Valve has announced the Steam Machine and a couple more new hardware products today, further cementing it as a major player in the gaming hardware space after the meteoric rise in popularity of the Steam Deck. This isn’t Valve’s first entry in the gaming PC/console hybrid space either. Many years ago, it released a Steam Machine product that was aimed at people who wanted a couch gaming solution for their Steam library. Something that was more convenient to use than a small form-factor PC. Those were pricey pieces of hardware, however, and they just weren’t as good an option. Enter this new Steam Machine, which is already being referred to as the Gabe Cube because of Game Cube-style design and Valve’s founder and CEO, Gabe Newell.
The Steam Machine is Valve’s answer to the home console. It looks like a console, it feels like a console, but it plays your library of Steam PC games. It’ll run the newest version of Steam OS, the software that you can find on the Steam Deck. So, expect the exact same UI experience and ease of use. However, Valve confirms that it’s still a PC. That means you can install other apps on it and even other software. Valve hasn’t announced pricing yet, nor has it announced an official launch date, but it’ll be sometime in 2026.
The Steam Machine has 6x the performance power of a Steam Deck, Valve says
The Steam Deck, for all its lovely features and its excellent user interface, is still not as powerful as some would like it to be. It plays games well, but you’re definitely forfeiting some of the graphics so games can run smoothly, and so the battery life doesn’t drain completely in less than half an hour. It is a handheld after all. The Steam Machine is not held back by these constraints. It has its own built-in power supply, which you plug into your home’s AC outlet. So, you don’t need to worry about battery life. It’s also, according to Valve, six times more powerful than the Steam Deck, which means you should be able to crank those graphics up a bit.
Valve is saying it’s capable of 4K visuals at 60 frames per second, but that remains to be seen. Whether it quite hits those numbers also likely depends on the game you’re playing and how big a TV you have. All of that aside, the official specs list makes things sound pretty promising. The Steam Machine is powered by semi-custom CPUs and GPUs from AMD. It also has 16GB of RAM and 8GB of VRAM. Additionally, Valve will offer two models. One with 512GB of storage, and another with 2TB.
You can stream your games to the Steam Deck or the Steam Frame
Another big part of Valve’s announcement was its two other products. The Steam Controller and the Steam Frame. The Steam Frame is Valve’s new VR headset and will officially replace the Valve Index. It also doesn’t rely on sensors that need to be mounted to the wall, and it’s completely cable-free, sort of like the Meta Quest 3. So you won’t even need to connect it to your PC with a cable. If you have a Steam Machine, you’ll also be able to stream games directly to the Steam Frame or the Steam Deck, as Valve says the Steam Machine is powerful enough to act as a host PC for game streaming.
As for the new controller, it’s a revamp of Valve’s old Steam controller with some nifty upgrades. Namely, the awesome touchpads from the Steam Deck. The controller will also be able to power on the Steam Machine, just like you would expect from a console-style device.
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