Valve’s Steam Machine already went on sale in Japan, and by the time most people noticed, it was already gone.
Komodo Station is the Tokyo-based company Valve uses as its authorized distributor across Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, handling everything from the Steam Deck to the Steam Controller, which itself sold out in roughly 30 minutes when Komodo launched it back in May and briefly took the site down under the weight of the traffic.
The Steam Machine landed on June 23 through the same storefront, except this time there was no reservation queue, no invitation email, and no window to plan around, so when Komodo announced all four configurations were available, there was nothing standing between buyers and the buy button, and apparently nothing slowing them down either.
Steam Machine sells out in Japan despite $1,175 starting price
Three hours after Komodo Station announced the Steam Machine was available for purchase, the hardware had sold out, which sent Reddit into the kind of debate that only a Valve hardware launch can produce.
Whether the sellout reflects genuine mass demand or simply a constrained supply is a question nobody could agree on, and given that Valve stopped sharing Steam Deck sales figures years ago, confirmed numbers are unlikely to settle it. “It will sell out globally, I’m sure,” wrote one user. “Even if it was priced $2,000 it would have sold out.”
Others were more measured about what three hours actually means: “There’s also probably only a couple hundred thousand units, maybe a million max. It’ll sell out because there’s barely any supply.”
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The price had already caused considerable noise when Valve revealed it on June 22, partly because the original target was around $750 before a months-long RAM shortage forced a rethink and pushed the US price to $1,049, with Japanese pricing climbing higher still.
That gap turned out to be more substantial than it first appeared, since according to a breakdown posted to Reddit, the entry-level 512GB model already carries a $127 premium over its US equivalent once converted, with the top-tier 2TB bundle landing $212 above the American price.
People forced to use Komodo: You're Screwed
byu/VRbandwagon inSteamFrame
The discrepancy drew its own frustration from Japanese buyers, and that frustration deepened further when users pointed out that Komodo’s site requires no Steam account to complete a purchase, which the poster noted “allows scalpers and bots from not only Japan, but also Hong Kong and Taiwan, to have a field day.”
Buyers in North America and Europe are still working through Valve’s randomized reservation queue, with the first invitations sent out on June 29.
For everything you need to know about the Steam Machine’s $1,049 price and how Valve’s reservation system works, and for the full story of how the RAM shortage pushed that price above Valve’s original target, Valve’s own account of the shortage and its pricing impact has the detail.
