Valve is entering the console race, and it’s doing so in the most Valve way possible. The Steam Machine is exactly what it sounds like: a bundle of PC parts inside a pint-sized frame that can run your Steam library seamlessly. The company also has a modified Steam controller for your entertainment. It’s all a bit strange, but it has the chance to completely reshape both console and PC gaming. Just don’t call it “GameCube”.
As expected, Valve showed off a number of new hardware on Wednesday, including a new Steam Frame VR headset designed for playing virtual reality titles and the rest of your Steam library on a virtual 2D screen. As previously leaked, the new Steam Machine includes a “semi-custom” AMD-built SoC, or system on a chip. Valve claims the new box has “six times the horsepower” of the custom Zen 2 AMD-built CPU on the Steam deck. The Steam Machine is a small, six-inch cube that promises 4K gaming at 60 fps (only when using AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution AI upscaling technology).
The Steam Machine comes with 512GB or 2TB of storage, although like the Steam Deck, you can expand it with a microSD. Like the Xbox Series There is no thick brick hanging outside. As a touch of aesthetics, the approximately 6 x 6-inch gaming system includes a small LED strip that flashes when downloading a game or flashes depending on your custom animations. Valve will also let you customize the front plate, though Valve hasn’t said whether it will sell any first-party mods, so you may need to 3D print your own. In its announcement video, Valve showed one console with a wood grain front plate and another with a logo-filled graffiti aesthetic.
The console’s six-core, 12-thread CPU uses AMD’s Zen 4 microarchitecture and hits a 4.8GHz clock speed at a maximum 30W TDP, or thermal design power. The GPU is based on AMD’s slightly older RDNA 3 technology, although it sports 28 compute units – AMD’s term for its chip’s core cluster. It offers a maximum sustained clock speed of 2.45GHz and demands a 110W TDP. That GPU is only using 8GB of VRAM, while the system only sports 16GB of DDR5 memory. If it can reach PlayStation 5 performance levels or better, that would be significant for such a small device. However, whether you’ll get stable performance at 4K resolution will largely depend on the game. IGN reported that the Steam Machine managed playable frame rates cyberpunk 2077 Enabled at medium settings with some ray-traced options. Had to struggle to move the system forward silent hill f At 4K.
The console has a variety of ports for sticking any dongle and display. There are four USB-A ports split between the front and back, as well as one USB-C. Otherwise you get an HDMI and DisplayPort plus Ethernet and microSD for expanding storage. If you want to treat it as console-like as possible, Valve has promised to install a new way of seeing which games work best on the Steam Machine. Like its Steam Deck Verified badge, Steam will now show Steam Machine Verified on games that can run well on a 6-inch system. If the Steam Deck was already a console-like experience, the Steam Machine will offer a more standardized PC experience that you can place next to your TV.
a new steam controller
The new Steam controller is far more complex than the console. Like the original Steam Controller from 2014, it includes two large touchpads designed to control games along with mouse-based controls. However, it also includes two drift-resistant TMR (tunneling magnetoresistance) joysticks and a suite of face buttons for couch-based gaming. It also has a built-in gyroscope, but unlike the Switch 2 Pro controller, any motion controls are activated when you hold the controller a certain way or place your thumb over the joystick. The controller comes with a charging puck that doubles as a 2.4GHz receiver when plugged into another PC. The receiver is already built into the Steam Machine.
We’ve seen the capabilities of the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 on the Framework desktop, and it’s proven to be a surprisingly capable machine despite its size. Valve told The Verge that the device could be as powerful as today’s consoles like the PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 5 Pro.
Valve has intermittently tried to push so-called “Steam Machines” for more than a decade. The concept is sound: take some PC parts, put them in a machine, and sell it to run your Steam library from the comfort of your couch. The concept gradually died out, perhaps due to the many issues in manufacturing a small gaming-ready device that could meet the demands of PC gamers at a reasonable price. Valve also had to take time to perfect gaming on Linux and eventually move away from the Windows paradigm.
Steam Deck finally proved that Valve’s concept had legs. Steam Deck OLED is still the most popular handheld PC from 2023, and SteamOS on devices like the Lenovo Legion Go S is a superior operating system to Windows. Microsoft tried to push back with the Windows “Full Screen Experience” on the Asus ROG Xbox One X, but it doesn’t even come close to the versatility of Valve’s console-like interface and excellent Proton compatibility layer. Valve’s OS routinely outperforms Windows on similar hardware.
More details in 2026
Valve has not shared pricing or specific release date information for any of its new Steam hardware. All we know is that the Steam Machine will launch in “early 2026.” With Microsoft taking Xbox into the fray, there is now room for a player like Valve to challenge Sony for the living room. Nintendo will keep doing its thing—the Switch 2 is unbeatable right now, and there’s no sign of things slowing down for the Mario and Zelda creator. But console gaming is about to bring a big change in time as we know it.