On the morning of Monday, October 27, I started my work week by asking my coworkers The Verge For advice on buying a gaming PC. I wanted a small, portable, and semi-powerful machine that could easily sit under my living room TV and also pop up on my desk for occasional gaming or work. My dream was to find something as easy-to-use as the Steam Deck, which has become my primary gaming device due to its simplicity and huge list of PC games.
Just two days later, I visited Valve’s headquarters and was introduced to the new Steam Machine, a gaming PC and console hybrid. It basically checked every box I was looking for.
The Steam Machine is a 6-inch cube that will fit comfortably in my little entertainment center in the corner of my living room and on my little office desk in my bedroom. Valve says its AMD GPU is six times more powerful than the Steam deck, which should be great for me since most of my gaming time is spent playing less graphically intensive indies. It runs SteamOS, which I already love on the big screen when I dock my Steam Deck.
I also have some fun features for gadget lovers. The Steam Machine has a customizable LED bar that Valve says will be able to show you things like download status, which sounds perfect if I want to keep an eye on when I can play my next game while watching a show on a different TV input. It supports Valve’s customizable new Steam controller and has a dedicated antenna that provides low-latency connections for up to four gamepads. And because the Steam Machine is a Linux PC, I can do whatever I want with it – I’m also thinking about installing Windows so I can dual-boot and play games that aren’t on Linux due to anti-cheat, like Fortnite,
The best part is that the Steam Machine should work with my rapidly growing collection of Steam games. Steam Deck has completely converted me to the benefits of the Steam ecosystem, such as a massive catalog of games to play, a library that follows me across devices and platforms, and cloud saves and multiplayer that don’t entail monthly fees. And because, like the Steam Deck, the Steam Machine has a microSD card slot, I’m able to save games to a microSD card and swap them between the two devices, almost like a souped-up game cartridge.
Before looking at the Steam Machine, I was considering options like using a Framework desktop (promising, and a handle is an option!), getting a good gaming laptop (most portable, but potentially very expensive), or just sourcing the parts and building the PC yourself (intimidating for this). A the verge reporter Me, a DIY newbie). But these options aren’t as attractive as a first-party Steam Machine: I want something that’s great for TV gaming, as reliable as my Steam deck, and requires minimal fuss on my part – with an active kid running around the house, time is a major commodity!
With Steam Deck, Valve made PC gaming more palatable to the console crowd (mostly) It’s something that works. Verified games don’t require much fiddling to play brilliantly, many less-optimized games can become playable with graphics tweaks or by customizing your controls, and table stakes like a functional UI and reliable sleep and wake are all present. And it’s all wrapped up in a comfortable, ergonomic handheld. If Valve can bring that same console-like experience to a living room device, it would open the door to the best of PC gaming for even more people.
Valve is set to launch the Steam Machine sometime next year. There’s no word on how much it’ll cost, but instead of shopping around for a Black Friday deal on another gaming PC, I think I’m going to save that money for the Steam Machine.