(Image credit: Tom's Hardware) Valve 's Steam Machine is launching, finally, with reservations starting today. While the hardware is the same as it was when it was announced late last year, almost nothing else in PC gaming seems the same. There's a massive component shortage. Prices are high on tech in general, and speculation about how the Steam Machine would be priced took over the conversation about the entire launch. Ahead of the system's launch and reservation queue opening, I talked to Valve engineers Pierre-Loup Griffais and Yazan Aldehayyat to discuss the system: how it was engineered, why Valve made the decisions it did, and how the company came to pricing that starts at $1,049. "It's definitely the case that you know our original design was based on memory and storage prices from, you know, two years ago or so," said Griffais.…