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As players come to grips with the $1,049 price of the Steam Machine, Valve has said it would love to make it more affordable, while warning that a price drop won't arrive any time soon. Engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais and Yazan Aldehayyat opened up about the Steam company's hardware strategy during an interview with Digital Foundry. Their words arrive amid shortages for components like RAM and skyrocketing costs for gaming consoles and PCs across the globe.The Valve team was asked if they would be open to lowering the price of the Steam Machine should these wider issues be resolved. Griffais admitted that there is no point for us to keep hardware at a high price. It's meant to be an enabler of a stronger connection between people and their games, Griffais said, and not something that we're trying to sell to people for other reasons... [For us], the cheaper the better. The cheaper the better should come as a welcome idea both to those eager to pick up a Steam Machine and those waiting for a price drop. The issue, however, is that the future isn't exactly set up for costs to come down in the near future.Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said earlier this week that the expectation is for the AI-driven RAM shortage, specifically, to last at least through 2027. While Mehrotra said the hope is that things will start to ease in 2028, as noted by Digital Foundry and as reported by The Register, the memory technology company just locked in historically high prices for five years.Aldehayyat doubled down on the idea that Valve would prefer for its Steam Machine to come down in price. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like such a move will be in the cards for quite some time. It's obviously hard for us to predict the future, but we're not optimistic it's going to happen any time soon, Aldehayyat explained. Other people in the industry have said as much. He continued: Obviously, we would love to be able to make the Steam Machine more affordable and reach more people, but I don't want to promise to people that it's coming soon. I wouldn't say that this is something that's going to resolve very soon. Valve pulled back the curtain on its Steam Machine in November 2025 to reveal a device it hopes will bridge the gap between PC and console gaming. It almost immediately began to warn that its price could be quite steep before finally announcing its official price tag earlier this week. For those still catching up, it costs $1,049 for its 512GB model, with its 2TB option priced at $1,349 or $1,428 when bundled with a Steam Controller.For more about the Valve console, you can read IGN's 8/10 Steam Machine review. You can also see why the company is refusing to subsidize the device, as well as what it had to say about its relationship with RAM companies.Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).