The Return of the Steam Machine

[Chimpzy]

That's right, after ten years, and no doubt spurred on by the success of the Steam Deck, Valve is revisiting the consolized Steam tv box concept. Set to release early 2026, prices TBA

Steam Machine

Your games on the big screen

store.steampowered.com

• Over six times the horsepower of Steam Deck.
• Ready for all the peripherals and monitors you can throw* at it: 1 Gigabit Ethernet. DisplayPort 1.4. HDMI 2.0. One USB-C and four USB-A ports.
• 4K gaming at 60 FPS with FSR, thanks to a discrete semi-custom AMD desktop class CPU and GPU.
• Available in two storage sizes: 512GB and 2TB. Both come with expandable storage via microSD.
• 2x2 Wi-Fi 6E, plus Bluetooth 5.3 with a dedicated antenna. Steam Controller's wireless adapter is built right into Steam Machine for direct pairing.
• Steam Machine's power supply is built right in.

Imma call it the GabeCube

They're also doing a new Steam Controller

Steam Controller

Your games at your fingertips

store.steampowered.com

And a stand-alone VR headset incl controllers

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe

But yeah, that's basically all the hardware for a full Steam console ecosystem. I don't think it likely to happen, but now that Microsoft's star is waning, it would be interesting if Valve ends up filling the void. Will depend on a lot of factors tho, price among them.

 

[Chimpzy]

And there's already first impressions

 

[Worgen]

Don't forget the Steam Frame VR set.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I find it hilarious how this looks more like a box than anything Xbox has ever put out. I also find the new Steam controller hilariously ugly. Is anyone even using those trackpads on their Steam Decks?

I am EXTREMELY tempted, depending on the price. Even if it's not upgradeable as a real PCs, this looks like so much less of a headache. If I had one of these, I could have actually kept playing video games instead of sorting through the trash for games playable on Mac.

 

[BrawlMan]

Cool. I might check it out if the price is right. Still worth more than a Series X.

 

[Bedinsis]

If Playstation were to become the only option for a home console, they would exploit their market position.

More options is a good thing for the consumer.

 

[bluegate]

What is the price going to be though...

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The Frame definitely has my interest, but I'm thinking it'll probably be around a thousand dollars, which really puts it beyond what I'd like to pay for it. (But why the hell don't they have hand straps? Why does NOBODY put straps on their VR controllers? Is it so that users will accidentally throw them and have to order more?)

Also, they missed a fantastic chance to name the new Steam Machine the GabeCube.

 

[meiam]

I imagine these are going to fail because they have the same issue has the first wave, you're just buying a limited computer with none of the upside of console and few of the upside of a PC.

Console game are built for the console, with exact console specs in mind. The steam machine will never amount to a significant % of install base, so no game will be made with these in mind.

PC can be built and upgraded really easily nowadays, so you can make a machine perfect for what you want and your budget (you can also slowly buy them, waiting for the part you need to be on serious discount). None of that apply to steam machine.

The only way these could work is if they were significantly cheaper than regular PC, but that's not going to happen because, unlike console that can be sold at/below cost because the console maker can make money from every game sold, steam machine are just cannibalizing sale that would have happened anyway (on a regular PC) so these will have to be sold at a profit to make sense.

The steam deck worked because it was exploiting a niche that was mostly ignored and had very few alternative. The steam machine is just a PC.

Oh and sure VR headset, w/e, I can't think of a single VR game that really blew up.

 

[Worgen]

(But why the hell don't they have hand straps? Why does NOBODY put straps on their VR controllers? Is it so that users will accidentally throw them and have to order more?)

It has hand straps, just like the controllers for the Index did. But the new ones have small ones that are for a side attachment.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The VR headset looks sick and might actually get me to buy a VR headset for the first time, depending on the price.

Price hasn't been revealed yet, but is expected to be under $1000. $1000 is quite a bit of money, but definitely not the most expensive and with the features could be justified (that's right around the price of the bigscreen beyond). My hope would be somewhere around $750 or lower (positioned between the Meta Quest 3 and the bigscreen beyond). If they released it at like $650 it would be a shut up and take my money day 1 purchase for me, though I'm not holding my breath for that.

 

[Chimpzy]

Ok, something that got a little overlooked because it's not pretty new plastic with chips inside it.

ARM support/translation layer for Steam

Valve is helping Arm get a foothold in the world of PC gaming with its latest work

Now Arm is Valve's best friend.

www.pcgamer.com

Everything is an Xbox Steam

 

[gorfias]

Right now, I can hook up a Steam Deck to a TV with a laptop hub and use an Xbox controller and play my Steam library pretty well.

For me, the real interest is in the VR. I have a Quest 3 and it is terrific for its own stuff, an iffy proposition for Steam VR games.

If it is affordable, I'm with @Dirty Hipsters . A day one purchase. And I think it (I may come to eat these words) would be affordable. They know the price points out there that they need to beat. They know that VR enthusiasts like me already have the Q3 so they need to do a ton to make me buy a 2nd headset.

EDIT:
Though Samsung has been that stupid.

 

[bluegate]

Thinking about it, it might make a neat emulation machine.

 

[Gordon_4]

I think this has a better chance of landing provided the spec is good. I say that because PC parts didn't require a second mortgage or engaging in black market organ dealing to buy back when this was first floated. And now with SteamOS matured on the Deck platform, I think they have a much better chance of succeeding with this.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I think this has a better chance of landing provided the spec is good. I say that because PC parts didn't require a second mortgage or engaging in black market organ dealing to buy back when this was first floated. And now with SteamOS matured on the Deck platform, I think they have a much better chance of succeeding with this.

They're having a field day on reddit arguing about how underpowered the specs seem. I fall on the side of optimism, especially when the games that are so graphically demanding these days seem to be the ones not worth playing.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

So the thing I'm thinking is, gamers tend to come at specs from the perspective of running Windows on the hardware. I figure that SteamOS is going to run much lighter, and therefore make more performance possible on that seemingly low-spec hardware.

But we won't know for sure until the hardware is tested, so conjecture is kind of pointless right now. (Not that that's ever stopped anyone on the Internet.)

 

[BrawlMan]

Keef on Steam Machine
​

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

So the thing I'm thinking is, gamers tend to come at specs from the perspective of running Windows on the hardware. I figure that SteamOS is going to run much lighter, and therefore make more performance possible on that seemingly low-spec hardware.

But we won't know for sure until the hardware is tested, so conjecture is kind of pointless right now. (Not that that's ever stopped anyone on the Internet.)

I will be interesting to see how it runs versus a PS5 and a PS5 Pro. It has better specs than the PS5, slightly worse or comparable specs to a PS5 Pro (I believe the steam machine has a better CPU, whereas the PS5 has a better GPU, so depending on whether a game is CPU or GPU bound one or the other could come out ahead), and they're all running custom operating systems specifically meant for gaming, however the steam machine is going to be running a lot of games through a compatibility layer that will also affect performance.

I think the big selling point of the steam machine will be all of the indie games and back catalogue of PC games that it has that the PS5 doesn't given how anemic the PS5 game library is. The PS5's backward compatibility with PS4 games is actually a pretty big selling point, and the steam machine will massively beat it on that front.

More than anything I think the steam machine will be eating the Xbox's lunch.

 

[meiam]

I will be interesting to see how it runs versus a PS5 and a PS5 Pro. It has better specs than the PS5, slightly worse or comparable specs to a PS5 Pro (I believe the steam machine has a better CPU, whereas the PS5 has a better GPU, so depending on whether a game is CPU or GPU bound one or the other could come out ahead), and they're all running custom operating systems specifically meant for gaming, however the steam machine is going to be running a lot of games through a compatibility layer that will also affect performance.

I think the big selling point of the steam machine will be all of the indie games and back catalogue of PC games that it has that the PS5 doesn't given how anemic the PS5 game library is. The PS5's backward compatibility with PS4 games is actually a pretty big selling point, and the steam machine will massively beat it on that front.

More than anything I think the steam machine will be eating the Xbox's lunch.

As far as indie game goes, a crap mini PC can already play like 99% of them, so its hard to see why someone would get a steam machine for that. Heck, just grab a steam deck and play it on TV.

I'm not sure the difference between steam OS vs windows on performance side is going to make much of a difference, windows doesn't take that much resources.

I'd be more interested in an updated steam link though...