Valve has put in a lot of measures to try to contain the levels of scalping of the Steam Machine, from requiring an active Steam account in good standing to a randomized lottery system of registrations to receive the opportunity to pre-order, but no system can be perfect. Emails have been going out for a few days now to those whose registrations have been successful, with the first shipments going out today, but as GamesRadar notes, we’re already seeing pre-orders sold on eBay for hugely inflated prices.
Thanks to these measures it’s not an avalanche—we’re not talking the sort of clusterfuck that followed the launch of the Steam Controller—but eBay is listing a hefty number of sold pre-orders for the cubes, including a 2TB Steam Machine without a controller as having sold for $2,899, more than double its $1,349 base price. At the same time, there are many live listings for even the 512GB version with controller (list price: $1,128) for an extraordinary $3,200.
The average price the 512GB version has been selling for is $1500, meaning those flipping their pre-order are still making a decent amount, although a few more have fetched $2,000. The 2TB Machine has resold fewer, but they’re reaching $2,500 and above.
It’s worth noting that these aren’t people selling a Steam Machine itself, but rather their successful pre-order of one, and it’ll be interesting to see if those picking them up run into any issues when they don’t have the matching Steam account.
Official registrations are open once again for the Steam Machine, although at this point the chances of getting anything in 2026 seems enormously remote. And given the expectation that component prices could double again before the end of the year, it’s only going to become more expensive.
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