The Steam Machine and Steam Frame are shipping this summer, Valve confirm as the pair join the Verified program

It's coming home. It's coming to your home (provided you've got the money and desire to buy it). The Steam Machine is coming to homes this summer, Valve have confirmed as they've added both the Machine and Steam Frame to their verified doodads program. Previously ushed back by ongoing RAM shortages, the pair are now following in the footsteps of the already released Steam Controller.

"We are expanding the Verified program to include Steam Machine and Steam Frame, both of which are shipping this summer," Valve wrote in a blog post. The two devices' addition to the program's all about making it easy to tell how well games should run on the Machine and Frame with little to no tweaking, as is the case with Steam Deck verification.

It's unsurprising then that Valve added the following in terms of how the Steam Machine fits into the program:

The requirements for Steam Machine Verified are nearly identical to Steam Deck Verified, and focus on the customer experience out of the box: Does the default controller configuration work well? Do the default graphic settings perform well? Tens of thousands of Steam titles have gone through the Steam Deck Verified program so for both developers and customers the Steam Machine Verified program will feel very familiar.

Long story short: If your game already runs well on Deck, it will also run well on Machine with no extra work required from you. And if it doesn't run great on Deck because of CPU or GPU performance, it may still run great on Machine. If you have games like this, you don't have to take any action: We're already testing every title on Machine that fell below our performance requirements on Deck.

So, telling at a glance which titles in your library will work well on the Machine shouldn't be a headache. What certainly could be a headache is the Machine's price, which Valve have yet to set in stone. It's anticipated to be a far more wince-worthy sum than would have been the case if those pesky RAM shortages weren't continuing to wreak havoc on hardware that needs plenty of memory.

"We’re obviously not thrilled about where things are at with the availability of these components," Valve designer Lawrence Yang told our hardware czar James of RAMnarök's effect on the Machine and Frame back in April. "I think it is frustrating that, instead of being excited about getting ready to ship and launch these products, we're having to deal with how we can actually build them, and think about how they're impacted. I think... it's not even really a silver lining, but it's nice to know that we're not the only ones in this boat. Like, the entire industry is dealing with these same challenges, just like we are, so we're all just trying to figure out how we can navigate it."

Here's James' Steam Controller review, if you've still not digested the pros and cons of the Machine and Frame's already available third wheel.