Valve's lottery system was supposed to keep scalpers at bay, but eBay listings already show 512GB Steam Machine reservations moving for as much as $3,200 — nearly triple the $1,128 bundle price — while a 2TB unit without controller sold for $2,899 against its $1,349 MSRP.

The pre-order slots themselves are the product here. Successful lottery winners are flipping their confirmation emails rather than the hardware, and multiple outlets confirm live listings and completed sales at 30% to 167% markups on the base 512GB model and even higher on the 2TB variant.

Valve required active Steam accounts in good standing and randomized the queue after initial sign-ups to blunt bot advantages, yet the limited production run and component cost pressures have still created a secondary market that moves faster than shipments.

Reddit threads in r/pcgaming and r/Steam are already warning buyers off the listings, noting that nothing stops the original account holder from reclaiming the hardware once it ships.

Community consensus is blunt: starve the scalpers or watch prices climb further before any units actually reach end users.