Valve has started sending out reservation emails for the Steam Machine ahead of its June 30 launch, and scalpers have wasted no time turning the whole thing into a comedy act.
The Steam Machine is already an expensive device, as RAM and SSD prices have made hardware pricing miserable across the industry. Valve has previously said it would like to lower the price if component costs improve. That makes the resale listings even harder to take seriously, because the official price was already higher than many people expected before scalpers added their own fantasy tax.
The resale prices are ridiculous
Listings have already started appearing on third-party marketplaces like eBay, with some sellers asking around $1,700. That is already a major markup over Valve’s official pricing of $1,049, but a few listings go much further.
One listing for the base 512GB Steam Machine bundle with the Steam Controller was asking as much as $3,200. That bundle officially costs $1,128 from Valve, which means the seller was asking nearly three times the actual price for a console that has not even launched yet.
As pointed out by @HardwareSteam on X (via Notebookcheck), at least one listing priced at $2,800 has also been marked as sold, suggesting someone may have actually paid the inflated amount. Whether that sale sticks or not, the whole thing is exactly the kind of scalper behavior that makes new hardware launches annoying to watch.
Could this become the PS5 launch again?
The obvious comparison is the PlayStation 5 launch, when limited stock and huge demand turned Sony’s console into scalper bait for months. The Steam Machine situation does not look anywhere near that bad right now.
There appear to be only a few live listings on eBay, which suggests Valve’s reservation queue is doing its job for the moment. The system is not stopping every reseller, but it does seem to be keeping the floodgates closed. That being said, it is too soon to judge how fruitful Valve’s anti-scalping efforts turn out to be. We will have a clearer picture once the Steam Machine launches on June 30 and mass shipping begins.