In a new interview, Valve has conceded it has no bargaining power when it comes to buying memory from the limited number of companies that produce it at scale and control the bulk of the market. The company explained that doing anything other than agreeing to the price offered would see Valve cut off entirely.

The explosive growth of the AI industry has come with gluttonous demand from AI businesses hoarding the same memory components that consumer electronics need. As demand outpaces supply, prices have shot up sharply.

For its part, Valve explained that it has not secured contracts for memory components.

“Look, there’s no contract; there’s nothing,” Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais told Gamers Nexus. “Like, those guys… they give us a price every month, or something, and they say, ‘You can buy that many, and it’s yes or no.’ And if we say no, then they never talk to us again.”

While Valve hasn’t been forthcoming with a precise figure, it’s estimated that the Steam Machine was probably originally going to cost somewhere around USD $750 before rocketing RAM costs ruled that out and led to the final USD $1049 price tag.

Valve’s new Steam Machine is far from the only consumer device feeling the pinch of RAM prices. Both Sony and Xbox continue to express concern over the significant challenges of launching new consoles amid such unprecedented demand for memory and storage chips, and Apple recently admitted that price rises for some of its products were now ‘unavoidable.’

However, while the Steam Machine’s price stings – and remains “a bit too expensive to take on the PS5 or the Xbox Series X” – IGN’s review noted Valve’s approachable new living room device remains easy to recommend as it’s “almost certainly the easiest way to get into PC gaming right now.”

You can learn more about the Steam Machine’s price and performance in IGN’s recent interview with Valve.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.