The Steam Machine is finally here, and Valve is aiming to get its small gaming PC into the hands of more gamers and fewer scalpers. While the Machine starts at $1,049 and goes up from there, the company is still expecting intense interest and has limited components.

The company is instituting a new, more randomized reservation system that aims to ensure that bots, people with faster internet connections, and people who "can schedule their life around that moment" aren't prioritized.

Reservations are open now on Steam, and you can sign up for the Steam Machine configuration or bundle that you're interested in anytime before Thursday, June 25th at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET. When the sign-up period ends, Valve will randomize the list in order to determine the order. After that time, all new sign-ups will join the end of the waitlist.

Following the randomization, people who signed up will get one of two emails on that day. They will either be added to the reservation queue, and there's a Steam Machine with their name on it, or you’ll be on a waitlist and will be informed when units become available. The waitlist consists of people further down on the list than there are Steam Machines in this production run, and you're waiting for people with reservations to cancel or for future batches.

To sign up, you need a Steam account in good standing, with a purchase made on the platform before April 27, 2026. Only one reservation is allowed per household, with Valve looking at payment methods, shipping addresses, and "other information" to remove duplicates. While the purchase limitation stops scalpers from making new accounts to get on the line, it also may prevent new potential Steam customers from getting into the ecosystem.

You can sign up for multiple configurations, and if you're given a spot for more than one, you'll get a reservation for the "highest end one" and be removed from the other lists. If you sign up for multiple and don't make any lists, you'll be placed on a waitlist for the system you were closest to getting. The lists are also broken down by region: North America, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Australia.

The week of June 29, Valve will start emailing customers in the reservation queue. They'll get an option to purchase, with 72 hours to buy before Valve skips to the next person in line. The reservation queue is expected to last through the rest of the year, suggesting many waitlist customers will be waiting quite a while.

Pricing and a lack of subsidies

The Steam Machine comes in four configurations: 512GB, a 512GB bundle with a Steam Controller, 2TB (including two extra faceplates, a wooden one and a red one, pictured above), and a 2TB bundle with a Steam Controller. Here are the prices:

The company said increases in the cost of components led to these prices. "The overall effect is that our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable," the blog reads. "So the prices we're sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing; or, more accurately, it reflects the price [of] the components as we've secured them over the past 6 months."

The company added that they couldn't source some components at all, which reduced the number of systems available at launch.

Valve said it's not subsidizing the Steam Machine because it goes against its belief in the "openness of the PC ecosystem."

"When companies sell their hardware under cost for competitive advantage, or buy exclusive content for it, they're doing that to build a more closed system, one where you don't get to choose what software you want to use," the blog reads. "We don't want that for PC hardware, and we don't think you should want it either. You shouldn't feel like you have to buy Valve hardware; you should be able to view it as just one option alongside all the devices for playing games, and select the one that makes sense for you."

Previously, Valve had said there would be no subsidy, but suggested it was because it was competing with PCs and because of the engineering work the company had done.

For those who can't get a Steam Machine or want to use other hardware, Valve says it's working on getting SteamOS to work on more hardware. Beginning with SteamOS 3.8, Valve says you will be able to put the OS together with a DIY rig, though for now, it only supports AMD GPUs.

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Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and BlueSky @andrewfreedman.net. You can send him tips on Signal: andrewfreedman.01