Arm chips are making increasing inroads into the realm of PC gaming. Valve is already all over the chip architecture, and is planning to launch an Arm-specific version of SteamOS alongside its Snapdragon-based VR headset, the Steam Frame, later this year. But what about the Steam Machine?

We asked Valve engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais whether Arm was in consideration for the Steam Machine 2. "Definitely, yeah," Pierre-Loup answered, "[In addition to our work on] things like FEX, we're just trying to be able to support everything, right?"

For those unfamiliar, FEX is a translation layer that allows games built for x86 architecture to run on Arm chips, similar to how Proton gets games made for Windows to run on Linux. Pierre-Loup adds, "If we have more options to pick from, and if users have more options to pick from [...] to play all the latest games in their back catalog library, they'll have a better outcome in terms of finding something that is cheaper for the horsepower that they need."

Arm chips are an enticing alternative to x86 CPUs for gaming PCs specifically. So, we may see something of a chip architecture slap fight before long (especially after Nvidia went all-in on a custom Arm architecture for their RTX Spark lineup). Many game developers are also already working on Arm game ports, and wholly Arm-native versions; our Dave was especially impressed to see an Arm-native version of Alan Wake 2 running on a pre-release model of Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra earlier this year.

On the subject of the Steam Machine and potential follow-ups in an Arm-based future, Pierre-Loup says, "When we're designing a system like that, we're just like users: Picking parts, trying to figure out what makes sense. So for us, yeah, things like FEX and the work that we've done on SteamOS and Proton are more like catalysts to get to a better outcome in terms of price performance, and all that—for sure, we would consider any platform."

Mind you, don't expect an Arm-based follow up any time soon. Though Valve has said that the Steam Machine won't have "as long of a timeframe" as the Steam Deck, new models are constrained by "a matter of when it makes sense to [upgrade], at what price point, at what time, on what games are available."

The memory supply crisis has had a significant impact on more things than the game box's price, with Valve even unsure whether it was gonna have any Steam Machines to sell at the start of 2026. Bearing in mind the RAMpocalypse likely won't ease until maybe 2028, we're unlikely to see a sequel any time before then.

Cards on the table, the first thing that piqued my interest about the Steam Machine's initial reveal were the interchangeable faceplates. After all, I am but a simple hardware creature with a penchant for the aesthetic. Unfortunately, Valve has no plans to release a whole slew of custom plates for their tiny game box.

We caught up with Valve engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais to talk all things Steam Machine, including customisation options. "Right now the two plates that come with the two terabyte SKU are what we're doing," Pierre-Loup explains, "And we don't really have any specific plans around what else [we might do]."

The 2TB Steam Machine comes with the 'red fabric and solid walnut' faceplates but, just because Valve has no plans to make more, that doesn't mean fresh faceplates are no-go from other sources, though. "We want to make sure that third parties can do everything they need to there, and that people tinkering at home can also do that," Pierre-Loup adds, "So, like usual, we'll be releasing all the CAD [3D files] and the dimensions for the outside, the attachment points for the magnets and the sizing of all that so that folks can make their own stuff."

Valve has already released the new Steam Controller's CAD files for easier customisation, though at time of writing we're still waiting on these files for the Steam Machine. That hasn't stopped some from taking matters into their own hands though.

Perhaps most notably, peripheral and accessory maker Dbrand teased custom Companion Cube housing for the Steam Machine last year. Unfortunately, they've had to start issuing refunds since the game box's release as it turns out the company had never actually got Valve's permission to make it.

To be clear, this was a third-party customisation being sold commercially, hence why Valve asked for it to be taken down. Fresh faceplates made for fun and not profit are unlikely to attract the same ire. So, yes, if you wanted to make your own Companion Cube inspired housing, you could—you just couldn't sell it like Dbrand attempted to.

I'm no 3D modelling wiz, so a single swappable faceplate appeals more to me anyway. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to gather a bunch of cute Decoden bits, clear my schedule, and make my Steam Machine look like a tasty little snack (complete with fake whipped cream, my temps be damned).

Hardware development, much like games, is all about iteration. So, it's fair to say we wouldn't have the Steam Machine without the Steam Deck. We recently spoke to Valve engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais, and asked them whether they felt Valve's ongoing work on the Steam Deck meant there'd be less to fix with the Steam Machine.

"Oh, for sure, yeah." said Pierre-Loup. He goes on to acknowledge that the Steam Machine required a lot of focus on specific aspects Valve didn't have to worry about for the Steam Deck—things like the "discrete GPU, VRAM management, ray tracing performance, all this stuff."

But those unique features aside, the foundation of the two platforms is very similar. He says, "The other 99% of the work [on the Steam Machine was] already done in a sense."

Yazan also highlights that the way many people were already using their Steam Decks presented a compelling use case for the Steam Machine. "People were using their Steam Deck docked to their TV, and they're having a great experience without us doing any specific work," He says, "So, it was almost proven before we even started working on it in some ways."

Though our Wes rated the Steam Deck when it debuted back in 2022, the handheld gaming PC didn't enjoy the smoothest launch due to stock issues. The platform itself also had its share of teething troubles, including but not limited to a whiny fan, stick drift caused by a software problem, and a buggy dock. Valve continues to support the device and these kinks, plus a number of other quirks, have all been significantly ironed out. In other words, much of the foundation was already laid for whatever Valve would do next.

"We tend to want to work like that—incremental steps that always add up. When we worked on Steam Input, and just input stuff in general, the [original] Steam Controller, we were solving and kinda thinking around a lot of the same issues that we were trying to solve with Seam Deck," Pierre-Loup adds, "And we just kinda kept working on the same thing, just adding a little bit to it every time, right? It was very incremental and I think we're still working towards more increments, towards completing the experience overall."

None of that is to say it's been clear skies for the Steam Machine. For one thing, Valve feared stock issues would strike again at the start of this year. The impacts of the memory supply crisis on the Steam Machine cannot be understated, with 'Making it cheaper' sitting top of the list of things the engineers wish they could change about the hardware.

Getting back to Valve's further iterations, what can we expect from a Steam Machine sequel? According to Pierre-Loup and Yazan, the Steam Machine won't have as long of a timeframe as the Steam Deck, but new models are 'just a matter of when it makes sense.' In other words, with no end in sight for the RAMpocalypse until maybe 2028, don't expect to see a Steam Machine 2 (or a Steam Deck followup for that matter) any time soon.

I've wanted to revisit Dragon Age: Origins on PC for years. I played the PS3 version back in 2009, which isn't as bad as people say it is, though it does lack the PC version's tactical view and, of course, mod support.

Origins has been on my wishlist for well over a decade, but I finally scooped it up during the current Steam Summer sale. It's a negligible $3 for the Ultimate Edition, which bundles in the Awakening expansion and a bunch of other stuff (there's no Standard Edition on Steam anyway). I probably would have gotten around to revisiting Origins earlier had it not been for the Steam Deck 'Unsupported' badge warning me off.

There's a decent enough reason for this, I suppose: when I bit the bullet and downloaded Origins on my Deck, the first thing I saw was a very unpromising, antiquated 4:3 game launcher. After I tinkered with the graphics settings here, I had no option to save my changes and back out. In other words, pending the results of any troubleshooting, I needed to make do with a 800x600 display, with graphics detail set to low.

But wait! Origins isn't one of those long-in-the-tooth PC games that makes you back out to its launcher to change graphics settings. From the game itself I was able to change the resolution to the Deck's native 1280x800, and turn graphics and texture detail up to "very high". At those settings I'm getting an unwaveringly locked 60 fps, though if you must have 90 fps you can do that too, though it's not as consistent.

The next obstacle is the fact that Dragon Age: Origins for PC doesn't have gamepad support like its console versions obviously have. Thankfully, there's an amazing Community Layout for that. Khar's Dragon Age: Origins marries the immersive control of a third-person action game while retaining the essential mouse controls. Movement is mapped to the left stick, while the mouse pointer is mapped to the right track pad (it's also mapped to the right stick but that feels really bad). As I'm moving around I can use the mouse pointer to activate objects, trigger conversations, or make selections from the hot bar at the bottom of the screen.

The only problem I've found with this config is that, for some reason, it maps quick load to L4. I was accidentally pressing this instead of L5 (which serves as a right mouse click) and that is obviously problematic. So to be safe, I changed it to open the map instead, and then mapped quick save to to upper D-pad button.

I've been loving my return to Origins, and despite the 'Unsupported' badge it's absolutely perfect on Steam Deck. It takes far less tinkering than some 'Playable' games I've booted. Who knows, now I may even get around to playing Dragon Age 2. That one's meant to be good, right?

I'll be honest, my Steam Deck is still trucking along just fine, even with four years of light between today and its 2022 release date. Nevertheless, there are more than a few people who'd quite like a Steam Deck 2 (though, uh, even they are probably prepared to wait for prices to become sane). It's been a while, after all.

Well, perhaps some good news, then: in our chat with Valve engineers Pierre-Loup Griffais and Yazan Aldehayyat, the pair said that the Steam Machine is a bit of a different beast. "I don't think we're thinking about [the Steam Machine] with quite as long of a timeframe as something like the Steam Deck," said Griffais.

• We're keeping track of all the Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals here

"The Steam Deck, by its nature, needs a little bit more of a fixed performance target for both developers and users to make sense of, 'What can I play on this?' and not have that picture change once every year, every two years," said Griffais. "Whereas the Steam Machine is very much in line with gaming PCs. There's a big gradient of it: low-end CPUs, high-end CPUs and GPUs—Steam Machine is somewhere on that gradient, right? So I think it's a little bit less important to have a fixed performance target for, like, five years for a product like that."

So, there you have it, right? Steam Machine 2 imminent, perhaps releasing concurrently with Steam Machine 3? Well, not quite. While Valve doesn't think the Steam Machine needs to hew to Steam Deck timeframes, that doesn't mean it's diving right into a second iteration.

"At the same time," continued Griffais, "we don't really have immediate plans to be like, 'In N years we'll have a different performance target,' or something. We're actually really curious to see how things pan out… there's a lot of questions about the new systems generation, how that's gonna roll out, how games are gonna adapt." In other words, Valve is paying attention to how console manufacturers and other tech firms are handling the transition to a new generation in our current, RAM-crisis-afflicted world.

Aldehayyat was quick to point out that the next iteration of Steam Machine hardware isn't right around the corner, either, and that's partially just a reflection of PC gamers' modern habits. "I think we're seeing a natural slowdown of the upgrade cycle for gaming PCs," said Aldehayyat, "so in some ways that probably means that the Steam Machine is a viable product for longer than you would have expected if it was launching 10 years ago." That means the Machine as-is "probably has more longevity… it's gonna basically be in line with typical PC upgrade cycles and what people typically do.

"It's just a matter of when it makes sense to [upgrade], at what price point, at what time, on what games are available. Like if a bunch of new games come out on Steam that require more performance, that would probably make us wanna upgrade the Steam Machine faster." Alright, guess we're waiting for Cyberpunk 2 then.

It is a singularly bad time to purchase computer parts or release a computer product. The RAM crisis has made memory and storage costs astronomical, and the most recent indignity it's inflicted around our neck of the woods is the price of the Steam Machine—a box whose min-spec edition will still set you back $1,049. Valve itself wishes it was cheaper.

But I guess even an expensive box is better than no box at all, which—to hear Valve tell it—may have been a possibility. When we sat down and chatted with Valve engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais, we got to chatting about how the company's overall stock of Steam Machines is looking as it gears up to ship them. The answer? Less than there would be in a pre-RAM-crisis world, but way better than the beginning of the year, when Valve wasn't certain it would have any Steam Machines at all.

• We're keeping track of all the Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals here

Griffais said the stock of Steam Machines is "a little bit less" than it would have been pre-crisis, but that Valve's built up "a sizable amount compared to what it initially looked like. Things looked really dire at the beginning of the year. We weren't sure if there was gonna be anything at all."

Compared to that, I suppose any number of boxes seems good, and heck, securing supply even in non-apocalyptic circumstances is hard: "I wanna emphasise that, even under the best of circumstances, getting enough quantity for day one is always hard-slash-impossible, I think," said Aldehayyat. "From our perspective, we still got to a pretty good place," said Griffais.

"Typically what happens with a product like this, is the day one demand is going to be a big, big percentage of the year one demand," Griffais continued. "You just cannot have your factory building for six months… there's always gonna be some gap between supply and demand the first couple of days, couple of weeks." Thus, the Steam Machine reservation system that has been running since last Monday, which lets people enter themselves into a queue which is set to be all shaken up today, ideally achieving a modicum of fairness in distribution.

"I'm really proud of where we're at in terms of, like, our sourcing guys did a great job. I think the quantities we have are really good given the circumstances, and our hope is to kinda catch up to demand as quickly as possible," said Griffais. It's certainly better than nothing.

Valve has a new cube coming out, and boy is it pricey. The Steam Machine finally broke cover last Monday, revealing that its absolute cheapest model would still set you back $1,049—for which you can thank the RAM crisis. It caused some consternation, with a lot of people who might have thought themselves day-one buyers balking at the sum. Well, Valve balked too.

PCG sat down and chatted with Valve engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais ahead of last Monday's reveals and, yep, they're not happy about the price either. We asked the pair, if they could snap their fingers and magically change one thing about the Steam Machine, what would it be? Their answer was quick: the price.

• We're keeping track of all the Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals here

"Make it cheaper," laughed Aldehayyat, in response to the question. "Yeah, I mean, that's an easy one," agreed Griffais. But it sounds like Valve went through the wringer when it came to negotiating memory and storage for the Steam Machine. "Things that, two years or a year ago—commodity things—you would just say, 'Yeah, I need that much,' and you just pay the normal price for it and it's all good. Now you have to negotiate really hard just to secure a few thousand."

As for the hardware? Valve's pretty chuffed with it, sounds like. "It's kind of perfect for what I need because we've shaped it like that, right?" said Griffais, though Aldehayyat added "We're open for feedback. I think we're pretty biassed, obviously."

Oh, there was one thing: "We always want more ports," said Griffais. "People want more ports. The thing would be full of ports on all the sides if we listened to everyone." Mark it down, folks: Steam Machine 2 to feature a trypophobic mess of ports on all available surfaces.

Anyway, the result of Valve's hardware travails is that a min-spec Steam Machine costs $1,049. And Valve says it's not gonna subsidise the cost owing to its "religious" refusal to "build a more closed system." On the plus side, you could always turn your own PC into a Steam Machine, provided you're using an AMD GPU. As of SteamOS 3.8, Valve has given its official blessing to SteamOS installs on non-Valve hardware.

Mostly what I do here at PC Gamer is wait for my colleagues to post about their tech issues in Slack and tell them to install Linux in response. Webcam broken? Linux. Frame drops? Linux. Distant relationship with your father? Linux can fix that. I am unfathomably, incandescently popular and no one wants me to be quiet.

A common response to my implorations goes something like this: "I'm waiting for SteamOS." Well, stop waiting for SteamOS. SteamOS is here. Amid the hubbub of yesterday's Steam Machine hardware announcements, Valve slipped in a surreptitious little software note too: as of SteamOS 3.8, you can now officially stick Valve's Linux distro on whatever hardware you want, with the caveat that it's gotta be running an AMD GPU, at least for now.

• We're keeping track of all the Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals here

This was not, to be clear, a rank impossibility before yesterday. In fact, our Dave James stuck an older version of SteamOS onto a Framework laptop last year. But now you've got Valve's actual, official blessing, and hopefully a slightly easier time of it.

The notice was tucked in at the end of the Steam Machine's FAQ, where Valve writes, "we are continuing to work toward enabling SteamOS to be used on more hardware than just ours. In fact, with the newly-released SteamOS 3.8, you can run the same code and operating system as Steam Machine on your own living-room PC using whatever PC parts you want… Right now, only AMD GPUs are supported, but we're working on expanding support for the future." Valve's working on support for additional GPUs, though, but I suspect we might have a while to wait.

As any Nvidia owner on Linux (hello, that is me) will know, team green drivers can be a bit of a faff. Where pretty much every AMD owner on Linux will default to using the very good, open-source Mesa drivers—you usually don't even have to do anything; they'll just install by default—Nvidia's driver situation for its modern cards is a hybrid of open-source and proprietary tech. While there are totally open-source Nvidia drivers out there—the Nouveau project—they're not up to snuff for games.

The short and tall of which is that I and my RTX 4080 are gonna have to wait to take SteamOS for a test run (you can always install Bazzite, with its out-of-the-box Nvidia support, for a similar experience), but hey—if you're an AMD user, you can check out Valve's guide to installing SteamOS right now, and embrace the sunlit uplands of Linux on the desktop.

The Steam Machine is finally here, with pre-orders now live, so long as you can get lucky in the reservation system lottery that is. And, honestly, we're kinda underwhelmed with the thing, beautiful wee companion cube though it is. Though that's more the fault of the AI apocalypse hoovering up all the memory and making the price of the Steam Machine utterly prohibitive for the entry level PC gamers it was originally aimed at. But Valve is still committed to improving the system, and has announced ahead of launch it is working directly with AMD to bring FSR 4 support in for the Steam Machine and its RDNA 3-powered GPU.

"We’ve been working with AMD on FSR 4 support for Steam Machine," we're told by Valve, "and can confirm that it will be coming soon."

Unfortunately that's all it's saying in regards to an actual release date, but then AMD itself has been rather cagey about when it's going to be getting FSR 4 support opened up beyond the original RDNA 4 target GPUs. Back in May AMD said it would be bringing FSR 4's machine learning-based upscaling to RX 7000-series graphics cards in July, but notably said during Computex that no decision had been made about whether it would be opened up to the RDNA 3.5 GPUs housed in its Ryzen AI Max APUs or the chips powering the latest AMD-powered gaming handhelds.

Which seems to suggest that July launch date is very much just for the RX 7000-series graphics cards alone and not a blanket level of support for the RDNA 3 architecture and above. That would also explain why Valve would have to be working directly with AMD to ensure its semi-custom 28 CU RDNA 3 GPU is going to get support for the improved upscaler in FSR 4.

"We can’t say more about timing," Valve notes, "but are excited for you to test it on your Steam Machine press units once it’s available. It should offer a significant improvement in upscaling graphical quality."

While the improvement in upscaling quality will definitely be a benefit for the Steam Machine, it's a double-edged sword of a feature. The Steam Machine's relatively weak GPU component needs upscaling and frame generation to be able to cope with modern games at decent graphics presets and at the sort of resolutions you'll want to see on a modern TV in your living room. So, chances are almost every game you play on the Steam Machine will want to be using upscaling.

That means it's a win that you'll get the best image quality AMD can muster for that upscaling experience. However, the machine-learning model of the improved FSR 4 upscaler is more performance intensive, especially for hardware that it was not initially designed for, namely RDNA 4 GPUs. And when performance is at a premium with the Steam Machine, that little bit extra hardware overhead for FSR 4 could mean that it's not an automatic on for some users, and could just be another balancing act owners are going to have to juggle with their new PC console.

The other thing to note is that FSR 4 support is not natively enabled in a whole lot of games right now. The list of supporting titles for FSR Redstone (inc FSR 4, AKA FSR Upscaling) looks extensive on first glance, but only around 20-odd have it natively built in; all the other games on the list need to have it enabled via the Adrenalin Driver software. How those games can get FSR 4 enabled in SteamOS is going to be interesting to see, if it happens at all.

Valve has announced the price of a Steam Machine, its new SteamOS-powered gaming PC. There are a few options available—two storage capacities and with/without a Steam Controller—and if you're still interested after seeing the price, you can sign up for a chance to buy one from today.

• 512 GB: $1,049 USD / 1,509 CAD / 1,039 EUR / 879 GBP / 1,609 AUD / 4,389 PLN
• 2 TB: $1,349 USD / 1,919 CAD / 1,359 EUR / 1,149 GBP / 2,109 AUD / 5,739 PLN

• 512 GB w/ Controller: $1,128 USD / 1,628 CAD / 1,108 EUR / 938 GBP / 1,728 AUD / 4,698 PLN
• 2 TB w/ Controller: $1,428 USD / 2,038 CAD / 1,428 EUR / 1,208 GBP / 2,228 AUD / 6,048 PLN

Both 2 TB models come with two additional faceplates, red fabric and solid walnut, which are attached with magnets. Though you could as easily make your own, as Valve tells us it will be releasing the CAD files.

The bundle with a Steam Controller is better value than buying one separately: it costs $99 on its own, but adds only $79 here. Not to mention availability of the Steam Controller is shaky, and you may end up having to wait until 2027 to purchase one individually.

Availability for the Steam Machine is also likely to be quite poor. Due to the ongoing memory crisis, Valve admits that some components it had originally intended to use in the PC have increased in price. Furthermore, some were altogether unavailable to purchase "at any price".

"More than anything else, this impacted our launch quantity," Valve says.

To deal with this limited launch quantity and to avoid a system which "tends to reward bots", Valve is rolling out a randomised reservation system for the Steam Machine. Similar to those for the Steam Deck and Steam Controller, wherein a user registers their interest in the product to purchase at a later date, where the Steam Machine reservations differ is in how the queue is formed.

Here's Valve's explanation:

• Starting right now, you can sign up for the Steam Machine model/bundle you're interested in
• If you're busy now, no problem: You can sign up anytime before Thursday June 25th at 10 a.m. Pacific.
• At that time, we will close signups and do a one-time randomization to determine the reservation order

After that one-time randomisation, Valve will let you know whether you successfully reserved a unit or were put into the waitlist for further units down the line. Valve hopes to have got through the reservation queue by the end of the year, which means those on the waitlist may be waiting a very long time indeed, likely into 2027 and beyond.

Valve explains that it felt it had a "good understanding" of how costs might change over time when it first started sourcing parts in 2023. This all changed with the memory crisis.

"Over the past year or so, that has changed quickly and significantly, most visibly for RAM and storage components," Valve says. "There are a variety of reasons, all of which are affecting hardware products everywhere. The overall effect is that our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable. So the prices we're sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing; or, more accurately, it reflects the price the components as we've secured them over the past 6 months."

It's that final line that gives me pause. Most PC gamers will likely have experienced price hikes for components and systems over the past eight months or so, especially with RAM but increasingly SSDs, too. Manufacturers have since warned of further sticker shock to come, as stockpiles of components dwindle and they are forced to buy new parts at further inflated prices. If Valve is delivering a price that's based on stock over the past six months, should the next six months be any worse, I think this leaves the door open to a price rise later on.

Valve recently increased the price of the Steam Deck due to increased component costs and 'global logistical challenges'.

We've heard mixed reports on RAM and SSD availability. There's been some suggestion that RAM prices may have levelled off since earlier in the year, but SSDs are still going up, but also reports from those in the know that prices are likely still to rise yet.

Valve also explains why it isn't "subsidizing" the price of the Steam Machine, ie putting some of that sweet, sweet Steam cash into making an affordable PC—profits be damned. The company's answer, it's not what PC gaming is about.

"When companies sell their hardware under cost for competitive advantage, or buy exclusive content for it, they're doing that to build a more closed system, one where you don't get to choose what software you want to use.

"We don't want that for PC hardware, and we don't think you should want it either. You shouldn't feel like you have to buy Valve hardware; you should be able to view it as just one option alongside all the devices for playing games, and select the one that makes sense for you."

For now, your best shot at a Steam Machine in 2026 is to sign up for that reservation system before June 25. Then cross your fingers and toes for an email landing you in the right queue and not on the waitlist.

You can now sign up for a chance to buy a Steam Machine. Yes, a mere chance, not a preorder, as Valve is doing something different with the launch of its Linux-powered cube. Rather than forming an orderly queue, it's taking names, throwing them in a hat, and drawing them out at random to decide who gets a reservation and who gets lumped on the waitlist.

The Steam Machine starts at $1,049 for the 512 GB model, and if you're still interested in purchasing one after hearing the price, you're going to want to take heed of the new reservation process. It's different to what Valve has done in the past, and for good reason.

"In an effort to improve the purchase experience and limit resellers, we're implementing a reservation system," Valve says.

• Starting right now, you can sign up for the Steam Machine model/bundle you're interested in.
• If you're busy now, no problem: You can sign up anytime before Thursday June 25th at 10 a.m. Pacific.
• At that time, we will close signups and do a one-time randomization to determine the reservation order.

"Based on the reservation order, you will receive an email on June 25th indicating one of two things:"

• You've been added to the reservation queue and a Steam Machine has been reserved in your name.
• You've been added to the waitlist and we'll let you know when more units become available.

In theory, this deters bots from hammering the reservations faster than any real human and securing units for resellers to sell at inflated prices. It also means that it's become a lottery for all involved.

By signing up on June 25, you give yourself the best chance of purchasing one before the end of the year. Those lucky enough to make it into the reservation queue will begin receiving emails asking them to make their purchase from June 29.

If you miss this date, you'll be added to the back of the waitlist and presumably in for a long wait.

Valve has said it intends to get through the reservation queue by the end of 2026. That means those on the waitlist are unlikely to be able to purchase a Steam Machine before 2027—unless people drop out of the queue without purchasing one, in which case the offer extends to whomever is next in line. Those offered a unit will have 72 hours from receiving their notification email to checkout before Valve passes it onto the next person in the queue.

What you need

To make your initial sign up, you have to have a few things in order:

• a Steam account in good standing
• made a purchase on Steam prior to April 27, 2026.

There's also a limit of one per household. Valve says it will check payment information, shipping address, and other information to remove duplicate entries. So if you're in shared accommodation with a bunch of fellow PC gamers, looks like you'll have to share your Steam Machine, too.

Each region has its own sign-up list. These are North America, United Kingdom, European Union, and Australia, which Valve is organising directly. Valve's official distributor, Komodo, will be dealing with orders in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

So, why the new system? Why not just do what it did with the Steam Deck and have a first-come, first-serve system?

Valve says it's both because of resellers and lower availability than it would have liked for components used in the Steam Machine.

"Over the past year or so, that has changed quickly and significantly, most visibly for RAM and storage components… the overall effect is that our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable," Valve says in an FAQ.

"Price wasn't the only thing impacted by all of this: availability was as well. We found we couldn't source some of our components at all, at any price. More than anything else, this impacted our launch quantity."

We've heard this before: memory chips are a precious commodity right now and they're being sucked out of the market before ever reaching us consumers by big businesses with even bigger bank accounts. Even the biggest companies are feeling the heat. Valve is no small fry, but it's nowhere close to the size of OEMs like Dell, HP, or similar. Everyone's scrambling for whatever the major memory manufacturers can give them, which isn't enough.

When a manufacturer is this honest about availability concerns from the get-go, that usually means things really are tough out there. This launch is going to be a very long, drawn out affair from the sounds of things. Make sure you're there before June 25 for the best chance at a Linux console this year, or be prepared to be patient. Heck, as Valve points out in its FAQ, you could always build your own Steam Machine with SteamOS 3.8 as a shortcut.

Good luck.

After a standard spell in beta, the latest iteration of SteamOS—Valve's Arch-based Linux distro for use on Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and Steam Frame—has hit the big three-eight. Or, well, three-point-eight. SteamOS 3.8 is out, is what I'm saying, and if you turn your face to the wind and inhale, you can detect the first notes of upcoming hardware.

Specifically, the Steam Machine, for which SteamOS 3.8 brings "initial support," as well as support for waking a SteamOS device from sleep via a connected Steam Controller. Alas, no word on the Steam Frame in these patch notes, but consider me as eager as ever to get my hands on Valve's living room box, presuming the RAM crisis has not made it cost $5,000 dollars.

But this is a pretty big release even excluding the GabeCube stuff. I'll stick the full patch notes down below, but there are a number of tweaks and new features that leap out to me as a longtime Deck user. Chief among them is that yer Deck now defaults to Wayland rather than X11 in desktop mode.

Those are two different display servers for Linux desktops—the gubbins that make your GUI function when you're not working straight in the virtual console like god intended. To cut to the chase: X11 is the old one (and as such, tends to have greater compatibility and work better for some particular tasks, at least for now) and Wayland is the new one (though it's been out in some form for nearly 20 years)—it's more secure and generally a bit more dextrous for most tasks.

So swapping to Wayland-by-default means that SteamOS has reduced "several cases of reduced performance in Desktop Mode compared to Game Mode" on your Steam Deck, desktop mode also has better scaling on TVs, support for external HDR displays, and support for VRR displays. The kind of stuff you might care about if you were making an OS for a device that's expected to live underneath people's TVs.

There are also new BIOSes for the LCD and OLED Decks, which will be installed as part of the general 3.8 update when you run it. The LCD one, sorry to say, isn't too exciting, save that it adds preliminary support for device hibernation. OLED, though? Valve's updated the Deck so that the charging LED now respects your device charging settings. If you set your Deck to top out at 80% charge for battery health reasons, then the LED will turn green—meaning fully charged—when it reaches that point, rather than remaining standard 'charging' white for eternity.

All good stuff, then. Here are the full patch notes for your perusal.

General

• Updated Arch system base
• Initial support for upcoming Steam Machine hardware
• Added support for waking from sleep via connected Steam Controller
• Substantially improved speed of future OS updates on high-speed connections
• Improved support for screen casting in Game Mode (e.g. OBS/Discord)
• Fixed dropdown menus not appearing in some games
• Fixed excessive trackpad sensitivity on certain early Steam Deck LCD models
• Improved support for games that attempt to open PDF files in external viewers
• Fixed an issue where video output could become frozen while using Remote Play
• Fixed a possible session crash when using Game Recording with certain "Maximum video height" settings
• Fixed an issue affecting certain titles (such as "SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide") where the game window could have an incorrect position
• Fixed closing certain titles (such as "STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor™" and Starfield) resulting in a session crash
• Improved support for certain USB racing wheels and USB devices that boot in a non-standard mode
  • Frequently these are devices that appear as USB storage devices with a driver installer, and must be switched to their normal mode by the OS
• Steam Deck controller firmware updates now display update progress on the splash screen
• Fixes issue on specific Steam Deck revisions where firmware updates could render the left controller inoperative for that session
• Numerous stability and security updates

Display / Performance

• Updated graphics driver with performance and stability fixes
• Added preliminary support for HDMI VRR for devices with native HDMI output
• Fixed an issue where "Allow Tearing" wouldn't have the intended effect in certain configurations
• Improved VRR frame pacing
• Fixed FSR badge remaining off in the performance overlay, even if it was actually active
• Fixed a case where per-app performance settings would intermittently fail to apply when launching a game
• Added missing graphics features needed for titles such as "Crimson Desert"
• Fixed an issue on certain TCL TVs where the display may remain blank using the Steam Deck Dock when VRR is enabled (requires a Dock firmware update)

Bluetooth / WiFi

• Fixed a case where WiFi performance could become degraded until the device was put to sleep or manually reconnected
• Re-re-enable Bluetooth Wake for Steam Deck LCD
  • Fix for more spurious wake issues that were present in earlier attempts

Audio

• Detect HDMI channel count and expose surround configuration if available
• Add a setting to allow using Bluetooth headset mics (Bluetooth playback quality will be worse while capture is active)
• Restore internal audio device on reboot if set to "Off" in desktop mode
• Increase suspend timeout for HDMI devices so initial audio isn't cut off after a few seconds of inactivity
• Fixed a bug with switching input devices when a wired headset is plugged in
• Fixed an issue where audio underruns could be experienced after sleep/resume
• Fixed a bug on Steam Deck OLED where rebooting would occasionally cause a loss of speaker output until rebooted again
• Fixed a case where FPS limits would fail to apply when downscaling games from a higher resolution

Accessibility

• Added an option to force mono audio output

Desktop Mode

• KDE Plasma updated to version 6.4.3 from 6.2.5, and now uses wayland by default

  • Fixes several cases of reduced performance in Desktop Mode compared to Game Mode

  • Improved support for rotated displays

  • Better scale factor out of the box on TVs

  • Adds support for external HDR displays

  • Adds support for VRR displays

  • Adds support per-display scale factor

  • For more information, see Plasma release announcements

  • https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.3.0/

  • https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.4.0/

• Keyboard layout and language are now obeying Game Mode settings

• Improved windowing behavior for games running in Proton

• Fixed a bug in Desktop Mode causing previously open applications to not be remembered when using the 'Return to Gaming Mode' shortcut to logout

• Fixes for experimental nested desktop mode

• Fixed Desktop Mode night color settings inappropriately remaining active when switching back to Game Mode

System Firmware

• Includes Steam Deck LCD BIOS v133

  • Security updates

  • Added "Memory Power Down" setup option

  • Preliminary support for hibernation

• Includes Steam Deck OLED BIOS v114

  • Security updates

  • Charging LED now changes color when charge limit is reached, rather than only at 100%

Non-Deck

• Improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms

• Greatly improved video memory management on discrete GPU platforms

• Fixed a compatibility issue with the SteamOS chainloader that could cause a boot failure on some desktop systems with recent UEFI firmware

• Power button short and long presses now supported across a wide variety of devices

• Improved controller support for OneXPlayer F1 series, GPD Win 5, GPD Win Mini, Anbernic Win600, OrangePi NEO, and Lenovo Legion Go

• Added controller support for OneXPlayer X1 series and Lenovo Legion Go 2

• Added system and controller firmware update support for the Lenovo Legion Go 2

• Added preliminary charge limiting support for Legion Go, Legion Go S, and Legion Go 2 - currently only accessible in Desktop Mode

• Added controller RGB LED color settings for the Lenovo Legion Go 2

• Added controller, TDP control, and speaker audio support for the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally series

• Reduced handheld controller input latency from 5-8ms to 100-500us

• Night mode, color vibrance, and color temperature sliders in Steam now work on Z2E and later AMD APUs

• Seamless boot fixes for Z2E and later AMD APUs

• Automatically handle internally rotated display for some third-party handhelds

• Improved motion control support for handhelds with BMI260 IMUs

• SD card reliability improvements for some third-party handhelds, including ASUS ROG Xbox Ally, Legion Go 1, Legion Go S, Legion Go 2, and MSI Claw

• Fixed washed out colors for Zotac and OneXPlayer handhelds with OLED

• Fixed some GPU hangs on Phoenix APU devices (Tales of Arise, Octopath Traveler II)

• Fixed ASUS ROG Ally power consumption from fingerprint reader while shut down

• Fixed trackpad losing functionality after sleep/resume on the Legion Go

• Fixed spurious wake-ups when using a Logitech Bolt receiver

• Add controller support for MSI Claw devices (A1M, 7 AI+ A2VM, 8 AI+ A2VM, A8 BZ2EM)

• Add controller support for OneXPlayer APEX and X1 series.

• Improved gyro response for devices that use AccelGyro3D (Legion Go 1, Claw A1M)

• Fixed a system crash on international Asus ROG Xbox Ally models

• Fix Bluetooth not working on some Intel handhelds

• Add initial firmware for upcoming Intel handhelds

Developer

• Desktop Mode now uses Wayland by default

  • X11 support may still be selected via Steam developer settings, or via `steamosctl`

• Updated Linux kernel to 6.16

• Steam now uses steamos-manager to query available desktop sessions and trigger desktop session switching

• Added support for setting the desktop password in developer settings

• Initial support for running as a Virtual Machine guest (virtio guest drivers)

• Added support for third-party devices to trigger the SteamOS boot menu via EFI variable

• Added `custom-update` verb to `atomupd-manager` for easier testing of specific builds

• System reports now include more audio debug information

• Initial support for LAVD CPU scheduler via `steamosctl set-cpu-scheduler lavd`

In a year marked by severe component price hikes and shortages, Valve is still determined to release Steam Machine and Steam Frame by the end of summer. The company confirmed as much as it announced the expansion of its Verified program, which goes into effect today despite neither Steam Machine or Steam Frame having a firm release date.

Valve's Verified program categorises Steam games based on their performance on Valve's hardware and compatibility with Proton, which makes it possible for Windows games to run on Linux. The Verified system was introduced with the release of Steam Deck, but will now expand to account for the new hardware. We learned a bunch about these changes at GDC, but overall: if a game works well on Steam Deck it'll work well on Steam Machine.

Interestingly, devs are being asked to use the Steam Deck to ensure compatibility in the absence of Steam Machine dev kits, as per the Steamworks documentation. "Steam Machine dev kit units are not currently available. The best way to ensure compatibility on Steam Machine is to work on your title's compatibility with Steam Deck. If your game runs well on Deck, it will also run well on Machine with no extra work required from you."

Steam Deck dev kits were available to studios in advance of its February 2022 release, and Steam Frame dev kits are already out in the wild. Is the absence of Steam Machine dev kits an indication of just how tightly Valve is rationing its access to components?

Whatever the answer may be, the fact that Valve still plans to release its hardware at all will come as a relief to those willing to fork out for what will likely be costly pieces of kit. The AI industry's run on DRAM and NAND memory has caused widespread scarcity and massive attendant hikes in prices. Even the Nintendo Switch 2 and PlayStation 5 have received dramatic price increases in 2026. I wouldn't be surprised if Valve simply said: "The time isn't right, let's put these things on ice for now."

Though Valve hasn't set a price for Steam Machine, it seems increasingly unlikely that it'll be cheap. PC Gamer's hardware editor Jacob Ridley predicted a $529 price tag on a 512GB model in late 2025, but in February had revised that upwards to "around $899". And that was three months ago: things have only gotten worse since then.

But, as Valve's Lawrence Yang told PC Gamer in May, everyone's in the same boat. "You know, it's unavoidable that it will impact basically anything we make that has any of those parts in them. So we're doing our best to make sure that we can make the product and have it still available at as good and competitive a price as we can. But yeah, it's challenging for sure," he said.

Valve, you cheeky bunch. It wasn't enough to stand out by doubling down on touchpads, going all in on gyro, and sporting TMR joysticks: the new Steam Controller also has an Easter egg.

As discovered by user RF3D19 on Reddit this week, the $99 gamepad is capable of expressing panic. When suddenly dropped, the device occasionally lets out a wailing Wilhelm scream. You know the one.

When PC Gamer's Josh Wolens strolled into the chatroom to share this discovery with the rest of the class, I was doubtful. Anyone could've faked the sound effect in this brief 2-second video or specially modded their controller to scream, but others in the Reddit thread insisted it's legit. I wasn't terribly excited to conduct my own test with the controller I just opened last week, but everyone insisted I'd get a Wilhelm from even light drops onto padded surfaces…

I can confirm: the Steam Controller screams. It's really quiet (video below), and you do need to drop it from so high that you'll question if your couch is actually soft enough to break its fall, but this thing will scream.

Mine only screamed once at first and then went silent for several more unwise drops onto its back triggers. As folks on Reddit have also encountered, the sound trigger seems to have a cooldown period of a minute or more between screams.

How does it work? Perhaps the scream actually belongs to a demonic imp living inside, though I theorize that it's all haptics and gyros. The Steam Controller doesn't have an obvious front-firing speaker like a PS5 controller, but its chunky haptic motors could be programmed to play virtually any sound. This was also true of the first Steam Controller. Back in the day, modding made it relatively easy to program the haptics yourself, so we made ours sing the Star Spangled Banner.

The quality isn't great, which is why the feature is normally used for simple beeps. Unless Valve snuck a tiny speaker into the body, it apparently made a special case for this fun secret.

At this year's GDC event in San Francisco, Valve gave a talk on its Steam hardware family (pdf warning), focusing on just what developers need to do to ensure that their games get verified. Not for the Steam Deck, but for the forthcoming Steam Machine and the highly anticipated Steam Frame VR headset.

Starting with the Steam Machine, Valve notes that there is one very simple box to tick off: If it's verified for the Deck, it will be for the Machine. Well, not quite, as the hardware inside the Steam Machine is considerably more potent than that in the Deck, hence why there's a target of 30 fps at 1080p to get performance verification.

As there's no mention of upscaling or frame generation with this requirement, you can safely assume that this is all native. Admittedly, 30 frames per second doesn't sound great, but if a game is entirely GPU-limited in this scenario, then upscaling would certainly make a significant difference.

To get Steam Machine verification, games will need to meet the same input requirements as for the Deck, but since you'll be using a decent-sized monitor or TV with the Gabecube, there's no need to hit any targets for display resolution or legibility.

When it comes to the Steam Frame, there's no verification process for games that get streamed to the VR headset, because they'll be running natively on your PC. However, 'stand-alone play' (i.e. using the Frame's Arm chip) does have verification requirements, with the performance being 90 fps for VR games. Anything 2D, though, just needs to hit 30 fps at 720p.

As things have been progressing since the first announcement of Valve's new hardware, I've become less interested in the Steam Machine but far more sold on the Frame. These requirements for verification only cement those impressions further, because I'm certainly not keen on playing any PC game at 30 fps. I know that it's basically a minimum requirement and certainly not unusual in the world of consoles, but it's 2026. Not 2005.

Anyway, for the rest of the talk, Valve highlighted some key aspects that developers should focus on when making games to run on SteamOS. Of particular note was the suggestion that games should 'support offline mode, including on first run', and if I can be frank, that should really be a requirement.

Following on from this, Valve stressed that 'optimizing lower spec machines expands your audience' (something that should be shouted from the rooftops everywhere), plus 'more controller users all the time' and that developers should be 'future-proofing for future SteamOS devices'.

The one thing that this talk certainly confirms, though, is that Valve is still full steam ahead (if you pardon the pun) with its new hardware, despite the misery of the global memory crisis.

If you've ever looked at a PlayStation 5 and thought 'That would be a really good budget gaming PC, if only you could put your own operating system on it', then I have good news for you. Because that's precisely what one software engineer has managed to do, though the simplicity of the outcome belies the seriousness of the challenge.

The engineer in question, Andy Nguyen, posted their success story on X (via TechSpot), reporting that his Ubuntu-powered PS5 Slim happily runs GTA 5 Enhanced, with ray tracing enabled. Now, it's worth noting that Sony already uses Linux (apologies, a heavily customised fork of FreeBSD, not Linux) for its own PlayStation operating system, but that doesn't mean the project was anything simple.

That's because Sony locks everything right down, and the old PS2/PS3 days of slapping Linux onto a console with a disc are long gone. Nguyen first had to use a known exploit to bypass Sony's barriers, which only works for older versions of the PS5's firmware. But just getting access is only part of the solution, because you then need drivers for everything, and Sony's hardly going to just hand those over.

When it comes to the PS5's GPU, a heavily customised RDNA 1/2 unit, you'd be forgiven for thinking that there's no way around that thorny problem. Rescue came in the form of open-source Mesa, which can apparently be very easily tweaked to support the custom GPU.

Other than Nguyen's PS5 Slim struggling to run at full pelt due to thermal problems, the Linuxified console appears to run GTA 5 Enhanced pretty well. Audio output is present, controller support seems fine, and even the USB ports are apparently all fine and dandy. In short, it's a proper gaming PC.

Now, before you run off and start trying the same thing on your own PS5, do note that none of this is simple to do. Take the exploit hack that's required: if you regularly update your console, then you're out of luck, as the firmware will have been upgraded to remove the access.

And if you watch the video in Nguyen's post carefully, you'll see that the Steam performance overlay has…err…problems with recognising a few things correctly, such as GPU clock speeds, utilisation, VRAM levels, and somewhat importantly, temperatures (somehow I don't think that the chip really is running at -2147483 degrees Celsius).

But if one person has succeeded, others will surely follow, and that makes me wonder just how long it will be before we start seeing a very odd AMD GPU cropping up in the Steam Hardware Survey. Probably sooner than we see any real Steam Machines, that's for sure.

As reported by The Verge, Valve has responded to confusion about its release schedule for the Steam Frame, Controller, and Machine, reaffirming that the devices will come out in 2026 despite the AI-driven squeeze on PC hardware. Valve's 2025 year in review post initially made it sound like a 2027 delay was in the cards for the much-anticipated new tech.

Valve communications lead Kaci Aitchison Boyle told The Verge that "nothing has really changed on our end," while the year in review post at the heart of the story has been updated to have more definitive, confident language about a 2026 release window for the hardware.

Original wording: "We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us. We'll share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!"

Updated wording: "We shared recently that there have been challenges with memory and storage shortages, but we will be shipping all three products this year. More updates will be shared as we finalize our plans."

I'm hoping Valve can deliver. The Steam Machine feels like a godsend in the current dog-eat-dog PC hardware space, one where some analysts are predicting the end of entry level machines altogether. But it's not unreasonable to fear that the Steam Machine could fall prey to the very trends that make it so attractive. The AI datacenter-driven RAMpocalypse feels like the grim reaper knocking on our hobby's door.

In addition to Steam Machines, a revival of Valve's console-PC hybrid idea from the early 2010s, Valve is revising the Steam Controller with a more Deck-adjacent design, and also offering the Steam Frame, a wireless VR headset to finally compete with Meta's offerings.

Original Story: The new hardware lineup revealed by Valve in 2025—the Steam Controller, Steam Frame VR headset, and Steam Machine—made quite a first impression. The Steam Machine in particular came off as streamlined, simple, and very capable: A significant evolution over Valve's early Steam Machines that has the potential to finally bring livingroom PC gaming to the mainstream. Just two big questions remained: How much, and when?

That question is muddled by one big thing: The RAMpocalypse wrought by the headlong pursuit of AI, which has caused supply shortages and skyrocketing prices on memory, SSDs, and GPUs.

It's a chaotic state of affairs, and the uncertainty its caused may mean a longer wait for the new Steam kit than we expected: As recently as early February, Valve said all three products were expected to launch in the first half of this year, but now 2026 as a whole is starting to feel shaky.

"We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us," Valve wrote in its 2025 Year in Review. "We'll share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!"

That linked post says Valve had expected to have pricing and release dates nailed down by now, "but the memory and storage shortages you've likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then. The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame)."

At that time, the plan to launch in the first half of 2026 had not changed, Valve added, "but we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change."

Even if Valve is able to source the components it needs to build Steam Machines in quantities sufficient to meet demand—and that's a very big if—the costs are a real issue. Steam Machines will be more expensive than the consoles, because Valve has previously said that it won't subsidize the price like Sony and Microsoft do with the PlayStation and Xbox, but it at least needs them to be in the same ballpark if it wants a shot at widespread adoption.

Our hardware pros kicked around some thoughts on Steam Machine pricing in November 2025, but given how many years have gone by over the past few months, that feels almost irrelevant now. And with things not likely to get better anytime soon, I hate to say it but a push into 2027 is now looking like a real possibility.

We were pumped for the launch of the Steam Machine after visiting Valve HQ late last year. We even wrote up some pricing expectations, which in hindsight look to be the product of incredibly wishful thinking. But we didn't know what we do now. Due to incredible demand for memory chips of all kinds—DRAM, mostly, but NAND too—for use with AI, the entire PC gaming ecosystem is in sticker shock. Prices are increasing many times overs.

Valve, too, isn't immune. In a new FAQ, the company highlights how it would've liked to have shared prices for its latest products—the Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and Steam Frame—by now. However, the memory crisis has demanding a rethink.

"When we announced these products in November, we planned on being able to share specific pricing and launch dates by now. But the memory and storage shortages you've likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then. The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame).

"Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed. But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change. We will keep you updated as much as we can as we finalize those plans as soon as possible."

All three of Valve's new products are still expected to launch in the first half of 2026. While we don't have fears for the future of the Steam Controller, the other two are likely to be in a very tricky spot. Below, you'll find our revised guesses as to the price of the Steam Machine, which more than anything else, appears the most at risk of being priced into relative obscurity.

Let's look at memory prices, first off. A 16 GB dual-channel kit of plain Crucial memory used to cost around $50 or less. Today, it's around $200. Four times as much. One analyst firm today noted memory costs surging up to 90% so far this year. It's only the start of February, eesh.

The Steam Machine uses SODIMM sticks, usually found in laptops, and generally more expensive for consumers to purchase. Single stick kits are a little more affordable. I wouldn't be too surprised to see Valve switch to single stick RAM in light of current SODIMM prices, as it otherwise has nowhere else to go—the platform supports DDR5 and going lower than 16 GB would be a disaster in the making.

Though you'd expect Valve to pull favourable rates with suppliers compared to the average joe, but Valve isn't one of the big guys. Similarly, the reports of companies staking out memory manufacturers in Korea in the slim hope of scoring sticks puts any meaningful discount into doubt.

Last year, I guessed $529-$649 for the Steam Machine, on the basis that if Valve charged more, it would land at the same price as some budget PCs with more modern kit. Plus, I went to Valve HQ, and it seemed to me like affordability was a consideration throughout the design. As I said then, an RTX 5060 PC build would set you back around $750-$800.

But that was then. Nowadays, you're looking at around $900 for something similar and even that's a rarity. It's up to $1,000 for an RX 9060 XT, though a more powerful and newer GPU than the one found in the Steam Machine.

Since my original guess, we've also heard Valve talk on the potential price tag. Not just the bombshell last night that it's still trying to figure it out, but that it intends to price the Steam Machine "like a PC, not a console". Similarly, Pierre-Loup Griffais, one of the engineers behind the project, confirmed that Valve was aiming at price parity with a similarly performing PC (ie a pretty affordable PC), but that pricing was up in the air. And these comments were made before the new year, before memory shortages really hit hardest.

All together, it looks like Valve's best chance of getting a Linux machine into every living room was sometime last year, and now it's looking for a way to weather the ongoing memory crisis. Perhaps with a view to do something similar to the Steam Deck—keep the Machine around in the market long enough to make an impact and reduce BOM costs. Though unlike the Steam Deck, which enjoyed a rush for preorders on account of its affordability, the same might not happen for the Steam Machine if it's landing at too high a price and during a slow period in PC sales—which analysts expect we'll see this year.

I've just scrolled through Newegg's prebuilt PCs, going from cheapest first, and you can't buy a remotely modern gaming PC for less than $750, and I'm being pretty generous with my definition of 'modern'. That'll get you couple-generation-old tech and DDR4 (which is fine for gaming but it's not exactly the latest and greatest). For what Valve's offering, one-generation-old tech and DDR5, you'd be lucky to find that under a grand on Newegg. I've only found that Walmart machine for $900 that dares to include DDR5 for that sorta money.

For the 512 GB model, and I keep revising my guess as I fluctuate between optimistic and realistic, around $899. Charge much more and it would be cheaper to buy a PC with better parts and more storage space. Though if Valve is holding off until, say, June to launch this thing, as the memory crisis threatens to deepen, perhaps we won't see as many PCs like that $900 one from Walmart—which is a bit of a rarity even today.

For the 2 TB model, I'm wondering if Valve isn't considering ditching that entirely, with these drives in excess of $200 a piece. I think Valve would have a very hard time selling it for a four-digit sum. Most sensible users would buy the cheaper option and wait until all this blows over to upgrade the storage, right?

How much is it worth to Valve to get more players on SteamOS? That's likely a part of the discussions ongoing at Valve HQ as it deals with this dire situation. And hey, if you want to blame something for the situation we're in, you can blame AI.

I have to admit that I was utterly naive to think that the Steam Machine would launch at anywhere near $500. With a discrete CPU and GPU inside (i.e. no all-in-one APU to help reduce costs), it was already going to be a little tricky to keep things nice and cheap. But now that the global memory situation seems to be spiralling almost out of control, there's zero chance that it will be under $1,000. Yes, even the 512 GB option.

It could be under that price tag, because Valve does have the capital to effectively pre-order a metric shed load of bulk components under contract, for far less money than you and I have to cough up when we need more DRAM or a bigger SSD. However, Valve isn't pitching the Steam Machine as being a 'cheap' gaming PC.

Sony and Microsoft can afford to keep console prices relatively low because they were designed from the very beginning to be as cheap as possible to manufacture. And then there's the fact that they both get additional revenue from game licences. Valve might get a healthy cut of a publisher's income on every game that it distributes on Steam, but the Steam Machine isn't a closed platform, or at the very least, it doesn't look like it will be.

From what I can tell, it looks like you could stick any OS onto the device, and as long as you can get hold of the drivers for all the hardware inside, you could avoid SteamOS and Steam entirely. In other words, Valve can't guarantee that every Steam Machine it sells will automatically generate income via Steam itself, unlike with consoles.

None of my friends have expressed any interest in buying a Steam Machine and I guess that if it does launch with a four-figure price tag, the launch will end up being somewhat of a flop. There must be some pretty morose people at Valve right now.

It's absurd to think of how much PC part pricing has changed in the handful of months since I last made a Steam Machine pricing guess. At the time, I guessed (or more accurately, wished) for console, or slightly above console, prices. With the fast-rising cost of memory and storage, I think we could see prices rising up to the $1,000 mark.

Different tiers of storage, combined with upgradeable memory and storage, certainly help in this regard. It's not impossible to think Valve could put out a machine under $1,000 with the lowest possible storage and memory, so a buyer can upgrade at a later date.

Valve will have the privilege of direct contact with parts manufacturers, but, in the hardware space, it just doesn't have the pull that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo do. It can't estimate sales in the tens of millions, and risking the losses that console manufacturers make may not be sustainable for it. This is before mentioning that console manufacturers specifically target a more affordable price point, where we have heard little in that regard from Valve.

Valve says in its latest FAQ that it can't say a price until it can 'confidently announce' it. This level of uncertainty is certainly a worrying statement on current supply and future acquisition. We don't know what stockpiling efforts have been made to meet demand, but I'd guess the answer is 'not enough'.

Andy Edser, Hardware Writer: I cautiously estimated that the Steam Machine would end up with a $500-$600 price tag last year, but that was before the memory crisis turned the PC hardware market into an apocalyptic wasteland, with those of us prepared to navigate it fighting tooth and nail over anything with a DRAM module.

Sure, Valve (and AMD) will still likely be using their considerable industry influence and existing memory manufacturer relationships to minimise the fallout. But at this point, looking at my earlier figures and what Valve has said in the meantime, I've almost certainly lowballed it.

$800-$1,000 for the 512 GB version, with the 2 TB version soaring well over a grand. That's my guess, and this time I'm sticking with it. Unless another hardware shortage occurs, or we all end up underwater in the meantime. In which case, $1,000+ for both, and me crying into my soup. We'll see.

I mean, at least Valve is remaining committed to launching all three new Steam-y products in the first half of this year, eh? That's 'the goal' anyways. But if anyone is surprised that the Steam Machine and Steam Frame pricing and launch dates are still up in the air as we get into February, then you obviously haven't been paying attention to the nightmare state of the PC hardware market right now.

We've been tracking memory, SSD, and GPU pricing for the past three or four months and it's only going one way; it's rapidly going up. So, what's Valve to do?

One thing it could do is release the Steam Machine with a special launch price, trading on the fact that it would have got its initial run of memory and SSDs, and yes, even GPU modules, for a completely different price than subsequent orders will end up being if purchased months later. After all, Valve will have secured a certain amount of the componentry on contract in advance of manufacturing and eventual release.

But we've been down that road before with the current generation of graphics cards when they launched early last year. The MSRP and launch pricing of every single one of AMD and Nvidia's RX 9000 or RTX 50-series cards was completely different to what users could pick them up for even just a few hours after the initial release stock had run dry… or retailers and manufacturers sniffed a chance to gouge PC gamers on pricing.

Obviously, with Valve controlling the retail through the Steam store itself it can control those prices to avoid gouging on new gear, but even so, having to spike prices after launch itself will sting.

We don't really want that to happen here with the Steam Machine and Steam Frame. But we also don't know if Valve would have had enough of that early, cheaper RAM and SSD stock to fulfil a release in all the territories it has promised. If you do a special launch price, it would have to be across the board.

Valve could still do the launch price dance, releasing the Steam Machine at $699 in limited regions if it wanted; pulling it back to a US-only launch just inside of its first-half of 2026 release window.

But that's not going to make anyone happy, except for the first few hundred people getting a Steam Machine for a never-to-be-seen again price and re-selling them for over a grand on ebay.

So, I don't see Valve going down that route. And it's already said it's not going to subsidise the devices itself to achieve a cheaper retail price in exchange for the hope of getting more people spending in its Steam ecosystem. Which makes sense, because I guarantee the vast majority of people buying a Steam Machine will already be card carrying members of the Steam community with a huge library of games already on the platform.

I guess what I'm coming round to is the fact that Valve is royally screwed here.

This is a budget gaming PC, with a specs list that already puts it behind the sub-$1,000 machines that you will find at Walmart and Amazon. So it can't really go any higher than that and still hope to find a place in peoples' hearts. I get the argument that finding a gaming PC that smol is tough, but equally if you're looking for an affordable gaming PC, I would wager price becomes a far more important point than the litre capacity of the chassis.

That makes me think—if Valve actually does release the Steam Machine in the first half of this year at all—it will cost $999 for the 512 GB version and $1,500 for the 2 TB system by way of offsetting the cheaper version. After all, early adopters will pick up the higher capacity model in their droves, because they always do.

But then I am slowly coming around to the possibility that it might not actually come out at all. Already the second coming of the Steam Machine feels fraught, and with component pricing showing no signs of plateauing just yet, I could definitely see Valve putting the mini PC on indefinite hiatus. Then maybe Valve will retire the Steam Machine name entirely as a cursed thing.

Valve has broken its silence on its forthcoming hardware line-up, offering new details on the Steam Frame and Steam Machine, as well as an answer for why it hasn't revealed pricing and a release date yet (hint: blame the RAMpocalypse). It has also dropped some information about the kind of performance we can expect on the Steam Machine.

"In our testing the majority of Steam titles play great at 4K 60 fps with FSR on Steam Machine," Valve writes in a new FAQ. "That said, there are some titles that currently require more upscaling than others, and it may be preferable to play at a lower framerate with VRR to maintain a 1080p internal resolution."

It continues: "In the meantime, we are working on HDMI VRR, investigating improved upscaling, and optimizing ray tracing performance in the driver, so we are approaching this from multiple angles."

That 4K at 60 fps goal isn't new: Valve engineer Yazan Aldehayyat told PC Gamer in November that "our benchmark has always been that it should have enough performance to play every game on Steam at 4K60 when you do some sort of upscaling like FSR."

That's a very ambitious goal, but it sounds like Valve is pretty determined to stick to it, not least because this is a living room PC and most living rooms have 4K TVs.

Valve also confirmed that both SSD and memory will be upgradable in the Steam Machine, and that third-parties will be free to create their own faceplates for the Steam Machine. "We plan to share faceplate CAD, specs, and details in the coming months, for customers and manufacturers to make their own," Valve said.

Valve had hoped to have revealed a price and release date for the Steam Machine (and the Steam Frame) by now, but memory and storage shortages have prevented it. Nevertheless, both are still scheduled to release in the first half of 2026.

Valve has confirmed it still plans to release the Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Steam Controller in the first half of 2026, but more specific release and pricing information has been complicated by the ongoing memory and storage crises, or as we like to call it, the RAMpocalypse.

"When we announced these products in November, we planned on being able to share specific pricing and launch dates by now," Valve writes in a newly published FAQ about its forthcoming hardware. "But the memory and storage shortages you've likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then. The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame)."

As Jacob writes in his exhaustive primer on the memory crisis, the AI boom is largely to blame for jacked up RAM and SSD prices, thanks to AI servers' insatiable hunger for both. It's a problem that anyone hoping to build a gaming PC has to tackle at the moment, and not even an obscenely wealthy company like Valve is untouched by it.

"Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed," Valve continues. "But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change. We will keep you updated as much as we can as we finalize those plans as soon as possible."

The Steam Machine price is probably the factor that will make or break Valve's second attempt to wrest control over the living room. Our hardware team has mostly agreed on a rough $500-$600 estimation for a 512GB model, but that was back in November: component prices have only become more challenged since then.

Meanwhile, also in November, a Valve coder said the Steam Machine would be priced like a PC, rather than a console. The latter are usually sold at a loss to bolster an install base, all the better to sell software. "If you build a PC from parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that’s the general price window that we aim to be at," Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais said at the time.

AMD's latest earnings call has plenty of juicy tidbits to report, but something caught our eye very early on in the opening remarks. According to CEO Dr. Lisa Su, "Valve is on track to begin shipping its AMD-powered Steam Machine early this year."

Previously, Valve had stated that the new Steam Machine would release at some point in 2026, but according to the primary supplier of its internal hardware (it uses a semi-custom AMD RDNA 3 GPU with a Zen 4 CPU), we should be seeing it sometime soon.

How early is up for debate, but it looks like it won't be too long until we get one on the bench to test it for ourselves.

Valve's new Steam Machine has caused much excitement here at PC Gamer towers, and for good reason. While the original Steam Machines were something of a misstep, Valve's new cuboid compact gaming PC has some promising internals and a host of design features that we're anxious to put to the test.

One big question we're hoping will be answered soon is the potential price. All of us on the hardware team had a go at guessing the MSRP of Valve's new baby, but that was at a point when the ongoing memory pricing crisis was still in its infancy.

Some of our estimates look a little lowball these days, given that the price of memory is now downright outrageous. Dr. Su made mention of the issue later on in the Q&A segment of the call:

"I think the PC market is an important market. Based on everything that we see today, we're probably seeing the PC TAM (Total Addressable Market) down a bit... given some of the inflationary pressures of the commodities pricing, including memory.

"The way we are modelling the year is, let's call it, second half a bit sub seasonal to first half. Just given everything that we see"

The Steam Machine specs we have so far list it as having 16 GB of system RAM, which seems fairly moderate. Still, like just about all upcoming hardware using a DRAM module at the moment, I'd imagine Valve has had to make some adjustments to its planned MSRP in recent months. It's all to play for, though, and based on these remarks, hopefully we'll be getting our answer soon enough.

We are an alarming way into 2026 already, and you know what that means: the precipitous decline of all of our institutions and the environment. Also, the soonish release of the Steam Machine, which will probably make all that other stuff go down a lot easier.

The Steam Machine's actual release date isn't known yet, but Valve's said it wants to get its living-room Linux box out in early 2026, so I reckon it's reasonable to say it's due out in the next few months. Anyway, this is all to say that I think the most recent update to the Steam client—itself essentially a packaging of a bunch of fixes that have been pushed to Steam's beta branch recently—is, stealthily, very much about prepping for Valve's black box.

I say this because Steam's January 21 client update practically vibrates with controller fixes and updates. Support for the Nintendo Switch 2 wired controller has been re-enabled, there are new settings for joystick responses, fixes for gyro aiming, and plenty else besides (find the full list down below).

You ask me, that looks like Valve getting its input ducks in a row ahead of the release of its living room box, though it's far from the only set of fixes wrapped up in this latest update. You can now filter your games by selected store tags (you know, stuff like 'psychological horror' and 'dwarf' you see on game pages) in the client, the betas UI has been made a bit slicker and more easily parseable, and various crashes have been kiboshed.

Oh, and rejoice, if you're trying to play Mafia 2 Classic or Football Manager 2012, then they'll no longer exit at random mid-game.

My personal favourite change is, ah, utterly meaningless, but is one of those things that has itched my brain for a good while now. If you connect a gamepad while you're in Steam Big Picture mode, then the glyphs displayed on-screen will now switch from keyboard to controller immediately, rather than waiting for you to make an input.

You either empathise with my glee at this entirely or think I am ridiculous. You would be correct in either instance.

Anyhow, here's the full list of changes:

General

• Added display of selected store tags to app filter/collection dialog.
• Reworked the Application Properties -> Betas UI.
• Fixed certain games using Steam DRM exiting unexpectedly, including Mafia II (Classic) and Football Manager 2012.
• Fixed missing registry key error when running Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead.
• Fixed Steam client crash when Astrill VPN is installed.
• Fixed crash on Windows when certain force feedback gamepad drivers are installed.
• Fixed Steam client hang when a Nacon PS4 Compact Controller is connected.
• Fixed a case where plugging in a controller could trigger a 'Part of this app has been blocked' dialog.
• Fixed error when connecting in multiplayer to Source SDK games.

Library

• Advanced filtering now supports filtering by language and accessibility features.

Friends and Chat

• Other members of public group chats that you are a member of can no longer send you direct messages by default.
• You can now toggle the ability for group chat members that you are not friends with to direct message you in the 'Permissions' section of each group chat's settings.
• Added a 'report' option to the right-click context menu on chat window tabs and profile names in the chat log. This is in addition to the existing 'report' option on chat messages.

Big Picture Mode

• When connecting a new controller, the glyphs in the footer will now update immediately instead of after the first input from the controller.
• Fixed incorrect controller glyph in library filter selection dialog and filter description.

Remote Play

• Fixed resolution being incorrect when streaming to macOS in fullscreen mode.

SteamVR

• Fixed some instances of Dashboard UI elements not appearing.

Steam Input

• Nintendo Switch 2 wired controller support has been re-enabled
• GameCube adapters in Wii-U mode are not enabled by default, since opening them is exclusive with other applications. You can launch Steam with -enable-libusb-gamecube if you'd like to enable them.
• Improved handling of issues when a controller disconnects while the controller configurator is open.
• Added Gyro to Joystick Deflection option: Drag Center Point. When enabled, moving the controller past its maximum deflection angle will drag the center point with it, so that movement back toward the center will immediately register.
• Added support for the Razer Raiju V3 Pro.
• Analog Trigger Output is made available in the Trigger Mode select screen for better discoverability.
• Joystick Mode settings: Added "Response Axis Style" to "Stick Response Curve" options. The Response Curves can be applied in a "Per Axis" or "Circular" fashion. Previously, Joystick Mode only supported "Per Axis" response curves. Generally, Circular is recommended, and is now default. The option will only appear when relevant - when "Stick Response Curve" is not set to "Linear".
• Added toggle for Gyro "Smooth Fine Movements". This filter was necessary for older IMUs which demonstrated a significant amount of resting signal noise, but has become redundant due to the presence of other user tunable filters. It is defaulted to "Off" except in the case of PS4 DualShock controllers. Find it under Settings, Controller, "Calibration & Advanced Settings".
• Fixed changes to sliders on the Gyro calibration page not sticking.
• Fixed an issue with Steam Input API joystick actions not getting As Joystick options for Trackpad/Gyro.
• Fixed Hori Steam Controller Gyro behavior over Bluetooth.

If there's one thing you don't expect to see during the final weeks of a year, right before everywhere shuts shop for the holidays, it's a new graphics card. Normally the preserve of big tech events like CES and Computex, AMD has decided to buck that trend and quietly launch a new Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics card. Its unique selling point? A marginally lower power limit.

There was no announcement behind the launch whatsoever, as AMD just dropped the new card into its product pages, alongside its other Radeon models (via BenchLife). Simply labelled as the Radeon RX 9060 XT LP, it's literally just a normal 16 GB RX 9060 XT that's had its 160 W power limit reduced to 140 W.

The product page doesn't mention any changes to clock speeds, but these have been lowered, too, as this can be inferred from AMD's listed theoretical performance figures. For example, where the standard RX 9060 XT has an FP32 vector rate of 25.6 TFLOPS, the LP version is stated as being 25 TFOPS.

Going through all the metrics, the RX 9060 XT LP has clock speeds that are between 2 and 3% lower than the standard XT's, so instead of a boost clock of up to 3130 MHz, you're looking at 3050 MHz. Hardly anything to worry about, yes?

The obvious question to ask at this point is why? What reason does AMD have for releasing such a barely different model? One answer might be the competition from Nvidia. Its GeForce RTX 5060 and RTX 5050 cards have power limits of 145 and 130 W, respectively, and as these undercut the RX 9060 XT's 160 W by a reasonable margin, they're more suitable for SFF (small form factor) builds.

Alternatively, it could also be useful if you were planning to make your own Steam Machine. The GPU inside that has a power limit somewhere between 110 and 140 W, and the XT LP just about fits inside that bracket. Given that it's a superior processor to the RDNA 3 chip Valve is using, I know which one I'd prefer to use.

AMD's lowest-powered RDNA 4 graphics card is the RX 9060, sporting a limit of 132 W, but that also has 13% fewer shader units than the XT variant, so it's less of a tempting option than the XT LP. By offering a more energy-friendly RX 9060 XT, without sacrificing much in the way of performance, graphics card vendors may be more tempted to produce Radeon SFF models instead of GeForce ones.

That said, it is a little odd to see that AMD has retained the 16 GB VRAM of the XT in this new LP version. While there's only a 10 W difference in power limits between the 16 GB and 8 GB variants of the RX 9060 XT, AMD could have shaved even more power off the LP model if it just used 8 GB. At 130 W, it would be an easy win over the RTX 5050 and be even better for a DIY Steam Machine.

Another reason why it's an odd choice is, of course, the whole DRAM supply crisis. SFF graphics cards tend to be a little on the pricey side because they're low-volume sellers (it's a niche market, after all), so you'd think that AMD would be looking to help out its add-in board vendors by going down an 8 GB route.

And then there's the simple fact that there's nothing stopping card vendors from simply making their own 'LP' models by capping the power limit to 140 W, by default. Perhaps AMD has tweaked the voltage-clock curves in its RX 9060 XT LP or maybe even slightly reduced the voltages all round, but I suspect that there's not a whole lot of anything special going on.

None of the usual Radeon card makers have announced any XT LP models just yet, and there's a good chance that if they do, it will only be for certain markets. The days of graphics cards being able to run solely off power via the PCIe slot might be long gone, but any move to reduce the energy consumption and heat output of a GPU, however small it may be, is good news in my books.

While we've spotted a few full-size tower cases for sale over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this year, there hasn't been much love dedicated to the Mini-ITX case family. The question being, why in the hell not? The Steam Machine is coming in hot, and you can bet tiny PCs are going to be all the rage soon.

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If building a mini PC sounds like the kind of project you might decide to take on in the new year (you know you want to), then boy, do I have the case for you. Fractal's Terra case is down to $140 at Newegg, a saving of $60.

Even if you've only vaguely been hankering to build yourself a new machine, I can tell you a Mini-ITX case is a unique and oh-so-satisfying challenge, especially if you're opting for a Steam Machine lookalike.

I've personally built into this case, and while the hobby does come with big challenges (like trying to find a spare CPU fan with enough headroom), Fractal has really gone the extra mile to try to make every step easier. Thanks to the sliding central mount, you can easily shift things around to accommodate your preferred config... within reason.

The Fractal Design Terra—which I first spotted at Computex 2023 in its gorgeous Matcha Green colourway—doesn't quite match the cubic shape nor the near-six-inch size of the Steam Machine, though it does go hard when it comes to aesthetics. On every model, the front panel features a similar wood grain to that Steam Machine design everyone's raving about. In fact, I'd even go so far as to guess that this is the case that inspired the Steam Machine designers when coming up with the wooden front panel idea.

Sadly, it's only the Silver that's down to the best price we've seen it going for, but if you're looking to get that snowy aesthetic, it's still a great option. Even if you don't get the weeby dopamine hit that telling your pals your PC is Matcha color would provide.

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The best microSD deals this Cyber Monday

• Samsung Evo Select 512 GB | $33 (save $14)
• Samsung Pro Plus 1 TB | $80 (save $40)

In between all the wildly dystopic things happening in tech, it's important to remember the little, positive things about living in the future. For one thing, we can shrink storage media down to a form factor roughly the size of a fingernail, allowing you to pack up your Steam games onto a microSD card and take them with you on adventures abroad on your Steam Deck.

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Valve has also said the recently announced Steam Machine and the Steam Frame VR headset will be interoperable with the Steam Deck, meaning you can pop out the MicroSD card from one device and slot it into the other.

With the Steam Machine set for an early 2026 release window, Cyber Monday may well be the best time to snag an upgrade—especially when you can get the 512 GB Samsung EVO Select for $33 and the 1 TB Samsung PRO Plus for only $80 from Amazon.

While we can only theorise about how much the Steam Machine will cost, I feel pretty confident in saying that its 512 GB storage model will be the cheaper of the two options and likely the one more folks pick up. That means a supplementary 512 GB will be a must for most, and why picking up the 512 GB Samsung EVO Select for less than $40 is such a cracking deal.

But the Steam Machine and Steam Frame are still a ways off—so, how will these two microSD cards fare in your Steam Deck until then? Well, one thing to remember is that the original hardware release of Valve's handheld gaming PC is getting on a bit so that it won't make the most of the absolute fastest MicroSD cards available anyway. In other words, the Samsung Evo Select's read and write speed of up to 160 MB/s won't leave you waiting around.

The 1TB Samsung PRO Plus, on the other hand, offers a read speed of 180MB/s and a slightly slower write speed of 130 MB/s. That means moving games between your Steam Deck's own storage and this microSD might take just a few seconds longer than the Samsung Evo Select. However, getting your mitts on a whole terabyte of capacity at such a reasonable price point makes the compromise well worth it, I'd say.

You can also be safe in the knowledge that you're getting a relatively hardy card, too. The Samsung Pro Plus can apparently withstand up to 72 hours in seawater and can continue to operate in temperatures ranging from -25°C to 85°C. You know, just in case you happen to either lose this teeny tiny card at sea—or, indeed, while cleaning your oven.

Whether you're popping either of these cards in your Steam Deck or another gaming handheld I dare not say the name of, both offer excellent value. That's just as well, as one Valve coder has said the Steam Machine will likely be priced closer to a gaming PC and not the subsidised price point of a console, suggesting we'll all need to save our pennies going into 2026.

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We reported recently on Valve's indication that the Steam Machine will be priced like a PC, not a console. Valve has since confirmed that it does not plan to sell the Steam Machine at a loss, which is a reasonably common console play, the idea being to get people using a given platform and then make money on game sales.

Could that—even, should that—model apply to the Steam Machine? The publishing director of Larian Studios, the outfit behind Baldur's Gate 3 among other high-profile games, clearly thinks so.

News that the Steam Machine won't be subsidised was enough to have Michael Douse commenting on X. "I know subsidising hardware is unfashionable now but surely they're losing far more than a ~200$ difference by not having people on the storefront, which is essentially a money printing machine. That said it isn't stupid to not sell things at a loss, just peculiar in this case," Douse said.

In other words, Douse thinks the money Valve would lose selling the Steam Machine at a $200 loss per unit would be more than made up by the money Steam Machine owners then spend on the Steam gaming platform.

Taken at face value, Douse has a point. Selling hardware at a loss in order to make money on some kind of software or subscription service is a common enough practice. As mentioned above, that applies to games consoles. And isn't the Steam Machine a games console?

Up to a point, absolutely, yes. But it's also a PC that could be used for pretty much any PC task. Likely, it will be no problem to install a totally different operating system on the Steam Machine and not use any Valve services or software at all.

In that scenario, Valve will have subsidised the hardware for nothing. Of course, it's hard to say how many people would actually go out and buy a cheap Steam Machine to do non-Steam-based things with it. But it would certainly be some. If the Steam Machine was really cheap, no doubt Valve would end up having to put measures in place to stop businesses buying the things en masse to deploy for work use.

If that's likely the most obvious impediment to a subsidised Steam Machine, it's also worth noting that Valve isn't quite like other companies. As some have observed in response to Douse's post on X, Valve may simply not be all that "desperate" to grow the Steam user base via a subsidised box.

Likewise, perhaps Valve only wants its hardware business to grow to a certain scale rather than becoming a huge global operation as per Sony and Microsoft's console businesses. Long story short, maybe Valve is OK with the Steam Machine remaining relatively niche.

The Steam Machine might remind you of a console—it's a cute little box instead of a monolith of noisy fans, it's well-suited to play on a TV, and you don't have to build the damn thing yourself. It's like the Steam Deck in that way, but it might cost quite a bit more than Valve's celebrated handheld, as Valve coder Pierre-Loup Griffais confirmed on the Friends Per Second podcast.

"If you build a PC from parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that’s the general price window that we aim to be at," Griffais said on the podcast. "Ideally, we'd be pretty competitive with that and have a pretty good deal, but we're working on refining that as we speak. Right now is just a hard time to have a really good idea of what the price is gonna be."

When asked if the Steam Machine would be subsidized like a console, which tend go for around $450-600 USD these days, Griffais said no. That isn't to say the device will necessarily be priced like a prebuilt PC, though. As he continued on the podcast: "Obviously our goal is for it to be a good deal at that level of performance, and then, you have features that are actually really hard to build if you're making your own gaming PC from parts." Examples he gave were the Machine's small size, ability to interface with a TV remote and be turned on by the controller, and its low noise level.

"Being able to sit down on your couch, press one button on your controller and the whole thing lights up like you'd expect for a thing that's in your living room, I think that's very valuable," Griffais said on the podcast. "There's not really a price point to that, because it's not really something that exists in the PC market right now."

It sounds like it may be more expensive than we predicted. When hardware managing editor Jacob Ridley tallied up the guesses from the PC Gamer team, the average estimation came to $525—cheaper than a Playstation 5 with the disc drive, and less than a hundred dollars more than a Nintendo Switch 2. That said, the Steam Deck is undeniably a bargain given its form factor and performance, so maybe Valve's definition of a "good deal" involves taking the price somewhere in that ballpark.

It's all speculation at this juncture, and this new note from Valve is more of a vibe shift than anything concrete. But as Jacob noted in the above article, the appeal of this device depends largely on its price tag given that it is, at the end of the day, a midrange PC in a novel package: "You can get an RTX 5060 build for like, $750–$800, so Valve can't go much higher without dooming the Steam Machine concept to another 10 years in purgatory."

Mini machines have been my envy for quite some time now. Our hardware overlord Dave shared a picture of his home setup featuring a dinky Framework Desktop earlier today, and I am, as they say, well jel. So naturally, I've had my beady eyes on the equally dinky Steam Machine since it was announced.

But that Valve-spawned machine isn't out yet, and we don't even know how it's going to be priced. So, looking through PC deals, I can't help but feel my finger twitch over the purchase button on machines like this one from AVGPC for $899 at Newegg.

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Let's be clear from the start: Yes, there is a mini PC tax on this one, as there will be for any pint-sized gaming rig. For $900 in a standard-sized rig, you could get a build with a newer CPU and more RAM. But really, the tax isn't too bad here, and more importantly, you're getting more gaming juice than you'll get in the Steam Machine.

We reckon the Steam Machine will be a fair bit cheaper than this, of course—$300–400 cheaper, by our guesstimations—but we can't say for certain yet. What we can compare for certain are specifications, and on that front, this AVGPC Mini-X leaves the Steam Machine in its wake.

The CPU will be newer and probably faster in the Steam Machine, based on what we know, but it's not exactly going to be a productivity powerhouse, and neither is the Ryzen 7 5700X in the AVGPC build these days. Similarly, on the RAM front, both machines are getting DDR5 memory, and again, the Steam Machine will have newer DDR5 memory, but this difference will be far from make-or-break for budget gaming.

What will make a great difference for gaming at this level is the RX 9060 XT in the AVGPC build, compared to the custom RDNA 3 GPU in the Steam Machine. As best as we can tell, the Steam Machine's GPU will be equivalent to something like the RX 7600M, which performs a little worse than the RTX 3060. The RX 9060 XT performs far better than the RTX 3060. So, we can expect this mean li'l machine to perform significantly better than the Steam Machine on average.

When we're in the budget range, as we are here, the GPU makes much more of a difference than the CPU or memory, so if it's gaming you're focusing on, the AVGPC is a winner. That's even considering its mere 8 GB of VRAM, because the Steam Machine will only have that much VRAM, anyway.

Plus, as I argued in the Steam Machine's favour, 8 GB of VRAM is fine for budget gaming, i.e. for 1080p gaming in most games and even for some 1440p gaming, as long as you don't mind not gazing upon full-fat textures in some titles.

If you don't want to wait to see what the Steam Machine holds on the pricing front, I reckon you can do much worse than this mini PC right now. It comes with a Cooler Master air cooler for the CPU, and fits everything inside a dinky Cooler Master NR200 case with a windowed side panel. To hold fire or not: the choice is yours.

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The Steam Machine is a peculiar device. Ever since it was announced, we in the PC Gamer hardware lair have been discussing exactly what the target market is and who will get the most use out of it. And while that question looms in part because of the gaming PC's as-yet unknown price tag, it's because of its middling specs. On that front, Valve explains that the company's upcoming machine is actually "equal or better" than 70% of Steam gamers' systems.

Talking on YouTube channel Adam Savage's Tested, a Valve engineer said, "Another thing that we actually looked at is the Steam Hardware Survey. Basically, that just gives us a good benchmark of where people's home devices are at, in terms of performance. And the Steam Machine is equal or better than 70% of what people have at home. So that's also another way to, kind of, think about where we kind of arrived at that performance level [that they targeted]" (via Notebookcheck).

The engineer explained that the company wants the Steam Machine to allow users to play all their Steam games, but "we also kind of wanted to target more of an entry-level device" that is affordable. Thus the middling specs.

The Steam Hardware Survey tells us about the kinds of systems that the broad population of Steam users have each month: GPU, CPU, operating system, and so on. That's only based on those who are offered and choose to respond to the survey, though. It isn't the best at tracking smaller changes over short periods of time, but for figuring out broad data, such as how powerful 70% of users' machines are, I reckon it's fine.

The Steam Machine has a custom AMD RDNA 3 chip with 28 compute units (CUs), which makes it roughly equivalent to a Radeon RX 7600M, or a cut-back version of the Radeon RX 7600. It also has 8 GB of VRAM, too, which puts it behind most mid-range graphics cards today, but in line with budget ones.

Put two and two together, and Valve is pointing out that most people who game on PC don't have the latest, greatest machines. Most, in fact, run on what we'd consider a "budget" rig, or an old rig that's equivalent to a modern budget one. This tracks with what I've found when looking over Steam Hardware Surveys. The most popular graphics card is still the RTX 3060, and there are plenty of 10-series GPUs and older ones populating those lists.

We might get a different picture of the PC gaming landscape because what we often see online is a vocal minority of people with more modern and more powerful gaming PCs. This might go some way towards explaining why there's been such vocal backlash against the Steam Machine's 8 GB of VRAM, which I think will be unwarranted provided it's priced right.

And therein lies the crux, yet again: pricing. A dinky, console-like, SteamOS-powered gaming PC running an RDNA 3 GPU with 28 CUs and 8 GB of VRAM might be equivalent to or better than 70% of current Steam gamers' rigs, but how much do those rigs cost?

I'm sure people will be willing to pay a little extra for that official Valve stamp, but how much extra? Let's hope Valve prices it right. Over here, we're expecting something in the $500–600 range, but we're all a little in the dark, for now.

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Valve co-founder and games industry man of mystery Gabe Newell put consoles on notice Wednesday, and has now ended the week by taking delivery of his new custom-designed superyacht, the Leviathan. The vessel was built by Oceanco, a firm that's done such a good job that Newell just decided to up and buy it outright in August: apparently because he "respects the sea."

The news comes via Boat International, "the global authority on superyachting," which has Oceanco CEO Marcel Onkenhout waxing lyrical about the glories of the Gabenboat. Leviathan is 111 meters long and the 50th largest yacht in the world. Onkenhout says the diesel-electric vessel is the "most comfortable yacht ever designed" by the company (you'd hope so!) and a feat of custom engineering.

You want cables? This baby's got 280 miles of them, powering everything from an on-board hospital (with live-in nurse), air conditioning, satellites, cavernous garages for tenders (small boats, not chicken) and submarines, and of course entertainment systems.

We're not done, not even close. Leviathan has two gyms, a 250 square meter beach club with a spa and bar, diving platforms, and whatever a "dedicated drinks pantry" is. The cherry on top: a room with 15 of the finest gaming PCs ever assembled. Now that would be one hell of a LAN party.

Newell's own chambers include, per Luxury Launches, a large bathroom finished with parquet flooring and ash cabinetry. Sounds nice.

We're gonna need a bigger yacht

Time for some words from the man himself:

"Working with the team at Oceanco is incredibly enjoyable and a lot of fun; everybody is professional, creative and dynamic," said Newell. "We knew we were asking for unusual things, and Oceanco embraced it with open arms. Not only have we designed a very unusual yacht that leans into Oceanco’s strengths of innovation and design, but the team has also been willing to collaborate with us on evolving the process."

"From the very start, we knew nothing about her would be done in a traditional way," says Onkenhout. "We were welcomed into the team alongside Gabe and everyone who would ultimately be involved in operating her. It is this level of collaboration that sets Leviathan apart from anything we’ve built before."

I'm guilty of going on about the luxury side of this, but Leviathan has also been designed with scientific work in mind: Newell's interests now include Starfish Neuroscience, a company focused on neural interfaces (popularly known as "brain chips"), and Inkfish, a marine research operation. Part of this is a "convention-defying layout" that apparently brings teams together, which makes me think about all the times I've read about desks with wheels at Valve.

The materials were also chosen with an eye on reducing maintenance and repetitive tasks for the yacht's staff, so traditional materials like teak decks and wooden handrails are out, and composite alternatives are in. The diesel-electric power plant works alongside a battery storage system that allows Leviathan to operate for long stretches with no emissions, and it also features an advanced wastewater treatment system.

"She is not just a high-performance vessel," said Charlie Birkett, CEO and co-founder of brokerage firm Y.CO. "She is a working ecosystem, designed to support everything from world-class hospitality to scientific research. That is what happens when you put people and purpose at the centre."

Over 2,000 people were involved in the vessel's creation, and all of their names are engraved on a glass panel in the main staircase.

The Leviathan joins Newell's existing small fleet of very expensive boats, including the Draak and Rocinante, though this is undoubtedly the jewel in his collection. Newell says he still works seven days a week on "super-awesome" projects, even though he's technically retired, and the Leviathan will no doubt fit nicely into the multi-billionaire's daily routine: "get up, work, go scuba diving."

Valve unveiled the new Steam Machine earlier this week, and it's cute (if you're into cubes, anyway). But it's not exactly a powerhouse machine: PC Gamer hardware editor Jacob Ridley, who understands this stuff far better than I ever will, called it "fairly underpowered," noting that it rocks just a 200 watt power supply—a fraction of the PSUs in most gaming rigs. A good friend of mine, a longtime PC gamer, asked me, "Why the hell would I ever want something like this?" My answer, simply, was, "You wouldn't."

But that, according to Larian director of publishing Michael Douse (and I agree wholeheartedly on this) is entirely the point. Valve isn't coming for committed PC gamers who know what they're doing and want the lights to dim when they fire up their tabletop fusion reactors. It's gunning for people who want Steam games on the TV without any dicking around.

"Valve are probably betting on the fact that anyone who wants more demanding PC hardware on their TV is part of the audience who know how to turn any PC into a Steam Machine," Douse, always quick with a well-considered opinion, wrote on X. "Genuinely no point making a high-spec Steam Machine."

Which isn't to say higher-end Steam Machines aren't in store, but Douse believes that, like the Steam Deck, Valve will establish the template with the Steam Machine and let other manufacturers put out more powerful Linux-based TV boxes as they see fit.

"Pre-built system market has massive opportunity in the living room but no precedent to follow (no entry point)," Douse continued. "If Valve can once again normalise and thus create that entry point there is potential for big growth in that new market, and thus potential to move fast and shake up."

And what that has the potential to do, he continued, is shift "the war for the living room" from a battle between a few branded bits of hardware to one between digital storefronts—that is, numerous hardware manufacturers putting out a range of machines to run a handful of competing storefronts like Steam. "In that sense Valve & Xbox have the upper hand. (Support for 3rd party hardware)," Douse concluded. "Xbox strategy make sense now?"

It's an interesting thought and certainly within the realm of possibility, although obviously it's pretty long-term thinking. But it all tracks back to the new Steam Machine, and its intentional low-spec design. Pricing will likely be the key factor here; we won't know what's cooking on that front for a while yet, but assuming Valve keeps it low (or at least not too damn high), the Steam Machine has the potential to be a big hit among people who just want to play some Stardew or Battlefield 6 on the couch. And that, in the long run, really could change everything.

Steam Machine Startup Animation from r/pcmasterrace

There's something about a Valve hardware launch that's just so… wholesome, you know? The company just feels like one of the last to genuinely care about making a good PC gaming experience. I mean, there wasn't even so much as a mention of AI from Valve when discussing the Steam Machine, other than regarding upscaling. So it shouldn't really be a surprise that I'm excited for the prospect of custom Steam Machine launch screens.

For those unaware, if you have a video file in the right resolution and format, SteamOS allows you to use it as a boot screen—it can be anything you choose. And naturally, people have already got to work on boot screens tailored to the upcoming Steam Machine. In particular, this GabeCube one posted by Redditor DentureTaco will surely be a go-to.

The 'GabeCube' meme is already a little overused but frankly, I don't care. It's too good not to use, and this faux GameCube animation is fantastic. That staple Valve audio at the end sends nostalgic shivers down my spine, too.

That SteamOS lets you change its bootup screen shouldn't be a massive shock given it's a Linux operating system, and these famously let you do as much tinkering as your heart desires.

The way to get a custom load screen locked in on the Steam Deck is to ensure your video is a webm file in 1200 x 1800 resolution, and then put it in folder /home/deck/.steam/root/config/uioverrides/movies and save the video in that folder as deck_startup.webm.

There might be a different folder or method than this for the Steam Machine's startup video, but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't possible.

My colleagues and I were talking, earlier, about how cool it will be to be able to see those custom Steam bootup screens on the TV, which will of course be the primary display used for Steam Machines as it's designed as a peculiar console-PC device. For my part, I think my excitement over this shows just how there's a part of me that really longs for that sofa console experience, but with a familiar PC platform.

Throw in some custom faux GameCube shenanigans and some nostalgic Valve audio and I'm sold. Well, provided it's cheap enough, which isn't guaranteed. There's still no word on pricing for either the 512 GB or 2 TB version of the Steam Machine, though my colleagues and I have similar thoughts about what we might be in store for. Fingers crossed.

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We know a lot about the Steam Machine. We know its specifications. We know what it looks like inside. We even know what it's like to game on it. But we don't know how much it'll cost or when it will be available, outside of sometime in the new year.

So, I've asked around the PC Gamer team to find out what we think. With plenty of details on what's inside this machine, and Valve's tactics for the Steam Deck, we have most of the information we need to take an educated guess at the price. We don't know anything more than we've already said in our various stories on Valve's Linux box. We're simply piecing together our expectations, Valve's history, the specs, and some amount of vibes-based optimism from the team—a large amount of vibes-based optimism from the team.

I've tallied up an average from our guesses—or those of us brave enough to actually take a guess—and it's around $525. That's notwithstanding the difference between the smaller 512 GB model and the much larger 2 TB model, however, which may well cost in excess of $100 more based on today's Steam Deck OLED pricing.

Jeremy Laird, Contributor: Valve has clearly gone to great lengths to make the Steam Machine cheap. That AMD GPU is not only an old Radeon RX 7600 chip from three years ago. It's got bits turned off. Valve also decided not to give it 16 GB, which technically would have been easily done, another clear value play. So, Valve is getting access to a load of very cheap, binned-off GPUs for the Steam Machine.

Valve also has form when it comes to aggressive pricing. The Steam Deck is pretty aggressively priced and always has been. In short, Valve isn't about bleeding edge prices and big margins. On the basis of all that, and the reality that the Steam Machine needs to be compelling versus current consoles, I'm expecting at least the entry-level 512 GB version to actually undercut mainstream consoles. In other words, it will be under $499.

The complicating factor here is the ongoing RAM and storage price crisis. That will make hitting whatever price Valve was originally aiming at harder and will also impact higher spec models with more storage. But overall, I still expect the Steam Machine to very much land at the cheaper end of plausible pricing spectrum.

Jess Kinghorn, Hardware Writer: Despite the state of, well, everything, I'm still hopeful for a reasonably priced Steam Machine. The Steam Deck itself kept costs down by betting on already proven, last-gen tech too, so perhaps adopting a similar approach for the Steam Machine means a price tag in the ball park (or perhaps swinging for the parking lot) of the $600 mark isn't just blue sky thinking. For the sake of her wallet, a girl can dream.

Nick Evanson, Hardware Writer: Compared to the usual of handheld gaming PCs, the Steam Deck is an absolute bargain and it's pretty clear that was Valve's strategy from the start: Use basic or old hardware, strip away everything that's superfluous, and you'll be able to sell something at a low price point and still come away with a reasonable profit margin. On paper, the same should apply with the new Steam Machine, as it's as perfunctory as possible, with hardware that wouldn't even grace an entry-level gaming laptop.

But that doesn't mean the Steam Machine will sport a $400 or $500 price tag. The cost of some components is going to be very much out of Valve's hands (e.g. the DDR5 and GDDR6 RAM modules, and the SSD), so it will come down to whether enough has been saved elsewhere by using bargain bin parts for the CPU and GPU.

I'm pretty confident that it won't be seriously north of $500, though; perhaps $599 at most (for the max SSD version). That's because, unlike most handheld and mini PC vendors, Valve has far more sway in the PC market, and a healthy dose of cash to pay up-front for chip and component orders. Whether you'd want to splash out $500 or so on a little box that's a bit rubbish specs-wise is another question altogether.

Jacob Fox, Hardware Writer: The main problem that Valve will face, in my opinion, is that it's made quite the name for itself with the Steam Deck. I mean, that handheld is still sitting pretty on our best handheld gaming PC guide as the best budget option, three years after launch. And that's because it offers so much for such a low price tag.

Valve admitted it chose a "painful" but "critical" price point for the Steam Deck, to get people onto the platform and make the Deck ubiquitous with handheld gaming, and of course further cement Steam's monopoly. Valve hasn't officially confirmed this, as far as I can tell, but it's often said that the Steam Deck was initially sold at a loss.

That's a lot of pressure for the Steam Machine, don't you think? Mini PCs cost a heck of a lot, as do non-Deck handhelds. But people expect something different from Valve. I fear that people will be expecting the Deck's "painful" pricing ported over to the Steam Deck.

What this would mean, I think, is something in the $400–$550 ballpark, which would seriously compete with consoles as well as, of course, mini PCs. But if Valve doesn't bite that bullet, I'd expect something in the $600–750 range, and I'm not sure people will take too kindly to that. Perhaps they'd have a point, too, given we won't be getting the full mini PC Windows experience and all the app and game compatibility that brings. Valve could be in a lose-lose situation.

James Bentley, Hardware Writer: Valve has picked a strange time to launch the Steam Machine. We're likely not all that far away from the next generation of whatever Sony and Microsoft put out next, which risks ageing the device pretty quickly. As well as this, all kinds of hardware shortages lead to concerns around stock stability coming up to its launch. So, there are reasons why the Steam Machine may come in at a higher price than otherwise expected of its performance, but should that matter to the end user? Probably not.

I think the play with a device like this is to capture part of the audience that Valve has already courted. A Steam Machine could make for a good console replacement, hooked up to the TV and the fact that you've likely already got a backlog that's ever-growing only strengthens its case. You'd be practically losing money buying a new console instead. With this in mind, a Steam Machine could still be a roaring success even if it just about breaks even. The broader 'Valve ecosystem' feels more important than any one-off device, and the Machine clocking at console prices is exactly what it needs.

Jacob Ridley, Managing Editor, Hardware: The Steam Machine has to be pretty affordable. I have a few reasons for believing this but I'll try to keep it short. Here's my case:

Exhibit A: The Steam Deck.

Valve's handheld gaming PC was not the first of its kind, though it's most definitely the most famous. It's the one that most people think of first when someone mentions a handheld gaming PC. That's partially down to the pull that Valve has over PC gamers—the reason we're even writing this article is because of that very pull—but it's also because the Steam Deck, despite its under-powered hardware, is so gosh-darn affordable. It's stuck around, too. High-end handhelds live and die at the cutting-edge to justify their lofty price tags—the Steam Deck doesn't. It uses software and settings to get around some of the concerns with its lowly hardware and, even though it's practically ancient tech now, it's still the recommendation for many. Sure, I'm talking about a handheld when I really should be talking about the Steam Machine, but I don't think Valve will have forgotten what made the Steam Deck so good when planning its latest SteamOS-powered machine.

Oh, and the fact it is using SteamOS means there's no costs to slap Windows on it, and Valve has a pretty good reason to get as many people using the Steam Machine and Steam Deck as possible. Building familiarity with Linux as a gaming OS is the long-term goal here: it drove the plan for the first Steam Machines a decade ago as much as it is this newest revision.

Exhibit B: The innards.

I headed over to Valve to see the Steam Machine in person, and during our time with it, one of its principal engineers, Yazan Aldehaayat, showed us a version with the casing removed. A nude Steam Machine. Underneath its uninteresting black shell, it's a unitary machine. A solitary heatsink with a single fan. Sure, these are custom design that might push the price up a bit, but Valve is ordering enough to get a bit of a discount. This unified thermal solution saves extra components elsewhere, as does the compact 200 W power supply. If you can sell a gaming laptop for less than $1000 with a screen, keyboard, and more, it's possible to make something cheaper with less.

As Aldehaayat told me at the time, the power supply is the chassis on this thing. It's structurally holding the Machine together. So that's another cost-saving right there. The inclusion of discrete antenna for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the Steam Controller seem a little less money-savvy, but the spartan selection of ports suggests savings. There's only a single USB Type-C and one NVMe slot.

The GPU is also hewn out of one of AMD's most affordable GPUs, Navi 33, which is distinctly not the cutting-edge. It's RDNA 3, notably last-gen, as is the six-core CPU. It's using the Zen 4 architecture—the same used by Ryzen 7000-series chips. It also comes with 8 GB of VRAM, which to the disdain of some, is cheaper than 16 GB.

Exhibit C: The market.

We're not short of high-end mini PCs. This is not a new frontier for PC gaming like handheld PCs were back in 2022. Some might argue that a console-like box for the living room is new, and I can see the case there, but it's perfectly possible to buy or build your own PC right now and have nearly the same experience using Big Picture Mode. I would know, I have a living room PC built into the compact Fractal Terra that sits below my TV.

But the problem with my tiny living room PC is that it was expensive. Mini-ITX parts are costly, despite being a fraction of the size of ATX parts (because they're a fraction of the size, really), and you need to be able to stuff some sort of discrete graphics card into a compact case to get much hope of gaming performance out of it at 4K. You might have noticed that graphics cards are neither cheap nor small. Anything suitably small is no longer cheap, and vice versa—this is the way of PC gaming.

Now, it could be true that by shrinking everything down to fit inside the Steam Machine (which is smaller than it appears in pictures), Valve would've also had to spend more money. But then what's the point? What is Valve bringing to the table? What's the engineering challenge? It doesn't make much sense to have another expensive mini PC in the market when gaming NUCs already exist. It's an engineering challenge to make a tiny gaming PC, but it's an even greater challenge making it anywhere near affordable. I have some faith that Valve is keen to take on that challenge.

Verdict:

There are two models of Steam Machine on the way: 512 GB and 2 TB. Much like the Steam Frame (which comes in 256 GB and 1 TB models), this gives Valve the flexibility to top-and-tail price. It can offer one machine at the more affordable end of the market, say, $529, and another at a higher price, say, $649—Valve knows the pre-orders will roll in for the more expensive one anyways. Plus you can get an RTX 5060 build for like, $750–$800, so Valve can't go much higher without dooming the Steam Machine concept to another 10 years in purgatory.

Andy Edser, Hardware Writer: The Steam Machine needs to be well-priced to move in serious numbers, and after a year of keeping track of hardware prices worldwide, I've got my teeth clenched.

Of course, Valve will be using its considerable weight (not to mention its vast financial resources) combined with careful component choices to bring the Steam Machine down to a price it thinks most adopters will pay. I think it's very unlikely we'll be seeing, say, an $800+ machine, as at that point you might as well pick up a considerably larger (and more powerful) pre-built gaming PC instead, and I don't think Valve is looking to compete at that level.

But dropping under the $500 marker feels like a stretch too far if it plans to make a decent profit. Really, this depends as to whether Valve is happy to sit on low margins to encourage adoption, or whether fluctuating hardware prices worldwide, combined with a desire to pay off R&D costs, results in a price tag that bites.

I'd lean slightly towards the former, and say that I'd expect the 512 GB version to come in between $500 to $600, with the 2 TB model edging into $700 territory. Valve has the financial resources to lean back a little on profit margins, and the older hardware inside the Steam Machine, combined with some obvious internal efforts towards cost-saving, seems carefully weighted towards an attractive MSRP. Adoption is key here, and Valve has had its fingers burnt in the hardware market before. As usual, though, I'm prepared to be catastrophically wrong.

Screw it, $350. We'd all fall off our chairs, wouldn't we?

Dave James, Editor-in-chief, Hardware: It's a toughie really. Valve has set out its stall to make this a budget-friendly machine, with its resolutely last-gen technology, but what it views as budget might be very different to what we want to see as a budget gaming PC.

While I'd love to see a $399 price tag on the 512 GB version of the Steam Machine, I'm realistic enough to think that's asking for a touch too much generosity from Uncle Gabe. You don't become a multi-billionnaire by giving stuff away.

That is, after all, the price of the 256 GB LCD version of the Steam Deck, and with the Steam Machine's RDNA 3 GPU delivering more than six times the performance of the Valve handheld, it would be strange to have that level of price parity. They are very different devices, though, and you do regularly get a wide disparity between the price/performance numbers of desktops vs. gaming laptops.

If we stick with the Steam Deck as a yardstick, however, then you could look at the 512 GB Steam Machine coming in at the same $549 as the 512 GB Steam Deck OLED and the 2 TB option hitting the $649 of the 1 TB OLED handheld.

What I would say is that, with only two possible options, I reckon Valve is going to want to be able to slap a $499 sticker on there because that looks sooooo much more tempting than anything over $500. So, I'm going to put my marker down on $499 for the 512 GB option and $649 for the 2 TB Steam Machine.

I mean, we know Valve can almost price the lower-end model however it likes; with pre-orders likely to be as heavily weighted towards the top-end model as they were when the Steam Deck first launched, it's going to be making most of its money on the 2 TB device.

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'Tis true, sire—the Steam Machine rides again. No longer simply issuing specs and outsourcing the rest, Valve is set to fully realise what was at best a half-formed vision more than a decade ago, while also fortifying its existing hardware successes. Valve has introduced a number of new branches to its hardware ecosystem, including the aforementioned PC-for-the-TV device. But who is it for? And is Valve really angling for a slice of the console market?

While we know the Steam Machine will release early next year, we don't yet know how much it will go for—but I'm feeling hopeful it could be an affordable, accessible option for the PC gaming-curious. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: PC gaming is an expensive hobby. After the not small upfront cost of building your very first rig, there's the regular rhythm of pricey hardware upgrades (to say nothing at all about the cost of repairs and replacement parts).

So, could the Steam Machine corner the market of folks curious about the power and customisability of PC gaming, but who still want to hit the ground running when it comes to gaming? Given that the bog-standard PS5 now costs $550 and the price of a 1TB Xbox X has climbed up to $650, what would a compelling price point for new hardware like the Steam Machine look like in this day and age anyway? And is modern console gaming really a fair comparison point when the technical makeup of the Steam Machine itself skews closer to a mini-PC with a discrete GPU?

I'm not just asking for myself, someone who finally upgraded to her first gaming rig only after relying on an elderly gaming laptop for a decade. I'm asking for my Mum, who is still in part relying on an HP Pro 3010 Microtower machine from 2009. Even worse, it's also a Windows 10 machine.

Now, lest you think I'm trying to foist Valve's Linux-based SteamOS PC onto someone who'd have no use for it, let me explain: I only confronted my mum's dire hardware straits recently, when I got the bright idea to see if her PC could run Steam. Before, I'd spent years poorly packing my pointy PS5 into a bag and lugging that all the way home.

Most recently, Mum has been all about solving the conundrum of how to get away with murder in Overboard, but she also sat through—and even at points enjoyed—watching me play 40 hours of crime drama Yakuza 0. Granted, neither of us were particularly fond of how the female characters were written in that '80s-set prequel—though I approached it from the perspective of someone who has only ever read about the decade, whereas my Mum not only lived it but was also working one of those newfangled computer science jobs at the time.

My Mum is more than curious about games, but she lacks the hardware to pursue the interest. Mum's a coder, building bridges between clients and databases, which not only takes a tremendous amount of time but can often be built just fine on a system with an underpowered, integrated graphics chip (the horror). As such, she's been far too busy to investigate all that a discrete GPU could offer—besides, her 2009 desktop ain't broke, it just gives her ample time to get a brew while it contemplates booting.

Somewhat selfishly, I'm looking for a solution that means I don't have to lug hardware all over the shop and will save my poor back. Thankfully, the Steam Machine is interoperable with the Steam Deck, meaning for one thing you can connect four of the handhelds via the dedicated antenna on the tiny PC. A girl may dare to dream about bringing the whole family into Valve's ecosystem.

Family sharing via Steam is all well and good, but you can also load your Steam games to a microSD card, and then play them on both devices. The option to load my collection to physical media, and then pop that in my Mum's Steam Machine without having to worry about creaky internet download speeds—or, indeed, my creaky back—is a compelling prospect.

Basically, I'm hoping the Steam Machine makes it easier to share my love of games with those I love. I appreciate that learning how to build a gaming PC can be an intimidating prospect, even if you're already reasonably tech-literate. So, a prebuilt device that's just as happy out of the box on your desktop as it is beside your TV feels distinctly more welcoming. However, not knowing how much Valve will be asking for the Steam Machine definitely pumps the brakes on my gaming schemes.

While I can wish upon a shooting star that Valve's bet on older hardware keeps costs down, the fact of the matter is that our top pick for the best mini-pc with a discrete GPU is the Asus ROG NUC 970—and that costs well over a grand even for the barebones model. If the Steam Machine's pricing rocks up anywhere near the $1,000 mark, that's a discussion with my Mum that's over before it's even begun (and anyone else might as well build their own gaming PC from scratch).

Now, it's not really fair to compare the NUC 970's Nvidia RTX 4070 Mobile card to the Steam Machine's semi-custom AMD RDNA 3 GPU, to say nothing of the NUC's comparative oodles of DDR5 RAM; Asus ROG is pitching towards a decidedly different PC gaming crowd than Valve. However, our best mini-PC pick that's rocking an even somewhat comparable chip is the Minisforum AtomMan G7 PT with its Radeon RX 7600M XT GPU…which also still costs close to a grand for even the barebones model.

That doesn't mean all hope for an affordable Steam Machine is lost, though. For those who would appreciate the reminder, you can pick up the 512 GB version of the OLED Steam Deck for $550, or get the 1TB version for $650. Naturally, the 256 GB LCD model shakes out cheaper at $400—it's our favoured budget pick for the best handheld gaming PC for that reason.

Mind you, hardware has moved on a bit over the last few years, and though Valve is once again betting on last-gen, proven tech, the Steam Machine is still six times faster than the Steam Deck. Couple that with the fact it's also offering the Steam Machine in both a 2 TB and a likely less pricey 512 GB storage flavour, and I'm not yet convinced Valve has completely disregarded the affordability angle for this device.

Obviously, I don't think it's going to be as cheap as the LCD Steam Deck at $400. Personally, I'm hoping somewhere near the $600 mark is not just blue sky thinking—though if it does go for that little, I will eat my hat and then the console itself.

Whatever price tag the Steam Machine launches with in spring of 2026, I think I've at least got enough ammunition to convince my Mum she at least deserves an upgrade in some form.

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Valve's Steam Machine has been received generally quite well so far. Judging by online commentary, there's plenty of excitement for it, although pretty much everything of course rests on its pricing. But apart from the over-abundance of still-somehow-funny 'GabeCube' comments, what I've seen perhaps the most is people questioning why the Steam Machine has just 8 GB of VRAM.

It's not a new phenomenon; people have been complaining about graphics cards having just 8 GB of VRAM for years now. The problem really rose to the forefront with the RTX 4060 Ti, which initially launched with just 8 GB of VRAM to the chagrin of some. Nvidia then released a 16 GB version with a much higher price tag, which people also didn't like—many seemed to just want a 16 GB version with the 8 GB's price tag.

The complaint is that 8 GB of VRAM isn't enough for gaming in 2025 in many cases. And this much is true for at least some games to run at higher settings, such as Hogwarts Legacy and The Last of Us Part 1—this was resolved in The Last of Us Part 2, though. Even when games don't seem to be trying to use more than 8 GB of VRAM, that might be because they're choosing not to stream as many or higher-resolution textures, for example, meaning you're not getting the full graphical experience.

But on the other hand, there are plenty—and I mean plenty—of games that run well with just 8 GB of video memory, especially on restricted settings and lower resolutions. Not everything is about new games at max settings. I think there's a good argument to be made for 8 GB of VRAM being fine for a budget rig but not ideal for a mid-range build and especially not a high-end one.

And therein lies the question: What should we expect from the Steam Machine? Is it a budget gaming PC or something more? We, of course, won't know the full answer to this until pricing is released, but given its specs, I think 8 GB of VRAM makes sense.

We're talking about a GPU that seems to be something akin to the RX 7600M, a previous-gen mobile GPU with 28 compute units (CUs). That's fewer, older CUs than even the current-gen RX 9060 XT, which might I remind you also has an 8 GB variant with an MSRP of $300.

The RX 7600M's Navi 33 GPU has a 128-bit bus width, and we can expect the Steam Machine to have the same, which will make 16 GB of VRAM difficult. Assuming 2 GB memory modules are used, four of them can run across a 32-bit lane each, making for 8 GB total. We could ask for a bigger bus width, but this would require more physical space, ie, a bigger chip. Bigger chip equals more power, more money, etc.

The only way to get around this would be to run the memory modules in clamshell mode and have each 2 GB chip sharing a 32-bit lane with another chip on the underside. But the problem with that is we're talking a mini PC here with a single heatsink mounted on the top, and getting cooling to work on both chips either side of a PCB in clamshell mode would be very difficult and costly given the placement sandwiched between the power supply and heatsink.

And then there's the simple matter of cost. Not only would increasing the VRAM increase the price (duh) but we're also in a time of increasing memory prices. And yes, the rising demand is primarily for regular DRAM memory, not video memory, but manufacturers will be diverting production from the latter to the former to keep up; it's all interrelated.

In other words, if we want 16 GB of VRAM in the Steam Machine, we'd have to bite the bullet and pay a premium for it, and that premium might be a lot more than we expect. There's already lots of pressure on Valve to make this Steam Machine cheap, given the precedent already set by the Steam Deck and questions over the new machine's performance. 8 GB of VRAM is a reasonable compromise to achieve a lower price, in my opinion.

Of course, I'll eat my words if Valve charges $700+ for the Steam Machine. Then it really won't be excusable to have such low specs, in my opinion. And I do think Valve should probably lay off the 4K marketing, whether they're talking FSR or not.

Valve claims the aim for the Steam Machine is 4K60 in any game with the help of upscaling, like AMD's FSR. However, rigs like this are usually thought of as 1080p machines—1440p at a push—and in these instances, 8 GB of VRAM is fine. The company's not doing itself any favours by laying heavy on the 4K use case, which is sure to be a struggle at times.

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If you're experiencing déjà vu following Valve's announcement of a little cubic "Steam Machine"—essentially a PC gaming console—it's because Valve already announced and launched Steam Machines a decade ago. It didn't work out so well back then, but this time, I think Valve has a real shot at finally decoupling a respectable chunk of PC gaming from Windows, if not the entire saucer section.

In 2017, I wrote a big report about why Steam Machines failed to take off, and the main thing Valve's hardware partners told me was that SteamOS just wasn't ready for the big leagues. The custom Linux distribution didn't support enough hardware or games, and only super-nerds had much enthusiasm for ditching Windows, especially as Windows 8 was being replaced by the much better-liked Windows 10.

As a result, the original Steam Machines were never taken seriously as an alternative to desktop PCs or consoles like the Xbox One. Manufacturers started putting Windows on them to get them out the door.

"Nobody was buying it with SteamOS," boutique PC maker Digital Storm told me at the time.

But after shelving the Steam Machines label, Valve kept working on the problem, and now has three potent new ingredients:

• A much improved SteamOS with its new Proton compatibility layer, which allows it to run Windows games well, with some exceptions (most anti-cheat software doesn't play nice with it).
• The Steam Deck, which runs SteamOS and did become popular, creating an incentive for game developers to make sure their games at the very least work with Proton, if not Linux itself.
• So many more games, including former Xbox and PlayStation exclusives. The Steam library has expanded mightily in just the past decade due to adoption by just about all the big publishers that once abandoned it, as well as its Steam Direct self-publishing system.

Meanwhile, Windows 11 is fine, but Microsoft still hasn't managed to become the de facto gaming provider on its own OS. Its UWP architecture didn't take off with game developers, and the Microsoft Store remains nothing more than an icon to unpin from the taskbar after a fresh Windows install. The Xbox app is better, but I'd only use it if I were a Game Pass subscriber.

On the hardware front, we've heard from Microsoft that the next Xbox console will be "a very premium, very high-end, curated experience," which strikes me as an odd plan. We're a long way from the zenith of technical complexity games can reach, but the current mass market is clearly less interested in ray tracing than it is having games that simply run well on affordable systems.

We don't know what the new Steam Machine will cost yet, but the spec sheet for Valve's cube says that the semi-custom AMD GPU supports 4K ray tracing at 60 fps if you use FSR upscaling, a frame rate-boosting technique similar to Nvidia's DLSS. So it's a decent gaming PC, but not top-of-the-line. (There'll be other models, but it's TBD whether Valve can again drum up excitement from boutique PC builders or get hobbyists like us building our own SteamOS rigs.)

Savvy users will also appreciate that they can install non-Steam games and software on SteamOS, while Microsoft's "curated experience" comment doesn't suggest that the next Xbox will be an open platform, despite surely being a Windows PC wearing an Xbox suit. (That openness is why I still consider Steam Machines to be PCs, rather than full-on consoles. MS could still surprise us on that front.)

A good-enough PC in a small form factor paired with Steam's growing library of SteamOS-compatible games at a (I hope) modest price feels like a strong play right now. The same strategy is working for the Steam Deck (currently priced at $400-$650, compared to $600-$1,000 for the Xbox ROG Ally handhelds), and the cube can strengthen that small but stable foothold in the console market. It's still a long climb to the top, but Valve is in no rush, since it continues to absorb money from Steam even when it sits still.

For a long time we've noted with a chuckle that it must be frustrating for Microsoft that, despite owning the OS that almost everyone plays PC games on, it's never been able to wrest control of PC game distribution from Valve. But now it feels like we're entering an era defined by the reverse dynamic: Valve attempting to divorce its fate from that of Windows.

When Gabe Newell and company first started building their Linux-based ark to flee to in case Microsoft ever pulled another Windows 8 on us (Newell hated Windows 8, calling it a "catastrophe"), it seemed like a nice dream, but that was it. Windows was just too dominant.

Today, Windows still is very much the dominant OS—94.84% of Steam users are using some version of Windows, according to the latest user survey—but Valve's escape plan is now something to take seriously. It prised open a fissure and wedged the Steam Deck into it, and the share of Linux users on Steam has been slowly growing ever since. Jam a cube in there, too, and who knows?

In related news, Valve has also announced a new Steam Controller and a wireless VR headset called the Steam Frame—it's clearly all-in on its hardware business.

I found myself staring at this render of a Dbrand Portal companion cube case for Valve's newly-announced Steam Machine for far too long this morning. I mean, it could be a joke, right?

For a start, it's a render, and not a particularly good one at that. For a second, it appeared on Dbrand's site a day after the Steam Machine announcement, with zero details other than a sign up form for email notifications and a smattering of "coming 2026" text, which suggests it's an idea someone might have come up with on the spot.

However, The Shortcut says that Dbrand has already emailed about the case, and it really does appear to be in the works:

"After yesterday’s announcement of the Steam Machine, we asked our Industrial Design team the only sensible question: Can we turn this thing into a real-life Companion Cube?" said Dbrand.

"Yes. The answer is yes. Even after accounting for the removable faceplate and air intake requirements, we’re confident it’s fully viable."

Well, there you go. It's apparently being designed as we speak, and we don't know anything about it other than this absolutely minimal information. I've reached out to Dbrand for more info, and will update this piece with anything I receive.

Still, the 2026 timeframe would mean it releases in the same year as the Steam Machine, at least, and Valve has already provided the potential facility for aesthetic mods with a customisable faceplate. So, it would be something of a continuation on the theme.

Jumping on the whole Valve=Portal, Portal=Valve bit would likely shift a few units, and I can see streamers sticking it in their camshots as a bit of extra decor. Portal's cultural weight within the gaming community is strong, as evidenced by the fact I still see people making "the cake is a lie" references in 2025, over 18 years since its original release.

So, how much will it cost? No idea. How will it potentially interface with the Steam Machine? Not a clue. Do I want one? No, not really, but lots of people might. We live in confusing and uncertain times. This case, however, does not appear to be a lie. Thank you, and goodnight.

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Valve is building out its own ecosystem of products with the announcement of the Steam Machine and the Steam Frame, joining its ranks of Linux-powered devices alongside the Steam Deck. While they run the gamut from handheld to headset, they have one common feature: a microSD card slot.

Located in the strap of the Steam Frame, on the front of the Steam Machine, and beneath the screen on the Steam Deck, this microSD card slot allows for easy transfers of games between devices. According to Valve, it's simply plug and play. If you have a bunch of games installed on your Steam Deck's card and you plug that into the Steam Machine, voila, all your games are now available there.

"You can take your catalogue from your Steam Deck or from your Steam Machine, and they're fully interoperable, so you can plug it in here and just bring it along with you," Jeremy Selan, an engineer on the Steam Frame, says.

All three devices support up to 2 TB of SDXC storage via the microSD card slot, and Valve tells me that game performance is good enough even from the compact storage medium.

"We think you get a really good experience with SD cards. Game load time/boot time is still really good, and that's really the easiest option," Yazan Aldehayyat, a Valve engineer working on the Steam Machine, says. "It's what we recommend for most people."

You don't need a microSD card, each device comes with storage, though it's noted as the easiest way to upgrade your storage as on both the Steam Deck and Steam Machine, you would have to clone the existing 2230 SSD to replace it with a higher capacity model.

Here are the storage options for each device:

• Steam Machine: 512 GB, 2 TB
• Steam Frame: 256 GB, 1 TB
• Steam Deck: 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB

We don't know the price for the Steam Machine or Steam Frame yet, so it's yet to be determined whether buying a higher storage option is a better deal than a comparative microSD card or not. However, the Steam Deck OLED with 1 TB of storage costs $100 more than the Steam Deck OLED with 512 GB of storage, more expensive than a 512 GB microSD card (around $30–50).

So, you probably are better off with the microSD option in terms of value, due to just how affordable these cards are, though you will suffer in terms of load speeds in some games. The Steam Deck's NVMe drive isn't particularly fast compared to the best SSDs for gaming, but it's much faster than a microSD card.

There are other ways that these devices come together as one family. Most importantly, SteamOS, Valve's own operating system, which has a unified user interface that originally was made for the Steam Deck, but has since also come to Big Picture Mode and SteamVR. There's also fast suspend and resume, which is common across all devices.

"We're a fairly small industrial design team here, and we really made sure it felt like a family of devices, even to the slightest detail. How it feels, the buttons, how they react, everything belongs and works together kind of seamlessly," Clement Gallois, a designer on the Steam Frame, says.

We don't know exactly when the Steam Frame, Steam Machine or Steam Controller will launch next year, only that they'll show up at some point. Though at least Steam Deck owners can pre-empt the date by preloading games onto a microSD card ready for when the day arrives.

When I first learned that Valve was going to release Steam Machines again, I groaned inwardly. Although I never bought one myself, I briefly had the chance to use one about nine years ago and wasn't in the least bit surprised that the project failed. It was only when I got to try a Steam Deck for the first time that I realised Steam Machines weren't dead at all and now they're back again entirely. So what went wrong the first time, and will the new ones fare any better?

To fully understand the significance of the Steam Machine's rebirth, you need to go back to the year 2012. This period is important because it's when Microsoft released Windows 8, a version of the PC operating system that was supposed to be an OS for all devices, but mostly just succeeded at pissing people off.

Developed over four years, Windows 8 wasn't just a mild tweak of Windows 7, with a fancy new GUI slapped on top. Microsoft wanted to dominate the entire personal computing market (desktop, laptop, tablet, phones, etc) and the software industry tied to it. In the case of the latter, that came in the form of Windows Store, a new digital distribution service where vendors could sell applications that stuck rigidly to Microsoft's Metro design rules.

As you can imagine, the move wasn't exactly popular because if it took off, Microsoft could potentially have full control over what apps and games could be sold for Windows-based PCs. One of the most notable dissenting voices just happened to be Gabe Newell's, who said at the time that "Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space."

More importantly, though, he dropped the biggest hint as to what Valve was contemplating behind the scenes: "We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well." To that end, the company released a Linux version of Steam, along with tools for developers to help them port games to the open-source operating system.

A few months prior to this, Valve added Big Picture Mode to Steam, a configuration for the GUI that made it more suitable for TVs and displays other than your average PC's monitor. At the time, we weren't entirely sure whether Valve was expecting us to just plug our gaming rigs directly into the back of our TVs or use some kind of streaming mechanism.

If it were the latter, would that mean Valve was planning on creating a streaming device or collaborating with hardware manufacturers to have 'Steam-approved' devices? As it turned out, it was both.

Throughout 2012, plenty of rumours bounced around that Valve was about to enter the hardware market directly, possibly with some kind of home console-like PC. The Linux port of Steam and Big Picture Mode certainly lent weight to this idea.

Everything became clear in September 2013, when Valve officially launched Steam Machines, along with SteamOS (a Linux-based operating system) and the Steam controller. These were all paper launches, though, as Valve and hardware partners wouldn't have anything physically ready for a good while. We did get our hands on beta versions of all three at the time, but it would be another two years before the hardware was retail-available.

The problem was simple: Valve wasn't making the Steam Machines itself; it wasn't even hiring another firm to build them for it. Instead, it worked with vendors such as Alienware, Falcon Northwest, iBuyPower, Gigabyte, Scan, Zotac, and others to freely design and build PCs that simply met Valve's Steam Machine requirements. Well, requirement, as there was only one: be able to run SteamOS.

And that was the crux of the issue. SteamOS really wasn't ready to be used by the general public. If you own a Steam Deck, you'll be very familiar with the latest iteration of Valve's operating system, but SteamOS 2013 and SteamOS 2025 are very different beasts. Where the latter happily runs thousands of Windows-based games with nary an issue, the original version of SteamOS could only run native Linux applications.

The limitations of SteamOS gave hardware vendors the heebie-jeebies, and while many of them were committed to the idea of Steam Machines in the public domain, behind the scenes, they rapidly realised that they just weren't going to sell many of them. Why would you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a PC that used a brand-new operating system and had a gaming library a fraction of the size of that of Windows machines?

In many cases, Steam Machines were being pre-sold with Windows, because SteamOS just wasn't up to scratch. By the time Valve finally got around to physically releasing its Steam Controller late 2015, practically a requirement for Steam Machines, the writing was already on the wall. By mid-way through 2017, it was all over.

Microsoft had long since banished the horrors of Windows 8 by giving us the superb Windows 10 in 2015, and it was clear that its attempt to corner the app market had amounted to very little. PC gamers saw little reason to abandon something that developers were fully committed to (i.e. Windows instead of Linux).

While Steam Machines were no more, Valve clearly wasn't done with its idea of having a Windows-free ecosystem for PC gamers, as evidenced by the fact that we got the Steam Deck in February 2022 (feels longer ago than that, doesn't it?). The key to getting it right this time was a combination of handling all the hardware aspects directly and making Proton for translating Windows code to run in a Linux environment.

The handheld gaming PC market is jam-packed with all kinds of different models, and the original Steam Deck does feel somewhat basic and dated now. However, the hardware and software ecosystem of the little device works exceptionally well, and I suspect this is what Valve envisioned for the original Steam Machines.

A decade later, and they're back again. This time, the hardware isn't standard PC fare: essentially, it's a Steam Deck on steroids, though still quite low-key by modern PC gaming standards. A custom AMD APU with a Zen 4 CPU sporting six cores and 12 threads, plus an RDNA 3 GPU with 1792 shaders and 8 GB of VRAM, won't be a rocket ship, no matter what the clock speeds are like.

But thanks to all the groundwork laid down by the Steam Deck, it'll be more than enough for a spot of big-screen PC gaming, thanks to a streamlined operating system and an enormous game library to dip into.

Whether the market will be happy to buy a console-like PC that has limited scope for upgrading remains to be seen, though. If the new Steam Machine is as well-received as the Steam Deck was, it could well be the hit of 2026. At the very least, it certainly won't be anything like as bad as the original.

Valve announced a new range of hardware overnight, in the form of the Steam Frame, Steam Machine and Steam Controller. It's probably the biggest PC hardware news we'll see in 2025, but Australians can be forgiven if they feel a little unenthused. After all, Valve is famously slow to release its hardware into Australia: the Valve Index took a year, only to be thinly available at some EB Games outlets. Worse, the Steam Deck took more than two years.

But never fear: No such antipodean delay is in the cards for Valve's new line-up. Here's confirmation straight from Valve: "All three products will ship in all the same regions we currently ship Steam Deck (US, CA, UK, EU, AU) as well as regions covered by Komodo: Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan."

None have a specific release date nor price at the moment anywhere in the world, but are targeting early 2026. "Specific launch timing and pricing to be shared sometime after the first of the year," Valve writes.

That means for Australians, the Steam Frame, Steam Machine and Steam Controller will all be purchasable directly from Steam at the same time as all those other regions. If Steam Deck is any indication, this hardware will ship from an Australia-based warehouse, so there shouldn't be any excruciating two week wait (my Steam Deck came in two days, for example—I'm based in New South Wales).

PC Gamer's hardware team has extensive coverage of Valve's new hardware line-up, ranging from raw specs through to hands-on experience. You can check out absolutely everything you need to know about the new gear on our hub page.

Before Steam Deck started shipping to Australia in October last year, Australians had to make do with two annoying ways to acquire the handheld: buy it via a grey market seller (which Valve itself warned against) or jump through VPN hoops in order to trick Steam to sell you one. For those who vividly remember those dark ages, and who still feel a sharp jab in their chest when recalling the trauma inconvenience, news of Valve's new hardware launching day one in Australia will be very welcome indeed.

A colleague and I recently travelled to Valve to get a behind-the-scenes look at the company's upcoming product launches. Before we entered the building, we were already discussing one of the products yet to be announced, the Steam Frame. For many, this announcement will not come as a complete surprise, as intrepid detectives glean information from even the slightest breadcrumb left by Valve in the months ahead of the launch.

This time, a trademark for the name 'Steam Frame' gave away the Deckard project's real name ahead of our visit, but Deckard rumours have been rife for years. Some more accurate than others, but generally not miles off when you piece it all together.

But is this some sort of clever scheme by Valve to drum up support or test out the popularity of ideas on dedicated fans?

No, apparently not. That's right from the horse's mouth, too, and if you take this as further proof of some sort of grand plan, I have a bridge to sell you.

Stood in a room surrounded by Valve engineers that drew the short straw in having to talk to press, I raised the question, how do they feel when someone gets near-definitive proof of something like the Steam Frame early?

Josh Hudman says, "Usually we all look around like, 'who leaked?'"

"Everybody assumes that we have some sort of like grand plan with our leaks," says Gabe Rowe, "and it's literally just somebody fat fingering something."

We actually ask if we can quote that line, to which Gabe responds, "That's basically what it is."

I can't remember exactly who, but someone else says, "It's true."

So, when you're trying to decipher some sort of secret code from Valve's terms of service using Gabe Newell's initials, just know, Valve probably isn't thinking about it anywhere near as much as you. From the impression I get from most of Valve's engineers, it seems they spend most of their time tinkering with the products instead of thinking about ways to sell them. In fact, Valve appeared a little surprised when I mentioned that I was expecting to see the Steam Frame during my visit, which suggests those behind it aren't even following the gossip on the street.

Or… maybe that's what they want me to think?

The Steam Machine available in the new year is designed by Valve. It will be sold by Valve, and, as such, it cannot be hastily switched to Windows at the last minute to sell more units. But despite being burned in the past, Valve is keen for its Steam Machine to blaze a trail for other Steam Machines in future, whether they be made by modders, companies, or everyday PC gamers.

During a visit to Valve's HQ a few weeks ago, I'm shown around the new Steam Machine. Of course, the first topic of discussion is the aborted attempt to do much the same thing around 10 years ago now.

"We think [the original Steam Machines] were a cool product. Obviously, they didn't quite work out," Yazan Aldehayyat, a Valve engineer working on the Steam Machine, says.

"But, in a lot of ways, we feel like now is the right time for us to make this device."

That's down to SteamOS, Valve's Linux-based operating system; and Proton, the conversion layer that runs Windows games on Linux. Both SteamOS and Proton work great, as proven by their most successful manifestation to-date: the Steam Deck.

"We knew that our customers loved the SteamOS experience with the Steam Deck, and we just want to give them that same convenience in a different form factor. Something that's more optimised in your living room, connected to your TV, but also on your desk, with mouse and keyboard too," Aldehayyat says.

The Steam Deck played a big role in, first, realising the market potential for a handheld gaming PC, which had until then been a niche market; and second, going some way to inspiring high-end alternatives, such as the ROG Ally and Legion Go. I'd also argue that the availability of low-power, high-performance mobile chips from AMD also played a huge part in the sudden boom of available handhelds. Yet there's no denying that Valve's handheld has become something of a byword for handheld PC gaming.

SteamOS, too, has been successfully ported onto a third-party device, the Lenovo Legion Go S, and in our own testing performs better than the same handheld using Windows 11.

Valve has the same hope for the Steam Machine, both as a showcase of what's possible in a small, somewhat affordable machine (pricing yet to be confirmed but the specs would suggest as much), and with SteamOS.

"Just like with the Steam Deck, we're really interested to see what other companies do with the form factor. We have SteamOS running on third party handhelds. If anything, we think that this form factor is even more apt for for that," Aldehayyat says.

"We're really excited to see third parties bring SteamOS to a different set of form factors, different iterations."

On hearing this, my mind immediately wanders to what the first third-party Steam Machine might look like. I land on it being a high-end living room box, because of course it'd be a more expensive option.

Though thinking more on it, there's not much new here for a third-party to sell, except SteamOS. There already are many high-end mini PCs available, including NUCs (and non-NUCs) from Asus with plenty of firepower, and Valve would need to work on expanding driver support on SteamOS to get anywhere near most high-end machines. SteamOS is improving in this regard, with Intel's Lunar Lake chips recently being supported, but there's still a lack of support for Nvidia and Intel's graphics cards.

"The driver that we use for AMD hardware is actually a driver that we develop in house, like we have our own driver team doing that, and so it will take us a little bit to catch up for that on the Nvidia side, and Intel as well," Pierre-Loup Griffais, software engineer at Valve, says.

"We're always adding new stuff. And so if you would take that, that same OS, and put it on, say, something that's running a 9070 XT, you would be good to go."

Valve sees the current and future Steam Machine family as a broad church.

"There's a lot of people who build their own Steam Machines right now," Aldehayyat says. "They build their own PC rig, put SteamOS on it, or the Steam Deck recovery image, or they use their Steam deck docked primarily to their TV."

"That's the part that we're excited about," Griffais says. "I think folks will have all kinds of different machines, some hand builds, some OEMs will come. I mean there's, there's a lot of interesting machines out there. I know the Framework guys are doing something that's cool too that could be a good fit for it."

Our own Dave James ripped the core out of a Framework 13 laptop, housing an AMD Ryzen 7 7840U, and stuck SteamOS on the remains. And it all works great, especially as it was more than a loose motherboard and some wires, contained instead within the slimline chassis made to fit by Cooler Master.

While SteamOS still has a ways to go to be able to boot and function correctly on just about any PC build, it is becoming a more viable option. The question now remains whether anyone will take up Valve on its offer. On the one hand, SteamOS has been proven to be great for performance, especially on less powerful hardware in need of the extra frames it delivers.

On the other, small form factor PCs aren't in desperate need of a refresh, nor are they totally a brave new world for gaming PCs. Windows 11 and Steam's Big Picture Mode gets you most of the way there already. That said, you are still under the corporate yoke of Microsoft, and for some, that's reason enough. Which is why you will see more and more gamers using Linux distros such as Bazzite. I just wonder if other companies will bite, or if it'll be mostly frustrated users making the change.

For now, the Steam Machine seems like a good way to test the waters, prove the concept a little, and build up the foundations of the SteamOS ecosystem. Especially if it's as affordable as I hope it will be.

Following on from the success of the Steam Deck, Valve is creating its very own ecosystem of products. The Steam Frame, Steam Machine, and Steam Controller are all set to launch in the new year. We've tried each of them and here's what you need to know about each one.

"From the Frame to the Controller to the Machine, we're a fairly small industrial design team here, and we really made sure it felt like a family of devices, even to the slightest detail," Clement Gallois, a designer at Valve, tells me during a recent visit to Valve HQ. "How it feels, the buttons, how they react… everything belongs and works together kind of seamlessly."

For more detail, make sure to check out our in-depth stories linked below:

• Steam Frame: Valve's new wireless VR headset
• Steam Machine: Compact living room gaming box
• Steam Controller: A controller to replace your mouse

Steam Frame: Valve's new VR headset

Key specs

• Optics: Pancake
• Resolution: 2160 x 2160
• Tracking: Inside-out
• FOV: Up to 110 degrees
• SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (SM8650)
• RAM: 16 GB
• Storage: 256 GB / 1 TB
• Controllers: 2x Steam Frame Controller
• OS: SteamOS
• Weight: 435 grams
• Release window: 2026
• Price: TBC

The Steam Frame is a new VR headset. It's wireless and no longer requires a gaming PC in order to play a game. That's thanks to its onboard Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and operating system, Valve's very own SteamOS. Though you can still connect it to a gaming PC using a dedicated 6 GHz dongle for high-fidelity PCVR—that's the bit I'm most excited about after trying the Steam Frame myself.

With an expanded resolution and new pancake lenses, the Steam Frame offers increased clarity and a more compact design compared to the Valve Index. It's also pretty slim and lightweight by more modern VR standards, extending only a few inches from the face and weighing just 435 grams.

• I've tried Valve's new VR headset: here's my Steam Frame hands-on.

The Steam Frame is significantly lighter than its predecessor. Similarly, it's lighter than the Quest 3 or Quest 3S, which I've weighed previously myself at 465 and 464 grams even without the straps.

Valve has been keen to point out that this is not called the Valve Index 2 for good reason. It's no longer just a PC accessory and gone is the clunky set-up process of the past. Valve has opted solely for inside-out tracking here. Four cameras on the outside of the Steam Frame track your surroundings and it can track you in the dark. It also offers eye tracking for both foveated rendering, use in social games, and a new feature called foveated streaming that Valve uses to lower bandwidth requirements over the Steam Frame's wireless connection.

The Steam Frame has a modular construction: the strap containing the battery, speaker system, and microSD card slot disconnects from the core module containing the processor, optics, and everything else.

There's also an expansion slot on the front of the headset for future mods or upgrades. This could be used for full-colour passthrough, which is missing from the Steam Frame and prematurely ends any hope of XR support with it, though nothing is being announced by Valve just yet.

Designed for both VR and non-VR games, the Steam Frame has new controllers that are essentially a standard gamepad split down the middle. They look similar to the Quest 3's controllers, only with more buttons. They're capacitive, allowing for some degree of finger sensing, and powered by a single AA battery in each controller.

Much like everything else being announced by Valve today, the Steam Frame has no exact release date or price tag. All we know is it will launch sometime next year.

Steam Machine: Valve's new living room box

Key specs

• CPU: AMD Zen 4 (6-core)
• RAM: 16 GB
• GPU: Semi-custom AMD RDNA 3 (28 CU)
• VRAM: 8 GB
• Storage: 512 GB, 2 TB
• OS: SteamOS
• Release window: 2026
• Price: TBC

The Steam Machine is a natural follow-up to the Steam Deck. The low-power handheld proved that SteamOS works for PC gaming, and the Steam Machine is more of the same, only more powerful and less portable.

It has been designed to blend in and fit into a standard-sized shelving unit. It's a black cube, smaller than it looks in the pictures, and crams in a six-core AMD CPU and dedicated Radeon GPU. It uses a space-saving combination of single 120 mm fan and one sizeable heatsink. There's a slim selection of ports on the front and back, including USB Type-C, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort, and a microSD card slot to quickly move games between a Steam Machine, Deck, and Frame.

The six-core CPU and 28 CU GPU offer around six times more performance than a Steam Deck, according to Valve. The GPU is semi-custom, meaning it has no exact match in AMD's existing line-up, but it's roughly comparable to an RX 7400 in terms of shader cores, or an RX 7600M for both shader cores and clock speeds.

Through SteamOS, Valve is offering fast suspend and resume features to quickly load into where you left off from the comfort of your sofa. It's also designed to work with the new and improved Steam Controller—a dedicated antenna on the Steam Machine can connect up to four Steam Controllers.

Once again, we've no price or release date. Only a rough launch window sometime in the new year.

Steam Controller: Valve's controller to replace your mouse

Key specs

• Thumbsticks: 2x TMR sticks
• Connectivity: 2.4 GHz (puck included), Bluetooth, wired
• Battery: 35+ hours
• Extra features: 2x trackpads, gyro controls
• Release window: 2026
• Price: TBC

The Steam Controller is designed to replace the need for a mouse when you're sat on a sofa or lounging in your gaming chair. This is Valve's second attempt at a Steam Controller, the first did not take off, but the company has learned its lessons.

There are two thumbsticks on the Steam Controller—yes, two. That's one more than last time, and importantly means that the Steam Controller is as much a 'standard' controller as any other. These thumbsticks use stick-drift resistant Tunnel Magnetoresistance (TMR) technology, too, which is an easy way into my good books.

Two trackpads sit beneath each of the thumbsticks. They're slightly angled for a more ergonomic design, but otherwise they're very similar to those included on the Steam Deck. That's really where Valve got its inspiration here, and I'm fine with that—the Steam Deck's control scheme is very good for gaming and navigating the desktop, and the same should be true of the Steam Controller.

What's more, the Steam Controller includes gyro controls. Using sensors that can tell when you're holding the controller, gyro controls let you move the controller around to move your mouse cursor. I've tried it out, and it's surprisingly easy to get to grips with.

The Steam Controller supports Bluetooth and a dedicated 2.4 GHz connection. The latter is provided via a 'puck' included in the box, able to connect up to four controllers simultaneously, and providing a low-latency connection. This puck also doubles as a charger for the controller, though you can plug in over the USB Type-C connection on the back if you prefer a tether.

Finally, and no surprises here, the Steam Controller has a rough release window of sometime in 2026 and no confirmed price as of yet.

Availability

All three of Valve's new products will be available in the same regions as the Steam Deck at launch, and that includes any countries currently covered by Valve's official distributor Komodo.

That means, once available in the new year, we should see availability in the following countries:

• USA
• Canada
• UK
• Germany
• France
• Australia*
• Japan**
• South Korea**
• Taiwan**
• Hong Kong**

*Valve began shipping direct to Australia later than other countries
**Distributed by Komodo

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Built by Valve, powered by SteamOS, the new Steam Machine is a compact gaming PC. One trying to make good on a promise Valve made a long time ago.

With prototype Steam Machines heading out to reviewers back in 2013, us included, the company had grand plans of reinventing what constitutes a gaming PC around its new creation, a Linux-based operating system called SteamOS. Years on, and following a few failed partner launches that you can read all about in our retrospective of their demise, the project was more or less doomed. By 2018, Valve pulled the plug.

Or did it? Valve never stopped working on SteamOS, plugging away until it landed on the successful formula launched inside the Steam Deck in 2022. Following this success, Valve feels ready to take a second punt at a system with more firepower.

"We finally have all the software and the hardware bits to make the original vision a reality," Yazan Aldehayyat, a Valve engineer working on the Steam Machine, says during my visit to Valve HQ. They mention it's the right time because users are already making Steam Machines happen, putting a recovery image of SteamOS onto a range of devices or using their Steam Deck while docked.

"Our customers kind of beat us to it."

Steam Machine: specs

The Steam Machine will be released at some point in 2026. We don't know pricing yet, but with older, mid-range components and Valve's own success with the budget-friendly Steam Deck, I'm hopeful for a convincing price tag here. There's a big gap in the market for a genuinely affordable gaming PC, and I'm hoping this is the machine to plug it.

Plus, the smaller 512 GB option should be a decent amount cheaper than the 2 TB model.

Steam Machine: performance

"Our benchmark has always been that it should have enough performance to play every game on Steam at 4K60 when you do some sort of upscaling like FSR," Aldehayyat says.

That's a lofty goal. I had a chance to play Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with FSR enabled at Valve's HQ, and it ran pretty well on the plucky Steam Machine. It was certainly playable, with no significant frame rate drops during my brief time with it. But neither was it a totally fluid experience, and I enjoyed much smoother gameplay by switching to 1080p, even without any upscaling technology enabled.

I can see why Valve is targeting setting its sights on 4K. With the popularity of 4K TVs for living rooms, that's likely to be the native resolution of a TV that the Steam Machine sits in front of. Needless to say, this sets the bar pretty high for Valve's little machine.

The Steam Machine is many times faster than the Steam Deck. Over six times faster, according to Valve. Though the older handheld isn't the best point of comparison for the more modern, discrete components in the Steam Machine. Compared to a modern gaming PC, the Steam Machine is fairly underpowered. Quite literally, as it only packs a 200 W power supply—a fraction of the size of most modern desktop gaming PCs.

SteamOS will also work to Valve's benefit for performance. In my colleague's comparative testing on the Lenovo Legion Go S, using SteamOS saw an increase of as much as 32% in Cyberpunk 2077 compared to Windows 11. While improvements may be less pronounced on more powerful hardware, Valve's own OS should reduce overheads and allow for higher frames per second than comparable kit using Windows.

Steam Machine: GPU

Valve has confirmed a few details about the Steam Machine's GPU: it has 28 compute units (CUs), hewn from the RDNA 3 architecture, and a clock speed around 2.4–2.5 GHz. It has a TDP of around 110–130 watts and it's a derivative of the Navi 33 GPU used across much of the mid- to low-end Radeon 7000-series.

It's a semi-custom GPU. That's nothing new for AMD, the company provides similar solutions for the Steam Deck, Xbox, PlayStation, and various handheld gaming PCs. How much needs to be changed to earn that semi-custom title varies—these chips run the gamut from rebadge to redesign. That does mean this GPU might not be an exact match for anything currently offered in the Radeon 7000-series, though being a derivative of Navi 33 gives us a pretty good idea where it should land.

There's no desktop graphics card that's as close a match for the Steam Machine. The RX 7400 has the same number of CUs but a lower clock speed and much lower power draw; the RX 7600 has a higher clock speed, more CUs, and a higher power draw. If you were to increase the clock speed of the RX 7400, the power draw would increase, and land you roughly in line with the Steam Machine. Though there could be a little more to it than that.

The other point of comparison is the Radeon RX 7600M. First launched in 2023, it is a mobile GPU with 28 CUs and a boost clock of 2.41 GHz. Right on the money. But it only runs up to 90 W. So perhaps there's a little more headroom for higher sustained clocks on Valve's semi-custom chip to make up the extra power draw. That makes sense, as a gaming laptop has a much slimmer heatsink and smaller fan available to it than the boxy Steam Machine.

Steam Machine: design

The original Steam Machines looked a lot like set-top boxes intended to sit below your TV. Thankfully, Valve has taken the new Steam Machine in a new direction. A small black box might not be the most exciting design on the planet, but be thankful it's not an eyesore like the PlayStation 5.

Valve engineer Jeff Mucha says the design came out of thermal efficiency, acoustics, and making sure it would fit within a six-inch shelving unit. The fact it ended up as a cube, Valve's favourite shape, came later.

"When we started putting a thermal architecture together that was the most efficient for performance, we found that, wow, this is really close to a cube. And so we're like, 'okay, it's so cute, close to a cube, why don't we really try to make it an actual cube?'

"So we had to be really careful about every little millimeter inside to make sure that we get the proportions to look like a cube," Mucha says.

It's smaller than it looks but it packs a lot in. Aldehayyat removes the outer casing for me during a demonstration and the internal components take advantage of every square inch of it. The power supply sits at the bottom, with the front and rear I/O on each side.

"We're using the power supply as the chassis for the system, which is something we're actually really proud of, because it removes a lot of brackets and modules and simplifies the design really, really well. It also simplifies the RF shielding situation, because the motherboard and other electronics are sandwiched between two metal shells, so you don't have to add components," Aldehayyat says.

On top of the power supply sits the motherboard, which is only just visible beneath the heatsink, which sits atop of it. The heatsink cools the CPU, the GPU, the memory, the power delivery—the lot. So it's pretty chunky. Attached to the rear is a single 120 mm fan, the only one in the entire system.

"We just wanted something that's really compact and really powerful that can easily fit in your living room. And that actually turned out to be more of a challenge than we thought, because people love to kind of cram their devices in the corner of their room or inside a cabinet. So, one, it needed to fit. Two, it needed great airflow. And one of the things that were actually really important to us is we wanted to use a single fan," Aldehayyat says.

"This is actually a custom design fan. We iterated a ton of different blade geometries."

The design reminds me of a server rack, which are often meticulously designed to ensure a steady flow of air over hot components. I'm told Valve took inspiration from here, too. Though what stands out most of all is how little I can hear the Steam Machine while it's running. We're stood around the Steam Machine discussing it while it sits on the Cyberpunk 2077 title screen and I can't make it out.

There are four antennae on the Steam Machine. Two on the back, two on the front. The rear-facing antenna are responsible for Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. One on the front is for Bluetooth, separated from Wi-Fi for more consistent performance, and the other is for connecting up to four Steam Controllers, replacing the controller's included puck.

The faceplate is removeable, mainly for removing dust that builds up over time, though Valve is considering how best to offer some level of customisation here. It has a few prototype plates in its office: a wood effect one, a Team Fortress 2 one, and one including an e-ink display monitoring key metrics. Though this is mostly a fun side project than something that'll end up on sale.

For now, Valve doesn't seem to have a definitive plan for customisation options. It does have the integrated light strip running above the front I/O. This can be adjusted to display whichever colour you want, or moreover, act as a visual cue of what the Steam Machine is up to. It can display how far a game download has progressed, alert you to messages, and so on. If you don't like it, you can just turn it off.

"It's a dead front design, meaning that when you turn it off, you literally can't see that it exists," Mucha says.

Steam Machine: upgrades

"The core parts that we're considering to be upgradable would be the M.2 storage as well as the RAM, which is a bit harder," Mucha says.

The Steam Machine comes with a single NVMe slot, easily accessible from the underside of the unit. There are two options available: 512 GB or 2 TB. These drives will be 2230 in size, which is a smaller SSD form factor also used on the Steam Deck.

The Steam Machine, however, does support a more standard 2280 drive with an included standoff. Though installing one would require removing the existing 2230 drive and cloning/starting fresh.

The easier way to expand the Steam Machine's storage is to use a microSD card. The Steam Machine supports SDXC cards, which are available up to 2 TB and fairly affordable. Valve is confident that games should boot and run just fine from a microSD, though I'd assume you'll want a reasonably speedy one (100 MB/s+) for the best performance.

The Steam Machine has 16 GB of DDR5 RAM. It uses SO-DIMM memory, which is most often found on gaming laptops, and it is replaceable. However, Valve has warned me that replacing the memory is a bit more involved compared to the NVMe SSD.

I believe replacing the RAM would require removing the outer casing and the heatsink from the motherboard. Though, understandably, no one fancied ripping apart their precious display models during my visit, and we were told to leave our screwdrivers at the door, so I can't say for sure. The outer casing is removed via four screws on the feet and two screws on the rear, and the core slides out, but beyond that it's anyone's guess.

Steam Machine: Software

"We knew that our customers love the SteamOS experience with the Steam Deck, and we just want to give them that same convenience in a different form factor," Aldehayyat says.

Steam Deck users will find no surprises when it comes to the Steam Machine. It's the same experience, menus and all. Though the Steam Machine shouldn't require a verification programme like the Steam Deck or newly-announced Steam Frame, which exist to ease gamers into what's possible on the quirkier hardware and what's not. The more powerful desktop PC that is the Steam Machine shouldn't be so picky.

Part of that is Proton, the compatibility layer that allows games developed for Windows to be run on Linux. Proton's compatibility is solid these days, the kinks have been largely ironed out, and the concept has been tested thoroughly with the Steam Deck already. There are simply fewer unknowns.

"Proton is really the secret sauce, right? That made this possible. For the past 10 years, we've been working on building the compatibility layer to make it so that devs have less work to do to support this device," Aldehayyat says.

With Proton, most games should work without a hitch. That said, there are still some anti-cheat solutions that do not run on Linux. Games like Battlefield 6 and Fortnite. That wasn't such an issue with the Steam Deck, portable and underpowered as it is, but you might want your desktop or living room PC to play these games. So it's worth considering how much these big multiplayer games mean to you.

And, hey, you can always swap SteamOS for Windows 11 on the Steam Machine. Just note, when you do, an angel loses its wings.

"While there is a nice family and interoperability between all three of the devices, and four including Steam Deck, we are still really big fans and committed to the open PC ecosystem. These are your PCs. You can install your own stuff on them, including your own operating system," Lawrence Yang, designer at Valve, says.

Steam Machine: Availability

The Steam Machine will be available in all the same regions where the Steam Deck is currently available, including those where Komodo is the official distributor. That means it's available in the following countries:

• USA
• Canada
• UK
• Germany
• France
• Australia*
• Japan**
• South Korea**
• Taiwan**
• Hong Kong**

*Valve began shipping direct to Australia later than other countries
**Distributed by Komodo

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I'm reminded of the time I met Gabe Newell in Las Vegas. Now, if I never type another word the story would seem far cooler than it is. Sadly it was just another CES trip, way back in the January of 2014; a simpler time where people thought the future might be a positive place. Ah, how naïve we once were.

I'd been invited to a relatively small suite at the top of the Palms hotel and casino, just off the Strip, where Valve and its partners were demonstrating Steam Machines for the first time. Remember those little PCs—determinedly not Windows-based—promising to deliver the living room console experience for PC gamers?

Gabe delivered the presentation from a few feet in front of me, spoke enthusiastically about the future of Linux-powered game boxes, and then let us gathered journos loose to prod a selection of different Steam Machines and play with some prototype Steam Controllers within SteamOS.

And maybe a handful of words passed between Gabe and I during the event. Probably something like "I hope the quality of these prototype controllers carry on to the final units" or "you better hurry up and get SteamOS finished or else Alienware is going to do something crazy like launch its Steam Machine with Windows."

Or maybe it was a somewhat less erudite: "Hello Mr. Newell. Um, I like your games."

It was a long time ago, and the memory… ah, she is a fallible mistress.

But what I do remember is the utter failure of the whole endeavour as SteamOS itself faltered before it got out the gate and the Steam Machines themselves just became wee Windows boxes, before disappearing altogether. It was all rather sad, after an unveiling that promised an OS which "combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen" we ended up with delay upon delay and what was an exciting moment for gamers and developers ended up with some very late launches and some unhappy partners with Steam Machine chassis they couldn't shift.

Sure, the controller itself got out there, but subjectively speaking, it sucked.

You could say, however, that Gabe was playing the long game. Every detail of the unfortunate Steam Machine debacle led into the Steam Deck; arguably the true embodiment of what Valve was originally going for and surely the most successful piece of hardware the company has ever produced.

At its heart is a fully realised third-generation version of SteamOS, a distribution built on top of Arch Linux, and such a hit it has been that since the Deck released back in 2022 people have been desperate to get the operating system installed onto their other PCs. Despite promises that getting a standalone version out there has been "very high on our list" we're only just starting to see a sort of version you can sort of jam onto your other devices.

In fairness, you've been able to try that out for a while, grabbing the recovery install and see if your other hardware will take, but it's only now, 12 years after the first promise of SteamOS was made, there is actual baked-in support for other devices in the most recent 3.7 versions.

Jacob has stuck it on his Legion Go S and, of course I've made a Steam Machine with genuine SteamOS. No Bazzite-ing here. This one's for you, Gabe.

As Valve has stated in the past, SteamOS is still only really here for other handheld devices, specifically supporting the Legion Go S and ROG Ally, and I've honestly had pretty limited success getting the operating system working with any other handheld in my care. I was hoping the Strix Point-based OneXFly F1 Pro would hook it, but the installation procedure falls over before it even really begins. And I didn't get much further with the OneXPlayer X1 tablet, either.

It's worked out better on the Ayaneo Kun, where I've actually got a mostly functional setup that lets me play games with almost the same level of control over the system that the AyaSpace app affords in Windows. Sadly, the speakers don't work—and no amount of command line playtime has changed that—but, worse, the sleep function is entirely non-existent. Basically making it pretty useless as a gaming handheld.

This is a perennial issue of mine with Linux. I recently stuck PopOS on a Blade 15 laptop for giggles and rapidly stopped laughing when I realised the machine would resolutely never sleep. There's always something with Linux and the myriad configs of PC hardware to fix, which is why tinkerers love it, why it's taking so long for Valve to get a standalone version of SteamOS out there, and why it may still not be the perfect pick for regular PC gamers wanting to jam something other than Windows onto their systems. At least not yet.

But the hardware in the Ayaneo handheld is essentially the same as my Framework 13 laptop with the Ryzen 7840U mainboard inside it, so I figured it ought to at least work as badly. Yet it works a treat. Once I'd unzipped the downloaded recovery file from Steam before I loaded it onto a USB stick via Rufus then I was installing SteamOS onto my laptop in no time.

And everything works.

The sound bursts from the speakers the moment it boots in and the sleep function is working exactly how it does on the Steam Deck, and with Decky Loader and SimpleDeckyTDP I can control the power of the thing. And that's exactly what I want. It makes for a very effective light-gaming laptop, with a Linux desktop there for any proper notebook work at the flip of a system setting.

But the joy of the Framework setup is that you can whip out the mainboard and just use it in Standalone mode to create your own mini PC. So long as you remember to put it in that mode via the BIOS before you rip it out of the laptop frame, that is. Yeah, I had a few stutters on the way to Steam Machine nirvana.

And so, with the assistance of the Cooler Master-made Framework case I now have a delightful mini PC that can plumb into a big screen living room TV and boot instantly into a gaming OS easily controllable via a joypad. We've finally got GeForce Now natively on SteamOS, too, so I've been playing Indiana Jones at 4K Ultra settings via this little Steam Machine, kicking back in my chair.

Like it or not, Windows has never made for a good experience in the living room, but SteamOS is finally delivering on its 'screw Microsoft' promise.

The best thing is that it's been surprisingly easy to get things working. Okay, it's third time lucky in terms of the products that I've tried to install SteamOS on, but it's been a no-fuss experience for the most part getting it running on the Framework mainboard. The installation went smoothly, it discovered all the necessary drivers, and Decky Loader and the TDP control are but a download and a command line away respectively.

I've been a little resistant to all the recent clamour of SteamOS now being available for everything—it most certainly is not—but if you can find a device that it does work on, it works brilliantly.

Certainly the Radeon 780M iGPU inside my wee slab of a PC isn't going to set any speed records natively, but it's more than capable of delivering good 1080p gaming performance, and when you're running permanently cabled into the mains there's no excuse not to run it at its 40 W maximum.

In all, my new Steam Machine is responsive, accessible, and surprisingly stable for a beta OS. Oh yeah, I'm running the latest beta version of the operating system, partly because I'm a glutton for punishment, but also because it now brings in keyboard shortcuts for the two SteamIOS side menus. That's certainly useful in both laptop and desktop modes, and 12 years later I'm on the way to becoming more of a convert to Gabe's thinking.

As long as everything with the final standalone release is so easy… and why wouldn't it be?

How to install SteamOS on other devices

The process I've gone through to get my li'l Steam Machine up and running is really straightforward, and also something you could easily replicate yourself. It wouldn't necessarily have to be with a Framework board and case, either, as there's a good chance a lot of AMD-based mini PCs will take the install, too.

The first step is to download the Steam Deck recovery file, this is the data that is used to reset the Steam Deck, but this page is also where Valve details the methods used to get SteamOS onto other devices. Though obviously washes its hands over responsibility for smooth operation on anything other than the Deck, Legion Go S, and ROG Ally.

The next thing you'll need to do is unzip the file you just downloaded. You can mount it on a boot drive as is, but I've had better success from unpacking it first.

Now, get yourself a USB drive you don't mind wiping—preferrably 8 GB+ as there's a lot of SteamOS—and then format it as FAT32.

And to mount the OS on there, you'll need Rufus. Download the program and boot it up, and then you can point it at your USB drive and the SteamOS repair file. Click Start to get the ball rolling and a handful of minutes later Rufus will have created you a bootable SteamOS installation drive.

Now, you will need to prep whatever device you're hoping to install to. The first thing I would suggest is that you find the most recent BIOS you can and make sure it's installed on your target device. For some handheld devices that might be the difference between functional sleep modes or not, because Modern Standby or the lack thereof is what's holding back my Ayaneo device right now, and that's only enabled via a firmware update.

You will also need to disable Secure Boot in the BIOS, too. This is a vital step in ensuring your device even gets close to installing the Valve OS.

And for me, I needed to enable Standalone mode in the Framework BIOS. There is a chassis intrusion sensor that we need to tell the mainboard to ignore if it's getting stuck inside anything else—like a wee case, or a power desk for example—and you can't access it once the board is outside of the Framework 13 laptop chassis.

For this project I actually ran the installation while the Framework board was still configured inside a laptop—I wasn't 100% confident the setup would be fine, and figured it would be a quicker operation with a pre-attached screen, keyboard, and touchpad.

But the process is essentially the same for any other device: stick the USB drive in a spare port on your machine, boot into the BIOS, and select your USB stick (partition 1) as the boot drive. From there on you'll hopefully get a screed of text cascading down the screen before you boot into a live OS to create your install.

This is essentially the desktop SteamOS environment and there will be a selection of shortcuts at the top of the screen and you want to double-click the one marked Wipe Device and Install SteamOS. Obviously.

You'll need to confirm that you want to raze everything on your machine to the ground, and click Proceed. Then it will go through the process of installing the operating system for you and then it will reboot.

If you are lucky, and your system is content with the current state of SteamOS, then you will find yourself booting into a fresh new operating system.

The first thing to do here is to make sure you are running the latest version of the OS. Nip into the Settings menu, select System and check for software updates. Personally, at this point, I would look at the System Update Channel section and select Beta rather than Stable. Chances are you'll benefit more from quicker updates.

From here, the one thing I would make sure of is to have Decky Loader and SimpleDeckyTDP installed so you can control the power draw of your system. This is especially important if you're running something off a battery, but it also helps you control noise to a certain extent.

You'll need to jump into the desktop mode of SteamOS to do this, though. So bring up the Settings menu again, go into Power and Switch to Desktop. It will then boot into a relatively familiar Windows-style desktop environment.

You may need to install FireFox so you have a functioning browser, but that will be accessible from the Applications button on the taskbar. Then navigate to the Decky Loader main page and hit download. Then bring up the file manager to access your downloads and double-click the file and select Execute to run it.

Getting the power control feature installed is a bit more Linux-y in that you'll need to hit the Konsole. But first you'll likely need a password so you can get things done in there. Hit the System Settings button, scroll down to Users and hit the Change Password button. You won't have one already, so just put in one now, and select not to change the password for other areas.

Now, navigate to the SimpleDeckyTDP github page and go to the install section. From here, boot the Konsole app and copy the install commands from the browser into the command line in Konsole. Hit enter, and it will start installing.

Once that's complete, reboot your machine into Game mode and you'll find Decky Loader and SimpleDeckyTDP at the foot of the secondary control menu. That's either Shift+CTRL+Tab on a keyboard or Xbox button+A on a controller.

From there, you're weapons-free to install and play games at will on your new machine. Have at it. For me, well once that was done I had to get the mainboard out of the laptop and installed into the little Cooler Master chassis.

Thankfully Framework makes that super easy, and there's a full guide on how to do it on its site. It was essentially just a question of installing the Wi-Fi cable routing, dropping in the PCB and hooking that and the 3.5 mm audio jack up to the board.

It's finally worth noting for anyone doing this that the HDMI display output needed to be on one of the top two I/O modules for it to output to our 4K Alienware OLED properly, and the same is true of the USB Type-C module, too.

Hooo mama, what a time it is for Valve. It seems like a Steam Controller 2 is already in mass production and now it looks like SteamOS might soon be making its way onto third-party handhelds, or perhaps even other machines. It sure is an exciting time for anyone interested in GabeN's gubbins, which is surely just about every PC gamer.

As spotted by a Reddit user on r/pcgaming, Valve's added a new logo to its brand guidelines, this being a "Powered by SteamOS" logo and related guidelines which can be found on page 16. This is, as far as I'm aware, the first big change to its brand guidelines in years.

The document states: "The Powered by SteamOS logo indicates that a hardware device will run the SteamOS and boot into SteamOS upon powering on the device. Partners / manufacturers will ship hardware with a Steam image in the form provided by and / or developed in close collaboration with Valve."

Valve's always spoken about the possibility of releasing SteamOS for general install on whatever device you wish, and we first saw real hints of SteamOS's potential wider adoption earlier this year when ROG Ally support was added.

One thing that's surprised me about all this, though, at least judging by online comments, is just how many people seem to be keen on getting SteamOS installed on their desktop instead of Windows.

I know Windows' latest updates aren't quite bug-free (just ask my colleague Andy about that one, given his recent update woes), but I still find it a little surprising that people would swap out their desktop for a Steam desktop. Unless it's only used for gaming, of course.

I'm not sure we should be barking up the SteamOS desktop tree too much, yet, anyway. Even back in 2023, Valve's lead designer Lawrence Yang told us that Valve would "probably start with making [SteamOS] more available to other handhelds with a similar gamepad style controller".

I'd place my bets on officially licensed third-party handhelds such as the ROG Ally "Powered by SteamOS"—perhaps you'll be able to choose Windows or SteamOS at checkout.

But Valve has seemed keen on getting SteamOS out there as a general install, and this would presumably mean one could recreate the much-hyped, short-lived and mostly hypothetical Steam Machine with any number of devices. Much would depend on support for non-handheld hardware, though, and we have no word on that front—or on any front at all, really, regarding a general release.

But with news of a Steam Controller 2 potentially being in mass production, it is at least exciting to contemplate a Steam Controller + Steam Machine era, but this time done right thanks to all Valve's learnt over the past few years of successfully branching out into OS, handheld, and controller development.

Valve has not had great luck making hardware. The Steam Controller failed to revolutionize the controller scene despite its innovative design, the Steam Link worked well but was muscled out by a less-impressive app, and the ballyhooed Steam Machines basically faceplanted right out of the gate. The Index is an impressive unit, but hasn't sparked a meaningful uptick in VR adoption since its release.

We said earlier this month that Steam Machines could be seen as a cautionary tale for early proponents of the Steam Deck, Valve's upcoming handheld gaming device. But in an interview with IGN, Valve designers Greg Coomer, Lawrence Yang, and Scott Dalton took a different perspective, saying that the lessons learned from those earlier units were instrumental in making the Steam Deck possible.

"Steam Deck feels like the culmination of a lot of that earlier work," Coomer said. "Steam Link has proven really valuable in establishing what it means to stream games from PCs. The Steam Controller was really valuable, it taught us a lot about what's necessary and valuable to a customer. So all those earlier products really feel like they've informed this one."

One of the biggest obstacles facing Steam Machines, Dalton said, was the "chicken and egg problem" of games: Valve was trying to push into gaming on Linux (Steam Machines were Linux-based), but developers were reluctant to port their games to the OS without a critical mass of users, while gamers weren't inclined to make the switch because there weren't enough games. That's what prompted Valve to create Proton, a compatibility layer that enables Windows-based games to run on Linux. It works very well, and it means that relying on ports is no longer an issue. 

That's not actually great news for Linux diehards who want ports, as we saw earlier this week when a planned port of A Total War Saga: Troy was dropped because there's no real call for it anymore. But it's a major part of Valve's plan to achieve mainstream success for the Steam Deck.

"It was really important for us to be able to talk directly to developers and say, hey, look, the Steam Deck runs your game," Yang said. "You don't have to port."

"Steam Machines was a really good idea," Coomer said. "The operating system wasn't quite there, the number of games you could play on the system wasn't quite there. Really, we've looked at a lot of what we've learned as boxes that we needed to check if we were ever going to talk to customers again about that category. We didn't really want to bring this device to customers until we felt it was ready and that all those boxes were checked, essentially. But definitely, doing that, I don't think we would have made as much progress on Steam Deck if we hadn't had that experience."

A healthy library of games does seem like a pretty important feature for a gaming device, and Valve says that the Steam Deck has so far handled every game thrown at it, including games released this year. Whether that translates into success where Steam Machines failed remains to be seen, and one potential stumbling block could be supply issues: Steam Deck reservations are currently only available in the US, UK, EU, and Canada, yet the 64GB and 512GB units aren't expected to be available until sometime "after Q2 2022," a full year from now.

Earlier this week, Valve removed a link to Steam Machines from Steam's front page—which prompted us revisit this article from last year. Now, the developer has explained a "routine cleanup" tied to user traffic (or lack thereof) was responsible for the omission, and that it remains committed to the SteamOS-driven, Linux-based hardware. 

"We've noticed that what started out as a routine cleanup of the Steam Store navigation turned into a story about the delisting of Steam Machines," says Valve employee Pierre-Loup Griffais in this Steam Community update post. "That section of the Steam Store is still available, but was removed from the main navigation bar based on user traffic. Given that this change has sparked a lot of interest, we thought it'd make sense to address some of the points we've seen people take away from it.

"While it's true Steam Machines aren't exactly flying off the shelves, our reasons for striving towards a competitive and open gaming platform haven't significantly changed. We're still working hard on making Linux operating systems a great place for gaming and applications. We think it will ultimately result in a better experience for developers and customers alike, including those not on Steam."

This may seem like a far cry from the system once tipped to take over our living rooms, but Griffais nevertheless suggests Valve has and continues to learn about the issues developers face with the Linux operating system, and that "a lot of feedback" has helped address its perceived shortcomings. 

Investment in Vulkan also remains a priority, says Griffais, as does ensuring the cross-platform, low-level API has "first-class" Linux support. 

Griffais adds: "We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet; SteamOS will continue to be our medium to deliver these improvements to our customers, and we think they will ultimately benefit the Linux ecosystem at large."

Thanks, GamesIndustry.biz. 

In light of Valve removing a link to Steam Machines from the front page of Steam, we've republished this article, originally written in July 2017. 

On September 23rd, 2013, Valve announced SteamOS: A Linux-based operating system just for PC gaming. Two days later, it hit us with another surprise: Steam Machines, a line of pre-built PCs from multiple manufacturers that would sit under our TVs like consoles and run this new OS. Forget PlayStations and Xboxes and especially Windows 8, which Valve boss Gabe Newell called “a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.” Valve was going to invade the living room with an open-source island that Microsoft couldn’t control.

The announcement was received well, but just under four years later, Steam Machines have hardly taken off. Alienware still has one starting at $450, Syber is selling them with GTX 1060s, and 3XS offers custom SteamOS builds. But Materiel.net’s Steam Machine is no longer for sale. The Maingear Drift now defaults to Windows, with SteamOS as a secondary option. The Zotac NEN is out of stock on Newegg, with a few available on Amazon for nearly a grand a piece. The Digital Storm Eclipse is listed as 'coming soon' on Steam, but has already come and gone.

“Nobody was buying it with SteamOS,” Digital Storm marketing manager Rajeev Kuruppu tells me over the phone. The manufacturer had already been building the Eclipse—which is still available with Windows—when Valve pitched SteamOS, and added a Steam Machine build mid-project. That version has since been axed, and Digital Storm no longer has an active relationship with Valve. 

“I think over time as the demand from customers wasn’t there we basically had no reason to speak with Valve,” says Kuruppu. Digital Storm is still open to working with Valve, so long as its customers want what Valve is putting out. Right now, they don’t.

The timeline

SteamOS isn’t dead. Its most recent update came just last month, and a few newer games such as XCOM 2, Stardew Valley, and Hollow Knight support it. But the Steam Machine revolution never came to pass. After speaking to three PC builders and collecting news stories from the past four years, I’ve put together a brief timeline to illuminate what happened to the project that was going to put Steam at the center of PC gaming.

September 2013: SteamOS, Steam Machines, and the Steam Controller are announced.
December 2013: SteamOS 1.0 ‘alchemist’ releases. It’s buggy and missing features, essentially offering a hard-to-install Steam Big Picture Mode over a generic Debian desktop, with some third-party drivers. It also doesn’t support AMD graphics cards. 
January 2014: An update to SteamOS alchemist adds AMD graphics support.
May 2014: The Steam Controller is delayed to 2015.
June 2014: The Alienware Steam Machine is ready to go, but SteamOS and the controller still aren’t. Dell decides to ship it as the Alienware Alpha with Windows.
March 2015: Valve announces the HTC Vive and Steam Link.
June 2015: A preview of SteamOS ‘brewmaster’ is released.
July 2015: Windows 10 releases.
November 2015: The first Steam Machines from Alienware, Zotac, and Cyberpower are shipped. Ars Technica reports that games suffer a framerate loss on SteamOS vs Windows 10. Tom’s Guide writes: “Steam Machines were an interesting idea... three years ago.”
June 2016: Fewer than 500,000 Steam Machines have been sold.

The first fumble is clear: SteamOS wasn’t nearly ready when it was announced, and installing early preview builds inspired little confidence. Then, after lukewarm reception of the first Steam Controller—billed as a major part of the ‘Steam Universe’ that would make mouse and keyboard-optimized games easy to play from the couch—Valve pushed the release to 2015. Alienware went ahead with a Windows 10 build of what would later be its Steam Machine, and by the time SteamOS shipped in late 2015, the hype had subsided. More than one partner abandoned the project before ever releasing a Steam Machine.

“We didn’t want to offer customers an experience of only the SteamOS and therefore only a small percentage of games that they can play,” Origin CEO Kevin Wasielewski tells me in an email. The company had previously announced a system that dual-booted Windows 10 and SteamOS. “I don’t recall when it happened, but at some point we decided to offer a living room PC with Windows only. SteamOS didn’t have the hardware support to be a fully customizable high end PC. SteamOS didn’t have a performance increase on any or many games. SteamOS didn’t have a growing library of games.”

It also didn’t help that tension around Windows 8 was somewhat alleviated by free upgrades to Windows 10, despite criticism of the Universal Windows Platform and the state of the Windows Store. In November of 2016, Alienware co-founder Frank Azer told PC Gamer: “We still offer SteamOS and the Steam Machine platform with the new version of the Alpha—the new Steam Machine R2—and we still sell hundreds of units, thousands of units every month. But it’s not a major initiative for us like it was two years ago because it’s not necessary right now. We’re in a good place with Windows.” 

Valve’s own Steam Link may have also worked against the Steam Machines initiative, according to PC builder iBuyPower.

“While everyone’s ramping up in the middle [of the development of Steam Machines], Valve announces that they’re going to have their Steam Link, which is essentially what we’re building but now at this very low cost, very small unit that just connects to your PC,” says iBuyPower marketing manager Michael Hoang. “And then you can just play your games through your television instead of buying a whole new unit, which is what they originally pitched for SteamOS and for all the OEMs. So, in a way, it was almost kind of like Valve pitched us this new great idea, that ‘Hey, you guys can do all this,’ but then at the same time they were working on their own technology to say, ‘Hey, maybe buying a whole separate machine wasn’t a good idea, let’s just buy a small little stream unit that you can stream directly from your PC to your TV and buy our controller.’”

Losing touch

Hoang’s timeline of events, while the dates are fuzzy, charts a burst of excitement followed by slow development, lack of communication from Valve, and an overall failure that iBuyPower doesn’t intend to repeat.

“We even sent Gabe [Newell] a Revolt 1, just out of the blue,” says Hoang about the beginning of the project. “We sent him a system, did custom packaging and everything, and he was really happy and very impressed with what we were doing. And it looked like we were kind of the forerunners for the Steam Machine, and we were, because we launched it first, and they also helped announce it with us. So we were very excited. We got that press, we got that recognition from Valve, and their promise that they were going to continue making SteamOS, making sure that all the games were getting ported over to Linux. So everyone had high hopes, the whole community had high hopes.”

But Valve grew quieter throughout the project, according to Hoang, though he was unable to find email records from the time. “We were heavily reliant on [Valve’s] updates to make sure the SBX was successful,” he said. “But, yeah, they would say, ‘OK, we’re still working on the updates,’ and that’s it. That’s the end of the email. Or [they would] just be unresponsive ... And we knew at that point, ‘OK, they’re not doing anything, they don’t plan on updating SteamOS ever.’”

Valve did update SteamOS, and continues to, but over two years passed between the announcement and the release, and even then it wasn’t ready. Ars Technica’s November 2015 report that games suffered performance losses on SteamOS compared to Windows 10 was especially damaging—why would savvy PC gamers switch? And why would console gamers choose a Steam Machine rather than buying a desktop gaming PC, or even a Windows laptop? Origin’s Wasielewski points out that nearly any PC is just an HDMI cable short of being a living room PC. “Laptops are so powerful now that I use my laptop all the time to hook up to my TV and play some local co-op games,” he says.

And while iBuyPower initially thought a Steam Machine could expand its customer base to include console gamers, Huong discovered they were actually inventing an entirely new demographic target.

“We started thinking, ‘Hey, you know, we’re actually creating a middle-tier niche for this at this point,’” says Hoang. “You have your console, you have your PC gamers, we’re right in between. We’re right in the middle where no one can really claim which one this is. So now we’re creating a new demographic that has never been created, so we have to do everything from the ground up at this point. And it was very, very hard to convince people, well, do I want to be a PC gamer? Do I want to stick with just being console? Or this new thing in the middle.”

What’s the best thing to come of iBuyPower’s SBX? The LED strip, says Hoang, which looked really nice. Otherwise, it was “learning what not to do,” because even when iBuyPower pivoted from SteamOS to Windows 8 in 2014, it still wasn’t satisfied with the SBX: they’d built something counter to their ethos, a box with a custom motherboard that was hard for customers to upgrade. The SBX was a misstep in Hoang’s eyes, who’s now more excited about tempered glass LED side panels. And he feels Valve benefited from that misstep.

“They pretty much took all the things they learned from us, all the things they learned from all system integrators and OEMs, and just kind of cherry picked what they wanted to do,” says Hoang after noting that, aside from the Steam Link, adding Big Picture Mode to Steam on Windows also cut into the appeal of SteamOS.

The future of SteamOS

iBuyPower has no plans to build another PC that its customers can’t easily upgrade, and if it were to build an SBX2, Hoang says they’d do it on their own terms. Unless PC gamers start demanding SteamOS, it’s clear they’ll stick with Windows. That also goes for Wasielewski and Kuruppu. If Valve wants its revolution, it’ll have to create demand for SteamOS on its own. 

“The fundamental reasons that Valve cares about SteamOS haven’t gone away, and we continue our work to expand it,” Valve said in a statement to PC Gamer. I had asked if SteamOS was still a priority, how many people were working on it, and if Windows 10 changed Valve’s approach. “The launch of Steam Machines taught us a lot about what Steam customers value in hardware. Right now we’re continuing to work on SteamOS as a product, with over 96 updates and 3,525 games released. We have many incentives for those making SteamOS titles and we see a bright future for SteamOS, especially in VR.”

The comment about VR is interesting, as the new tech is clearly Valve's present focus. If SteamOS can provide a better VR experience than Windows, and VR technology proves itself more popular in the future, perhaps the OS has a shot of resurging with a new round of ‘SteamVR Machines.’ But the success of SteamVR isn’t a sure thing, either.

"We're optimistic. We think VR is going great. It's going in a way that's consistent with our expectations," said Newell in a February roundtable interview, as reported by Polygon. "We're also pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure.”

Is HTC, maker of the Vive headset which works with SteamVR, comfortable with that idea, even after setting up a $1.5 billion investment fund for VR development with the Shenzhen Municipal Government? I doubt it. But in the case of VR, at least, Valve seems more passionate about the project, and is developing its own VR games—something it hasn’t done in support of SteamOS, except to bring Dota 2 and CS:GO to Linux. (Though presumably all future Valve games will come to Linux.)

For now, SteamOS hasn’t broken out of the small—though growing—niche of Linux gaming to become an actual competitor to Windows. It may get updates, and may have 3,525 games, but PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds isn’t one of them, and neither are Nier: Automata, Black Desert Online, Prey, nor The Witcher 3—these are all current Steam top sellers. With any new platform comes the same contradiction: why go through the trouble of supporting SteamOS if few use it, and why use it if few games support it?

Microsoft and Sony know how to solve that contradiction—with money—but SteamOS is supposed to be the antithesis of platform exclusivity: it’s open-source, it doesn’t run on hardware made by Valve or sold at a loss, and as of now it has no major exclusives. Without using console sales techniques, it has to rely on organic adoption. 

While I was excited at the prospect of SteamOS back in 2013, breaking Microsoft’s grip on both console and PC gaming (especially now with its whole Xbox One lineup coming to Windows 10) seems more and more like a fantasy. And doing so by hacking away at Ubuntu while hardware partners take on the burden of selling Linux PCs to average consumers seems, in hindsight, doomed to fail.

Yet if public opinion again turns against Microsoft—more than usual, that is—perhaps Valve will get a second window of opportunity. If it does, I wonder if it will have to take on more of the risk to convince PC builders and game developers to come along for a second ride, and if it’s equipped to do that. Valve is seen as a small giant, but we’re talking a private company probably worth a few billion dollars compared to Microsoft, which earned $85.32 billion in revenue in 2016 alone. When it comes to the future of PC gaming, it’s still clear who the Goliath is.