in some regions due to these shortages. Basically, Valve is having trouble building the products it already sells. In other words, Valve does not have the required memory and storage to expand into new product categories without impacting the availability of its Steam Deck. There simply isn’t enough memory for Valve to build all the products it wants to.
Valve is facing the same supply issues as most of the consumer tech industry. Rampant demand for AI infrastructure has led to critical shortages of DRAM and NAND memory. This has led to huge price increases for both memory types and forced device makers to raise their system pricing. For now, Valve has avoided price rises. However, they have discontinued their lower-cost Steam Deck LCD 256GB model. In effect, this change has raised the baseline pricing for Valve’s Steam Deck.
Phison’s CEO recently stated that he expects many “systems vendors to go bankrupt or exit product lines” in the near term. While we do not expect Valve to go bankrupt, we do not expect the availability of Valve’s hardware products to suffer.
You can join the discussion on Valve’s Steam Hardware getting delayed on the OC3D Forums.
